scanning home photos ... how to organize!?

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albireo13

Full time employment: Posting here.
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Well, I am in the midst of trying to scan many of the old photos and slides from my late parents. I have several large plastic tubs of them!

I've started it and the actually scanning isn't a big deal but, I am having trouble organizing them! How best to do it!
I have started creating folders based on year. However, there are a lot of old random photos which I have no date for.

Also, how to name the scanned files?

Arrrgh! It is such a time sink and I may be getting to the point of giving up soon!


How do other folks do it? I mean what is your strategy for organizing and naming the files?


Thx
 
For my project - several thousand photos, I chose to not worry about the file name itself. I focused on putting them in folders and subfolders based on the people in the photograph. I only put a particular picture in one folder (category), so if the picture had multiple people, I put it in the folder of the person most important (to me) in the picture. I also chose to not try and date the photos in any way. Too much work and unknowns.

I used an 11x14 inch scanner and I also purchased a scanning software that let me scan multiple photos at one time. As many as I could fit on the scanner at a time. The software then previewed the scan and identified the different pictures. I could alter the preview in situations where 2 photos were mis-scanned as one picture, for example. This software also let me add a text label at the bottom of the scanned image. The text was added to the photo. So I did the best I could to identify people in the photo in this text.
Then I would click "Save" and an image file for each recognized photo would be saved in a scan folder. I then moved the photos from that scan folder into the appropriate storage directory.

My folder hierarchy was something like "Smith Side of Family", "Jones Side of Family". Then under each of those, things like "Aunt Sally Smith", "Uncle Bill Smith", "Jones Family Pets", etc. I used as many sub-folders as appropriate.
 
PaunchyPirate said:
I also purchased a scanning software that let me scan multiple photos at one time. As many as I could fit on the scanner at a time. The software then previewed the scan and identified the different pictures. I could alter the preview in situations where 2 photos were mis-scanned as one picture, for example. This software also let me add a text label at the bottom of the scanned image. The text was added to the photo.
Click to expand...

Sounds great. What was the name of the software?
 
albireo13 said:
Well, I am in the midst of trying to scan many of the old photos and slides from my late parents. I have several large plastic tubs of them!

I've started it and the actually scanning isn't a big deal but, I am having trouble organizing them! How best to do it!
I have started creating folders based on year. However, there are a lot of old random photos which I have no date for.

Also, how to name the scanned files?

Arrrgh! It is such a time sink and I may be getting to the point of giving up soon!


How do other folks do it? I mean what is your strategy for organizing and naming the files?


Thx
Click to expand...

Might want to use some file renaming program to make the file names more manageable. Then put them in the folders you created. Divide and conquer. For the bunch of random photos, I'd think nothing wrong with a folder called "random" for now until you might divide further later on.

As an example, sometimes if I use my camera out of a trip for several days, I may come back with about 800 photos, all named with whatever naming convention the camera uses. What I do is after copying the pictures to my hard drive, I use a renamer to just rename them via enumeration (001, 002, 003 and so on). The numeric are easier to work with especially when trying to select which pictures to keep or not.
 
Last edited:
braumeister said:
Sounds great. What was the name of the software?
Click to expand...

I used this one....

AutoSplitter
https://autosplitter.com

I think it's an older PC software that probably was written by one person -- Zoltan Peter. But it looks like he did a minor update this year, so it's still around. I used it over the Covid hiatus with no real issues. I can't recall if it had a Trial Mode or if I just decided to throw caution to the wind and buy it.

Also, I'm now reminded that it does to file naming based upon settings you put into the software. I just don't think I used it much.
 
I had about 5 boxes full to scan in, when I did my big scanning project back in 2011. It took me most of a week, scanning as long as I could stand doing it every day.

I named them things like "mom, dad, uncle Al, Christie, unknown kid, 1957?" just to give me some idea of who I was seeing in the photo.

I organized them according to actual (or estimated) year in which they were taken.

Then when I was done, I got some memory cards to send to relatives with the entire bunch of photos on each card. It's great to have that job behind me.
 
I have been using a Canoscan scanner which does really well. I can do four prints, or sides, per scan and it automatically separates and saves them as separate files in a folder. By default it names the files with the date and then an incrementing numeric suffix. I had started to separate them by category, and changing the file names but this has gotten too tedious.

I find that if I empty the scanned folder of files and re-start scanning, it resets the filename increment to 1 and starts saving the new files that way. Thus, if I do more than 1 session of scanning in a day I can end up with several files with the same filename. Not good.

I think what I should do is have one large scanning session each day, and sort the files afterwards. This will give unique filenames to each photo.
 
I went through (still going through it, actually) a similar project of organizing digital images from multiple sources.

My experience was that finding and choosing the software to manage the files is very important. I ended up installing and using digiKam (free, open source, multiplatform) for MacOS.

http://digikam.org

[ADDED] The specific file name doesn’t matter to me but the album structure (in practice, directories) does and is managed by digiKam. I organize by years (decades). Tags, labels, etc. are flexible.
 
Last edited:
Digikam looks nice. I will check it out.
One thing is I want to organize pics in folders and subfolders that can be read and navigated easily without specific software involved.

I plan to share all the pics with other family members, who have all sorts
of pcs … MAC and WIN.

One sibling is a Luddite and would choose to use DOS if he could get by with it!
 
following.

To scan all old photos is definitely one of my top task in retirement. The oldest photo I have is over 100 years old.

Glad yo learn here is that there are larger scanner which could 4 pictures at a time. How to name them will be the key.
 
albireo13 said:
Digikam looks nice. I will check it out.
One thing is I want to organize pics in folders and subfolders that can be read and navigated easily without specific software involved.

I plan to share all the pics with other family members, who have all sorts
of pcs … MAC and WIN.

One sibling is a Luddite and would choose to use DOS if he could get by with it!
Click to expand...


That’s a valid concern for sure. I’m a digiKam novice and learn as I go. There may be a feature to simplify sharing in various ways, I haven’t yet had a need.

I dislike Apple’s Photos system because it tries to control everything, in my opinion. Since I use the iPhone to capture images occasionally, I did learn how to move the images from Photos elsewhere to get them under digiKam’s management.
 
Wow I'm in the midst of this process too and it's a nightmare! I purchased a Groupon for Legacybox, but it turns out 250 photos are a fraction of the pile I've got.

PTF in case you find a good Mac option.
 
I'm struggling with this one. We somehow ended up with all of DH family old time pics from both sides of the family.



The county he grew up in has taken an old office building and made displays of old pictures, old group school pictures and old artifacts and turned it into a local museum. Kind of town central for history. I'm thinking of just taking them there and calling it good.



I told our 2 DD they should come sans family for a weekend to sort our endless supply of pics from their childhoods. I'm cursing the 2 prints for the price of 1 specials.
 
First thing is to prune your collection. Non-descript somewhat scenic photos don't need to be scanned.

Multiples of the same setting for family or kids' photos? Choose the best one or two.

Out of focus pics? Why bother?

Unflattering pic of someone? Skip it.
 
We have scanned several thousand photos organized by subject..my family, her family, us, friends, vacation trips, etc. I also decided to keep the originals in case something happened to the digital files (yes, we have backups...several layers. But 'Murphy' is alive and well.)
 
I few years back I had scanned many family photos and put on a CD (this was before social media was the way to go) and sent to family. One thing I learned is when comes to pictures and memories, family members have different levels of enthusiasm. From 1) not really caring, 2) It's neat only if others do the work to 3) over enthusiastic (would share all family photos to the world of complete strangers).

Still would be neat to get a digital version of my photos. I've manually scanned some (with a flatbed scanner) but ended up quitting.
 
Easy surfer you nailed it.. when MIL died DH oldest sister took a look the the box of old time pics and said, I don't want this. So now it's my problem!
 
rk911 said:
We have scanned several thousand photos organized by subject..my family, her family, us, friends, vacation trips, etc. I also decided to keep the originals in case something happened to the digital files (yes, we have backups...several layers. But 'Murphy' is alive and well.)
Click to expand...


What do you envision happening to these pics after you and DW are gone? That's the question. Now my youngest sis divorced her hubby. While going through some more modern pics I found many of her daughter and her daughter and my ex BIL. I bundled all of them up and mailed them to my ex BIL for his birthday. (we are still friendly). He was so happy to get those pics, he couldn't thank me enough. Somewhere in the divorce process he didn't get many pictures.
 
All, this is very helpful information. I recently started a thread here looking for recommendations for a photo scanner that would allow me to feed a stack of photos up to 8x10 size, rather than using a flatbed, which it sounds like many of you have used. Any photo scanners that feed the photos? I know that Epson and Canon both make these types, but the stores I've tried so far around me don't have them on display (order them online they tell me). Gee thanks.

The digkam software sounds good. I will check that out to use with whatever scanner I choose.
 
ivinsfan said:
What do you envision happening to these pics after you and DW are gone? That's the question. Now my youngest sis divorced her hubby. While going through some more modern pics I found many of her daughter and her daughter and my ex BIL. I bundled all of them up and mailed them to my ex BIL for his birthday. (we are still friendly). He was so happy to get those pics, he couldn't thank me enough. Somewhere in the divorce process he didn't get many pictures.
Click to expand...

well, they'll likely be dumped in the trash or recycle bins. we don't have kids, I have one sister/BIL/nephew, my wife has nobody. when my wife's bachelor brother passed away in March 2021 we 'inherited' many, many more photos, most of which I have not scanned and don't intend to scan.
 
One observation only mildly related to the topic.

For me, attempting to collect all my photos from different sources was/is an overwhelming task, especially if scanning is involved. One for Sisyphus. It wasn’t something to expect to be done in a weekend or a week. Now it’s more a sporadic hobby.

Similar was digitizing an entire CD collection although that had an immediate payback: ability to play back anywhere in the home over wi-fi and elsewhere using Bluetooth from phone. That project was finally done, 3 or 4 CDs at a time and took months. I might or might not attempt to also digitize LPs but not in a hurry on that one.
 
ivinsfan said:
Easy surfer you nailed it.. when MIL died DH oldest sister took a look the the box of old time pics and said, I don't want this. So now it's my problem!
Click to expand...

At least sounds like you're willing to take on the problem.

In my case, when my mom died, there were several photo albums that I ended up taking as knowing had I not, they might have just been tossed or lost by those not really interested. Yet at the same time, the photos really doesn't exactly belong to me as some of them were taken by older siblings (these are back in the days of black and white).

I'm thinking now, maybe as a "to do" I should rescan them (in higher quality than on that CD I made) then put like on a google drive and say tell family "have at it" if they wish. That way I won't feel guilty for still possessing the originals.
 
Not photos, yet, but a couple years ago I digitized all of our family videos to SSD's and gave a copy to my DW and our kids. I still have 2 large crates of photos that I'd like to digitize someday. It's so much that it's intimidating to look at. I just need inspiration to get started.
Guess the first step is to go through and pick out the most meaningful photos and do those.
 
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