I have a lot of photographs that have stored in plastic bins. Photos that were mine, my brother's, parents, and grandparents. I think the last time I counted I have about ten hanging file containers full.
I had started scanning them onto a usb drive about seven years ago, with the intent of just scanning some copies for my brother to have. After his death, I went back and started scanning more with the intent of organizing them better than I had.
After that, I moved, and as part of the packing process, things got rearranged, and unscanned items were mixed in with scanned items, and I lost the papers that I was writing things down on.
So now, I am ready to start again - but hopefully better prepared, with better equipment/software and a better plan of how I want to do it.
So, everything gets scanned again - this time including slides and negatives that I never touched in the previous attempts. All scans will got directly onto a usb drive, which will be mirrored in a folder on the computer. Then things get imported into Lightroom where they will be organized. I think one of LR's greatest strengths is the ability to organize and catalog photographs.
As part of this final attempt, I intend in purging some of the material. I see no value in keeping high school pictures of people I haven't seen since high school. I will scan them, but after that saving the physical copy serves no purpose to me, other than to take up space. Some of the materials, such as photographs of places that no longer exist, I would like to donate to local museums and historical societies for their archives. Which serves two purposes for me: one being I no longer have to store/care for them; and the material can be properly documented and stored for the use of everyone.
Wish me luck!
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