What To Do with All of Those iphone Photos

Today is exciting because I am joining up with some other bloggers to give you some ideas on photo organization! If you are hopping over from Coffee, Pancakes, & Dreams, Love Our Real Life, or Miss Sue Living, welcome! I’m Morgan and I’m tickled pink that you are here! (Here’s a little bit more about me.)  

I consider myself a pretty organized person, but one area that I have nearly given up on is digital photos. I have no system in place for tackling what sometimes feels like an insurmountable task. (In fact- our phones are linked, so alllll of the photos that Mr. PearTreeHome takes also show up on my photo feed too. This is both good and bad. Good because we each have access to all the photos. Bad because, well, we each have access to all.the.photos. (wink)

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Photo Problem

Do you struggle with getting photos OFF of your phone? Me too, sister! I take a bajillion photos each month- family photos AND ones to use on the blog and Instagram, but I don’t organize them. In fact, it’s gotten so bad that it almost feels like it’s beyond help. Let’s not raise the “white flag” just yet…I am on a quest to find a better way to tackle this problem.

Photo Needs

I take a LOT of digital pictures. And I edit a lot of them. I used to keep the originals AND make a copy of my edited version. Now I mainly just keep the edited image. So, that’s moving in the right direction. BUT since I keep business and personal photos all on my phone, I need to be able to easily separate the two.

I also want to keep my pictures safe. I think backing up your photos is a much-needed necessity in this day and age, but I also think having some form of printed version is a way to make sure photos get shared with future generations. It’s pretty amazing to be able to pick up and hold a picture that was taken over one hundred years ago. (There wasn’t even any icloud, etc. to make sure all of these pictures survived!)

Organize Digital Memories

Maybe I’m getting old, but I’m not sure how all of these digital images are going to be transferred to the next generation (nor do I think they will WANT all of the images that are being taken. Having to comb through the thousands of photos each of us are taking in a year would be quite an undertaking. So, in an effort to weed through all of those images I take and to put these documented memories somewhere semi-safe, I think I am finally ready to commit to keeping up with photo books. Phew. There. I said it.

Photo Books: Simple, Easy, & Affordable

I want to put a system in place for keeping photos accessible for our family to be able to enjoy them.

Speaking of being able to enjoy our family pictures, my friend, Jaclyn, at Coffee, Pancakes, and Dreams has some clever ideas for displaying photos around your home. I am partial to the photo wall she did in her tween daughter’s room- how fun! Check her ideas out here!

Using a Photo Book App

It’s very nice and convenient to be able to pull up photos and videos on my phone, but I also want to have “non-digital” versions of some of the pictures….Even though I want to have a “time-out” every once in a while from my phone, that doesn’t mean I want to break up with it….What does that mean you might wonder? Well, I think being able to make and order photo books from my iphone might be the perfect solution.

I wasn’t quite sure what was available (I am a self-confessed dweller of living under a rock), but even I was sure there would be some sort of app that would assist.

Photo Book Criteria: Tall, Dark, & Handsome (Soft, Solid Color, Affordable)

I want something that will look pretty on a shelf to display. Covers need to be able to be printed in a variety of solid colors (I am thinking of doing a different color for each year). I’m going to be looking for softback covers right now (because of the price point), but might look into hardback options in the future. I want the focus to be on the photographs and the people in them, so I don’t want a lot of extra designs on the page spreads.

Photo Book Winner

I tried 3 different photo printing apps when testing them out for this post:

Blurb, Print Studio, & Artifact Uprising. All had components that I liked, but I found the Artifact Uprising app the easiest to use (by far) to create a softcover photobook. On their app, Blurb was extremely limited (ummm..1 option) in sizes available for softcovers (as was Print Studio) and I was unable to find an option for a solid-color cover. More options were available on-line, but I was wanting to navigate completely through my iphone for this experiment. Artifact Uprising offered 3 sizes and 6 colors with their “Color Series Photo Book.”

I also found Artifact Uprising‘s interface much easier to use, specifically in trying to order photos (clicking and dragging) when creating the photobook.

I am not an expert at any means when it comes to iphone storage and organization (clearly...since it’s taken me years to even admit I need some sort of system to help with this digital clutter!) Luckily I have some blogging friends that are MUCH better at things in this department. My friend Amanda at Miss Sue Living tapped into her husband’s wheel house. He’s an IT and knows all.the.things. about computer storage. Click here to see her tips! Another friend, April at Love Our Real Life is also sharing all of her tips and tricks for getting those photos organized once and for all. Check out her post here.

Photo Storage Moving Forward

Since I use my phone for taking images for My Pear Tree Home (blog, Instagram, & Facebook), I need to have a plan in place for keeping those pictures organized….Staying on top of this task will help keep things from snowballing into a cluttered mess. The plan moving forward…whenever I am getting ready to take pictures that I know are for a blog post or project, I will immediately place them into an album marked with the numeral, month name and year. (example: 8 August 2019 Blog)

To keep family pictures organized, I am still on the hunt for some great ideas! Check out Miss Sue Living and Love Our Real Life for their organization tips and also hop over to Coffee, Pancakes, & Dreams to see her creative ideas for using printed photos!