Creating Annual Family Albums

 

With the evolution of digital photography, instead of printing our images from film – we’re left with years of untouched digital photos.
This can be extremely overwhelming, especially if you have multiple children.

1. Create a Game Plan

Step back, look at the big picture. Create a game plan:
Do you want to do an annual album for each year of your children’s life? An album for each vacation?
How far back do you want to go? How many would that entail?
Or do you want to start fresh today?
Instead of diving right into these projects, take a step back and evaluate what you really want and then go from there.

2. Be Organized

If you’re like me, you have thousands of photographs across multiple phones, hard drives, and digital cameras. If you make an effort today to organize your images, the easier it will be when it’s time to produce those albums.
Here’s a tip on how I organize favorites on my mobile device….
At the beginning of the year and at the end of the year, take some time to organize the images you have on your HD. Put them in Chronological order first. Then sort by year and by month if you really want. This should be the system you use to keep all of your photographs organized throughout the year and until it’s time to print your albums.

3. Cull and Edit

This is huge. Culling is the process of narrowing down your hundreds of photos to your VERY favorites. In one album, you really only need about 75 favorite photos! Take the time to delete repeats, images with poor lighting, that are blurry. Then cull that list to a “Favorites” folder to your very favorite.

Editing everyday is another huge saver in the end. Take the time to edit 1-2 of your favorite photos per day and then move those to your favorites folder. Those are the images you’ll use to print in your finished albums at the very end.

4. Backup Backup Backup

I can’t tell you how many times I hear from close friends that they lost a year’s worth of memories because their phone or computer was stolen, lost or malfunctioned. Typically, I back my phone up on my HD at the end of each month, and I have 2 online storage apps constantly backing up all of my images. The best part is that this process is done automatically, so there’s no additional work on my part. Just piece of mind.

5.  Print your Albums

This is my favorite part!  The building part of your albums is the funnest part of the process.  Once you’ve finished the above steps, building your album itself does not take long at all.  My favorite consumer album companies to use are:

Blurb
Chatbooks
Pinhole Press
Artifact Uprising

I personally have been using Artifact Uprising for years for my family, and they’ve always exceeded every expectation I have.  Their printing and quality of their finished products is unparalleled, and honestly – I just love the look of using a consistent album and book every year.

Whether you’re starting fresh this year or going back through years or archived images, these tips will help make this process much easier!