For last week’s blog, I organized all my photo boxes which was great! This week, I’ve moved on to organize the pictures on my phone! Smartphones make taking pictures easier than ever. Before them, I had to make a conscience decision to lug my bulky 35mm camera with me to different events. For the times I didn’t realize that I needed a camera, I would run to a store to buy a disposable one.  Now, it’s a no brainer – if I have my phone with me, I instantly have a camera as well!

Although the smartphone is great for these impromptu photographic moments, there are issues that come with the digital world. The biggest issue – my photos is stay on my phone! Of course, they get shared on social media. My problem becomes Grandma or my Aunt who aren’t tech savvy. They deserve pictures too! Then there’s the memory issue – photos take up a lot of memory which slows down the other apps.  What do we do about this?  I scheduled some uninterrupted time to go through my entire photo album. I utilized the process of  Delete, Organize, Print, Backup and Share.  

Delete Some Pictures

I take about three to five pictures of the same subject, hoping to get the best lighting, pretty scenery or the right facial expression. The problem is I forget to delete the duplicates from my phone.  I went through the all photos on my phone to delete all the duplicates, blurry and horribly bad pictures.

Organize

I sorted my pictures into albums based on the event or occasion. As I created albums, I took some time to edit my photos, I cropped images, changed some to black and white, and created some memes!

Print

I love scrapbooking and sending photos to family members and friends. To make sure I captured all the pictures I wanted to print, I created a “To Be Printed” album on my phone. I uploaded photos to my favorite place that prints pictures…Walgreens! I love the Walgreens app and uploading my pictures are easy plus they have sales on printing services! I have used CVS and Walmart to print pictures. A bonus: some services will store your photos indefinitely!

Backup

I downloaded my photos from my phone to my computer, just in case I lose my phone or drop it in water (which I did a long time ago). If you don’t like the download options, you can also upload it to a cloud service like Google Photos, Dropbox, OneDrive or iCloud.

Share Your Pictures

Just like I mailed the hard copy duplicates I had in my photo boxes, I texted and emailed some photos from my phone to family and friends. It started a “conversation” and let people know that I love them and was thinking about them which was a bonus all around.