Help! I have too many pictures!

Step 3 was Pick your Project! How did you do? I decided my next project will be our 2010 Family Album.

Step 4 is Decide what Pictures to Print.

In today's age of digital cameras, we take thousands more photos than we will ever need to print. That's the beauty of digital but it also can create panic when you go to choosing and printing your photos.  Because some of us still have our photos hidden on our camera......right? your digital pictures are still on your camera? or did your memory card fill up and you just tossed it somewhere and bought a new memory card?

I have found that Creative Memories Memory Manager program (now Artisan) is a user-friendly way to get photos off my camera and into virtual 'sort boxes'. This is where I store my digital pictures:

the column on the left (above) shows my "virtual sort boxes."

I can choose whatever categories I want to sort my photos:

 

You can see (above) that I have a sort box called Family. This is where I will find all of my photos needed to create a family album. Once I click on "Family", I can go to the timeline displayed at the bottom of my screen and choose "2010"...I can view all my 2010 photos in that 'box' or I can view them by month or even down to daily:

Here (above) I've sorted them by month.  When I click on April 2010, for instance, it will show me all the photos I've taken this past April.  Since I'm a 'simple scrapbooker' I will only be printing my favorite shots and just a few events per month (hey, I'm a busy mom of 4 kids, remember?).

So Step 4....I make a list of the events that I want to include in our Family 2010 scrapbook. This list will greatly help me when I'm 

choosing which photos to print

and

when I'm putting my album and supplies together

It would be easier to do a couple of page spreads each month rather than saving this and doing it all at once, but that's what happens when you put stuff in a pile 'to do later'...that pile grows and then you are in the position of catching up.  

Stay tuned for Step 5 when we are going to Print our Photos!

Happy Scrappin',
:DL