New year to do's: managing photos

Do you make new year's resolutions?  I don't make the traditional ones -- instead, I make to do lists, and those are probably just as bad!

At the top of my list this year is to keep up with my photo organizing.  It's so necessary with digital camera, don't you agree?  Earlier this year, the owner of an antique store I was profiling for examiner.com told me her camera had been stolen out of her booth at an antique fair.  She was heartbroken, for even though it was September, she hadn't downloaded her son's May graduation photos.  So, they were lost.  Don't let that happen to you!

I download photos several times a week -- but I only usually print them, or have them printed, about 4 times a year.  This is one of those times of the year that I remind myself to do so.  As I said, it's at the top of my to do list, and Snapfish makes it easy by offering penny prints, now through January 9, up to 99 prints for 99 cents.  Isn't that a great incentive?  (And no, this is not a paid endorsement -- I just happen to think it's a great deal and wanted to tell you about it!)

Now that I've finished my family album project, I'll need to begin my son's Scout scrapbook.  There really aren't that many photos of him doing Scout stuff, so it should go relatively quickly.  Still, it means I need to go back and print out photos of him in Scouting since he was in 2nd grade!  Thank goodness for Picasa.

If you don't already use Picasa, I truly recommend it.  It's a Google application that you can download for free, and once you do it will go through and find all your photos on your computer and put a shortcut to them, with a photo preview, all in one place.  It makes locating photos quick and easy.  Plus, it makes it easy to add tags to your photos, and there is even now a face recognition feature so that it will sort all photos of certain people in one spot, too, if you set it up to do so.

In my house, we have to laugh because the photo recognition can't distinguish too well between my husband and my son!  They are two peas in a pod.

There are lots of other reasons I love Picasa, including that you can send photos to your friends without worrying about file size restrictions when you send from Picasa; also, you can do all your editing in the application if you'd like.  I don't, because I'm attached to Microsoft Picture Manager for most general photo editing, but I do like to use Picasa for creating collages.  When I have a little more involved editing to do, it uploads your photos quickly to Picnik for that.

The thing is, though, I seem to have many more photos related to blogging and writing about antique and thrift shopping for examiner.com, and for things I sell in my Etsy shops, than I do of anything else.  So, along with printing photos, another big to-do on my list is to separate those photos in some way that makes sense.  I think I will need to become much better about creating sub folders and/or tagging photos than I've been in the past.  If you have similar uses for your photos -- how do you organize them?  I welcome any tips you have!

I got a new camera for Christmas; it's an upgrade of my current camera, which I love -- a Sony Cybershot.  So, also on the list is to learn how to use the new camera!