Sort Your Photos
Nick Peers reveals how to get your photographs digitised, organised, backed up online and shared with the family
Nick Peers reveals how to get your pictures digitised, organised, backed up online and shared with the family
These days, family and technology go hand in hand. Having embraced video chats to stay in contact with loved ones via software like FaceTime, Skype and Zoom, now is the perfect time to harness technology for other uses – one of which is to finally get your family’s photos in order. The entire process can be covered by your computer, smartphone or tablet – from digitising old photographs to preserve and share with others, to removing blemishes and transforming them in ways scarcely believable even a few years ago.
And once that’s done? We’ll show you how to ‘tag’ your photos with key information to help others identify them, then reveal how to protect them for future generations by storing them online and disseminating them widely among your relations.
We’ll also look at ways you can encourage other members of your family to tag the photos with their own memories and comments, which can potentially help break down walls in your own research.
Be Prepared
Start by setting up a consistent naming pattern for your files, one that helps you easily identify them in future without having to open them. One approach is to incorporate names, dates (if possible) and a simple description to provide a descriptive filename. Consider this system for photos of individuals: surname-forenameyyyymmdd-description.jpeg. For group portraits, use multiple forenames to highlight two or
more people, such as hironshenry-winsley-ivy-1928familygroup.jpeg.
These files should be stored in folders that add an extra layer of organisation. Inside your main Photos folder, create eight folders, named for each of your great grandparents’ surnames. Then create sub-folders for both individuals and their immediate families, for example ‘Hirons George Alfred’ and ‘Hirons George Alfred family’.
If you’ve already built up a library of photographs that you now wish to rename, save time by using a free tool like Advanced Renamer ( advancedrenamer.com)
on Windows or NameChanger ( mrrsoftware.com/namechanger)
on Macs to rename files in batches. You can search/replace existing parts of the name (say initials to a name, for example gah to hirons-george-alfred),
or simply prepend or append names on to existing filenames (so 1928-hironsfamilyshot
becomes hirons-george-alfred1928-hironsfamilyshot).
Both programs offer a preview function so you can see how your new filename will look before you commit to the change, plus the ability to undo a change if necessary.
Scan Your Photos
Next, bring out all of the photos you want to scan – take the time to organise them into families or individuals, so you can break up the job into more manageable chunks. When it comes to converting photos from paper to digital, you have two approaches: our preferred method is to use a dedicated scanner in conjunction with your PC or Mac. We’ve covered scanning in detail in previous issues of the magazine – see the Resources box on page 29 for more information. Save the files in JPEG format at maximum quality to reduce the amount of storage space that they take up.
If you don’t have a scanner, you can use your smartphone or tablet as a portable scanner. You’ll need a suitable app – try either JoyFlips ( joyflips.com/ how-it-works.html) or Photomyne’s Photo Scan ( photomyne.com; see box, page 28); the latter is even capable of scanning multiple photographs at once to speed up the process further. To improve results, invest in a phone tripod (about £10 on ebay.co.uk) to provide your phone with a stable mount and ensure your scans are as pin-sharp as possible.
‘Start by setting up a consistent naming pattern for your files’
Edit And Colour Your Photos
Once you’ve preserved your photographs in their current state for future generations, you can attempt to undo some of the damage caused by time. Windows users should open the Microsoft Store app and search for Adobe Photoshop Express – this free app lets you correct all kinds of problems, from lighting and colour issues to the effects of
physical damage such as tears and dust. Mac users can try the built-in tool Photos, or give the free version of Fotor a go ( fotor. com/mac/index.html).
Another technological marvel is the ability to realistically colour old black-and-white photos using artificial intelligence and machine learning. Several websites offer paid-for services after a free trial, including Photomyne and MyHeritage ( myheritage.com/ incolor). But a completely free service is ColouriseSG ( colourise. sg). Just upload your photograph and let the website do the rest. If you like what you see, you can download the colour version of the image to your computer.
Tag Your Photos
Photos are often accompanied by information stored in special tags known as ‘metadata’. All kinds can be stored here, but the most useful tags include the date (which you need to amend to when the original photo was taken), location (using GPS coordinates), caption (to record a description) and keywords, which can help you find the file later using your computer’s built-in search tools.
Adding these tags can be done with the help of third-party programs. If you’re happy to store the tags in separate files (one per photo with an XMP extension), then Mylio ( mylio.com) is the tool to use. It’s perfect for both organising and backing up your photos – you can store up to 25,000 photos for free online, and it has all of the tools you need to assign titles, captions, dates and place names to your photos. Certain types of document – including JPEGs – can store metadata within the file itself. This is our preferred method, because it ensures that the tags stay with the photo. Mac users can add this using the built-in Photos app, although you’ll need to import all of your photos into the program, then export them out when you’re done. Other Mac tag editors don’t come free – search the App Store for Photos Exif Editor for one affordable solution (just £1.99).
Windows users can tag their photographs for free using a program called FastPhotoTagger
( sourceforge.net/projects/fastphoto tagger) – see the Resources box for a guide to the somewhat convoluted installation process. It can handle all tags except location. For this, try Geotag ( sourceforge.net/projects/geotag).
Back Up Your Photos
After you’ve scanned, edited and tagged your photos, make sure that your hard work isn’t wasted by backing them up. One copy of all of your files should be stored online in the cloud – and another benefit is that you can easily share these photos with other family members. The three example boxes throughout this article reveal different ways of sharing, from simple cloud backup – best for distributing files to selected
‘Another marvel is the ability to colour old black-and-white photos’
relations – to services that are tailored to family historians.
These latter services combine cloud storage with tools for sharing your photos and other family memorabilia, from documents to audio and video clips. More importantly, they’re designed to encourage other family members to contribute their own stories and memories.
JoyFlips and Photomyne have flexible sharing tools that you can use to encourage contributions from relations, although both are optimised for mobile devices (they can still be accessed via your computer’s web browser). What’s more, JoyFlips is free to use.
Another online service is Kindeo ( kindeo.com), which stores photos within a wider category of ‘story’, which can be tailored around an individual, a family group or even an event. Up to 10 stories can be stored for free, and you can add more for a one-off fee (as opposed to an ongoing subscription), with prices starting at £9.99 for 10 further stories.