Taking photos of everyday life is easy.

But sorting through the hundreds of digital photos piling up on our phones? Pulling out the best ones? Printing them into books?

​That’s the overwhelming part!

​I want the process of printing my photos as easy as possible. There’s nothing worse than taking thousands of photos and losing them in disorganized digital folders, never to be looked at again.

For me, committing to printing an annual family photo album is how I solve that problem. It gives us a physical book we can flip through, reminisce about our past stories and relive fond memories through photos.

But sorting through thousands of phone photos can feel like an overwhelming task.

That’s why as a busy business owner and mom, I developed a photo organizing system that is easy to follow.

Here’s what I do (and hopefully it helps you too!):

1. CULL YOUR PHOTOS ONCE A WEEK

Once a week, I go through the photos on my phone and I “heart” my favourites. These are the ones that give a good recap of our last year – the stories, the experiences and the relationships we most value. In photo terms, this is called culling: selecting photos from a large quantity.

2. EDIT YOUR FAVOURITE PHOTOS IN LIGHTROOM MOBILE

After I’m done culling the last week’s photos, I go to my favourites album on my phone. I select all the photos I just added, and I import them to Lightroom Mobile. Once they are in Lightroom, I do my basic editing (I apply presets and do small tweaks to finish them).

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3. EXPORT YOUR EDITED PHOTOS AS HIGH-RES JPG FILES

After they’re all edited, I export the photos in the Largest Available Size, in JPG format and quality set to 100%. I save them to my DropBox folder that I share with my husband. In there, we store all our album-worthy photos, so that when we are ready to print our annual family photo book, all the photos are stored in one central location.

Quick tip for moms: make sure to ask your spouse and older kids to contribute to this shared folder! Too many times I see moms missing in family photo albums. That’s because moms are typically the photographers and documenters of a family’s life. Make sure you still make it inside the album as much as the other members of your family!

4. DESIGN YOUR PHOTO BOOK

Once the year is done, get ready to start designing your photo book.

I use Posterjack’s Lay Flat photo books. They are high quality and have a great price. I love the 8.5×11 horizontal size.

Here’s how to start:

Sit down at your desktop computer and open up a browser. Go to PosterJack’s website and select Layflat Photo Book in the 11×8.5 horizontal size.

Click on the “customize” button to launch the editor.

Select a theme or start with a blank layout. On the left side, click on “photo” and upload all your high-res edited jpg photos.

5. The next step is fun – drag and drop your photos, add captions.

When you’re done, add to cart – and in a few days, the book gets delivered to your door. They have a flat shipping fee of $10 Canadian.

​It’s the best! A photo book with all of our stories, experiences and highlights from our past year.

HAVE A PRINTING PLAN
If you’re like me, and you don’t like that your digital photos just sit on the computer for years and years, make sure to have a printing plan.

If the task feels huge and overwhelming or if you’re behind in years of unprinted photos, don’t worry about it.

Start small.

Start by printing one photo album or even just one print.

The excitement of receiving that first physical print will feel like a small win. I promise!

And small wins will motivate you to keep going, and print even more.

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Disclosure: I only endorse photography products I’ve personally used. If you purchase any products using my referral links, I may get a small commission. However, there is no extra cost to you.