You’ve got the photos, they’ve been uploaded to your computer. Now what? Let them sit and wait? Print all? Overwhelmed because you have tons of photos and don’t know where to start?

Today I’m going to share my process. I do NOT keep any kind of fancy digital organization system for photos.

While I love the idea of tagging and/or organizing heavily… it doesn’t make sense for the way I work and print. So I save myself time and skip it!

I keep it real simple (think month/year and/or event name/year) and I print any photo I really want. I don’t trust technology, and I like having hard copies ready to go. I’m a “4×6″ scrapper, meaning I scrapbook with what I’ve got: 4×6 photos pre-printed. So my process might not work for you. Still, I’d like to take some time and share:

It’s a 3-step program. Once I’ve got photos (I’ll be using my recent Disney World trip as example):

1. I go through them once using the viewer/basic program on computer. I DELETE any that I definitely don’t want. Super blurry, bad, unwanted, excess… anything that I know immediately I don’t want gets deleted. This goes QUICK.

2. I walk away. Then at some later time (at least an hour! clear your mind!) I come back and repeat the process. This time weeding down even further. Do I want to print 6 shots of Rebecca eating a chocolate coin (shown above)? NO. I went back through and deleted the two I liked least. This “second pass” I usually go through twice and pay attention to my worst problem: keeping a LOT of nearly the same/equally good shots of the same thing.

I don’t keep bad pictures, unless there is a story or other reason to. I also don’t save photos I took just for blog/internet/non-print uses beyond when I post them. The above fireworks pictures? I was taking shots FOR FUN – I have no intention of using either and they don’t blow me away. buh bye!!

3. It’s edit time. I do not believe in editing every photo, heavy handed photoshop work, or spending loads of time on it. I don’t want to pretend we all had matching shirts or that the sky was purple… I want to record and document as close to the truth as possible. Basic or Auto-correct, and maybe some light cropping are my most common (if any) edits. I’d say about 75% of the photos you see me use are SOOC (Straight out of camera) and not at all edited. I’d rather have less than perfect pics, and more time for other stuff. If I want some fancy edited, altered, or otherwise “funky” photos I can ALWAYS go back and do that when the mood/project/time strikes. For now, it’s not important.

That’s it – now it’s time to upload, order, and enjoy!! The entire process for all 863 of my Disney World photos (narrowed down to under 400) took about three hours. I order only 4×6 photos, then if I want any enlargements or anything I will re-order. Next up, I’ll share some of my photo-edit “go-to” solutions and rules… and then hopefully next week I will share some comparison of some on-line photo ordering sites. I’ve ordered up my Disney World photos already (split among 3 different sites) and I will continue to share my discoveries, highlights, and tips.

I almost never flip through the movie (encore) channels. Why? Because I don’t want some movie to be on that I get sucked into. Last night Da Vinci Code was on… and sucked in I got. Know what my problem with the movie is? (love the book… movie is ok I guess) Seriously- my #1 problem with the movie?

the hair.

I understand Tom is good in the part. He’s got a scholarly, non-muscular look that the character needed. But the hair. WHY??? It’s almost as distracting as the sound of pierce brosnan trying to sing. (giggle, snort) Who sat down and said “you know, this hairstyle would be great!”

Speaking of that- I went poking around to see if there was any word on a new Dan Brown book (no release info found… drat) and I read this in his FAQ section on his writing process:

Writing an informative yet compact thriller is a lot like making maple sugar candy. You have to tap hundreds of trees…boil vats and vats of raw sap…evaporate the water…and keep boiling until you’ve distilled a tiny nugget that encapsulates the essence. Of course, this requires liberal use of the DELETE key. In many ways, editing yourself is the most important part of being a novelist…carving away superfluous text until your story stands crystal clear before your reader. For every page in a published novel, I wrote ten that ended up in the trash.

I like that. A lot. I know it’s a random subject today, but it’s the kind of thing I get stuck on. I’ve got to go do a ‘big wig’ photo shoot now…

I almost never flip through the movie (encore) channels. Why? Because I don’t want some movie to be on that I get sucked into. Last night Da Vinci Code was on… and sucked in I got. Know what my problem with the movie is? (love the book… movie is ok I guess) Seriously- my #1 problem with the movie?

the hair.

I understand Tom is good in the part. He’s got a scholarly, non-muscular look that the character needed. But the hair. WHY??? It’s almost as distracting as the sound of pierce brosnan trying to sing. (giggle, snort) Who sat down and said “you know, this hairstyle would be great!”

Speaking of that- I went poking around to see if there was any word on a new Dan Brown book (no release info found… drat) and I read this in his FAQ section on his writing process:

Writing an informative yet compact thriller is a lot like making maple sugar candy. You have to tap hundreds of trees…boil vats and vats of raw sap…evaporate the water…and keep boiling until you’ve distilled a tiny nugget that encapsulates the essence. Of course, this requires liberal use of the DELETE key. In many ways, editing yourself is the most important part of being a novelist…carving away superfluous text until your story stands crystal clear before your reader. For every page in a published novel, I wrote ten that ended up in the trash.

I like that. A lot. I know it’s a random subject today, but it’s the kind of thing I get stuck on. I’ve got to go do a ‘big wig’ photo shoot now…

I don’t know why. But hiding something sweet that nobody else knows about, and then sneaking bites ALWAYS makes anything taste better. I will confess, I keep no less than 5 items hidden in my craft space at all times. Sometimes there is a sugar (or creative) emergency and I need something sweet. I forgot about these that I was keeping at the back of the chipboard alpha drawer…

yum.