Photo managers can help you organize, preserve family photos
HOUSTON - Do you have thousands of family photos on your cell phone? Or piled into shoe boxes? And no time to organize them?
The average person has 2,100 photos and 240 videos on their cell phone, plus albums and boxes full of old photos handed down through the generations.
Organizing and choosing which ones to keep or delete can be overwhelming. But a professional photo manager can help you cut through the clutter.
Get news, weather and so much more on the new FOX LOCAL app.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, what do a thousand pictures say?
"Most people will admit to feeling completely overwhelmed by their photos," said Kari Kane, a certified photo manager.
Family history, piled high, in disarray, in formats that change with each generation.
"SD cards, USB drives, and we also have and cannot forget CD’s and DVD’s," Kane said, showing us the variety of photo storing formats she receives from clients.
SUGGESTED: Tips on buying new or used cars
Not to mention thousands of digital snapshots stored on our cell phones and in the cloud.
Certified photo managers, like Kari Kane, can see the big picture.
"We’re trained professionals that can come in a sort and organize those photos for you," said Kane.
She takes collections of memories, like this one piled into crates.
"At that point, we can have a conversation about are you looking to downsize the collection or are you looking to keep everything?" explained Kane.
SUGGESTED: Skincare on a budget: Affordable "dupes" that deliver
She categorizes them into must keep, some extras to keep, and those duplicates, blurries, and scenery shots that can be tossed.
"It’s really interesting how you're able to use the clues in the photos to determine what things need to be kept," said Kane.
For example, looking through my own family albums, and like many families have, there are multiple pictures from times and events in my childhood. It can be emotionally tough to decide which ones to keep and which ones you can let go. A photo manager can help you do that.
The images can then be digitally scanned.
"We use a high resolution professional camera to capture photos of the photos," explained Kane, showing us her digital camera set up.
They can be organized and stored in digital albums by dates or events.
"Which can include prints, negatives, slides. We can convert your outdated media so you can enjoy those again, then all those things get backed up to trusted locations," she showed us.
Or developed photos can be organized into albums or cases.
"Each of these holds about 100 photos," Kane showed us an organized case of photos.
Places where clients can reflect on their past, add to their future, and pass down a thousand words of family history.
You can find photo managers through ThePhotoManagers.com.
The cost of hiring a photo manager will range according to the photo manager's fees and the size of the project. We saw several photo managers online with prices starting around $85 or $100 per hour.
One tip Kane gave us to manage your own photos is to delete unwanted shots right after an event, weekly, or monthly, keeping the best shots and deleting the rest.