• Home
  • ABOUT
    • About Me
    • FEATURED
    • LINK PARTIES
  • Policies
    • PRIVACY POLICY
    • DISCLAIMER & TERMS OF USE AGREEMENT
    • DISCLOSURE POLICY
    • COPYRIGHT POLICY
  • CONTACT
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter

Refined Rooms

Organize | Design | Inspire

  • BLOG
  • Organize
    • Organizing Project Gallery
    • By Space
      • Bathroom
      • Bedroom
      • Closet
      • Command Center
      • Craft Space
      • Dropzone
      • Garage
      • Home Office
      • Kitchen
      • Mudroom
      • Pantry
    • The Process
    • Habits & Routines
    • Organizing Products & Tools
    • Paper
    • Photos
    • Information
    • Kids and Families
    • Holidays
    • Preparedness
  • Decorate
    • Decorating Project Gallery
      • Room Reveals
      • One Room Challenge
    • Tips & Tricks
    • Tools & Inspiration
    • Shopping Guides
    • Home Improvement
    • Home Staging
  • Be Productive
    • Productivity Processes
    • Productivity Tools
  • Challenges
    • The Organize Your Holiday Challenge: Be Prepared This Year!
    • The Organize and Refine Your Home Challenge
    • THE 10-WEEK DIGITAL PHOTO ORGANIZING CHALLENGE
    • THE 40 BAGS IN 40 DAYS DECLUTTER CHALLENGE
    • THE ONE PILE AT A TIME PAPER DECLUTTER CHALLENGE
  • SHOP
  • RESOURCES
    • ORGANIZING PRINTABLES VAULT
    • SERVICES I LOVE
    • BLOGGING TOOLS & RESOURCES I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT

BECOME A VIP

GET ACCESS TO MY ORGANIZING PRINTABLES VAULT

By opting in, you agree to receive my newsletter and ongoing resources. Unsubscribe at any time.
You are here: Home / Challenges / Digital Photo Organizing Challenge / ESTABLISHING A DIGITAL PHOTO HUB | DPO CHALLENGE – WEEK 1

ESTABLISHING A DIGITAL PHOTO HUB | DPO CHALLENGE – WEEK 1

 

Welcome to week 1 of the Digital Photo Organizing Challenge! Ready to get started? Today, I’m so excited to introduce the concept of a digital photo hub, which is really the foundation of an organized digital photo collection.

When faced with the daunting task of organizing a mess of digital photos, you’ve probably asked yourself,  “how do I start?”. In fact, not knowing where to start has likely caused you to throw your hands up in frustration and walk away from the task altogether. This week, we’ll start the journey to organized photos by rounding up all of your digital images and putting them all in one place.

Follow along in the 10-week Digital Photo Organizing Challenge! In week 1, learn how (and why) to create a digital photo hub at Refined Rooms | #digitalphotos #photoorganizing

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. Click here to read my full disclosure policy.

USE A DIGITAL PHOTO HUB TO STORE ALL IMAGES

In this day and age, most of us have digital images in multiple locations, including: smartphones, tablets, cameras, old and new computers, CD/DVDs, memory cards, and external hard drives.

So the first two steps in the digital photo organization process are to:

  1. round up all of those devices on which your digital images are currently stored
  2. create a digital photo hub, which from this point forward, will serve as the central location for your complete collection of original digital photo images

Learn why a Digital Photo Hub is the foundation of an organized digital photo collection on the Digital Organizing Challenge at Refined Rooms

 

WHY DO I NEED A DIGITAL PHOTO HUB?

You know the general organizing concepts of storing “like with like” and designating one home for a category of items? Well, those same concepts should be applied to your digital photos.

When your images are stored across multiple locations, it’s nearly impossible to properly inventory, back up and organize your photos. Once consolidated inside your hub, it’s soooo much easier to put a backup system in place, keep duplicates from getting out of control, and find specific images.

DIGITAL PHOTO HUB OPTIONS

Your digital photo hub should live in one of two places: either on your computer’s hard drive or on an external hard drive (EHD).  My hub is located on my MacBook Pro, which has a large-capacity hard drive:

 

Learn why a Digital Photo Hub is the foundation of an organized digital photo collection on the Digital Organizing Challenge on the Refined Rooms blog

 

Theoretically, your digital photo hub can live on a cloud-based storage site, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Here’s why.

Although I’m a huge fan of cloud-based back up services like Forever, I’m a firm believer that you shouldn’t entrust your original set of digital images to any third party service. Companies go out of business, change their terms of service, and experience service outages. By choosing a digital photo hub that’s locally based, you guarantee that you’ll always have access to your photos when you want them.

GATHERING PHOTOS INTO YOUR DIGITAL PHOTO HUB

Once you’ve established the location for your digital photo hub, the next step is to systematically consolidate all of your images into the hub. I recommend creating file folders for each point of origin within your hub. For each device, copy all image files from the device to your newly created folder.

For example, I imported images from my old iPhone 4S into the  “iPhone 4S – Natalie” folder:

Learn how to migrate your photos into a digital photo hub as part of the Digital Photo Organizing Challenge at Refined Rooms

I highly recommend copying the images from point of origin to your hub (as opposed to moving the originals), since you haven’t yet created your backup (we’ll tackle that in Week 3 of the Challenge).

After your backup is completed later on and you’ve double-checked that your meta data has been correctly retained on import (more on that in the coming weeks), you can choose to delete the images off of your various devices if you choose.

Need help keeping track of your photo migration progress? Download this handy dandy Photo Migration Checklist:

The first step in digital photo organizing is to migrate your photos into a digital photo hub as part of the Digital Photo Organizing Challenge at Refined Rooms

There are so many different methods you can use to migrate your digital photos from all of the various devices/digital storage media into your hub. If you aren’t sure how to copy your photos into your hub, hop onto YouTube or Google and search for the particular transfer you’re attempting to complete to find a tutorial that will guide you in the process.

Here are some helpful resources for the most common photo transfer challenges:

  • How to transfer photos from an iphone to a computer
  • How to transfer photos from an Android phone to a computer

Wondering what my method is for uploading photos to my computer? I use the AirDrop function to upload photos I take with my iphone and ipad. When I used a PC before purchasing my Mac, I used the Dropbox app to automatically upload photos to my computer.

Be prepared…depending on the number of images you have and the variety of “points of origin” they reside on, this migration process can take quite bit of time. Just take it one device at a time!


If you haven’t read the overview of the challenge, do that first before completing this week’s assignment.

Your Assignment for Week 1: Create a Digital Photo Hub

1. Collect ALL of the devices and storage media that contain your digital photos. Don’t forget:

  • Old computers, phones, & tablets
  • Current computers, phones & tablets
  • CD and DVD back ups
  • Memory cards and flash drives
  • Photo storage sites, such as Shutterfly & Snapfish
  • Social Media media sites, such as Facebook

2. Decide where your digital photo hub will live

3. In your digital hub, create subfolders with names that describe the photo source for each device you gathered during step #1.

4. Copy the photos from each device/storage medium into the designated subfolder within your hub.


Be sure to return here later in the week to let me know about your progress!

I’ve created a Digital Photo Organizing Tool Kit to help you along during the process, including a 10-Step Guide to Organizing Digital Photos, and a Digital Photo Organizing Monthly Maintenance Checklist (to guide you as you move forward after the Challenge). Just enter your information in the form below, and the Tool Kit will be sent straight to your inbox!

You're on your way to organized photo Nirvana! Check your email to download the Digital Photo Organizing Tool Kit

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

 

—————————————————-

This post is part of the 10 Week Digital Photo Organizing Challenge

Ready to tame the digital photo chaos? Take the 10-week Digital Photo Organizing Challenge!

Just stumbled upon the Challenge? I invite you to read the Challenge overview post first. Here’s what to look for in the coming weeks:

  • Week 2: Create a photo inventory
  • Week 3: Create a photo backup system
  • Week 4: Create a core file structure for your digital photos
  • Week 5: Sort your digital photos
  • Week 6: Remove duplicate digital photos
  • Week 7: Rename digital photo file names
  • Week 8: Tag & rate your digital photos
  • Week 9: Create a digital photo maintenance plan
  • Week 10: Celebrate and share your digital photos

 

~Happy Photo Organizing my Friends!

Ready to get epically organized?

Ck image small

Get access to 100+ printable pages to help you organize your home and life!

Welcome, Insider!! Look for a welcome email that includes the password for my free resource library full of organizational printables created just for my subscribers!! ** If you don't see it initially, please check your SPAM folder **

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

We won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time. Powered by ConvertKit

Challenges// Digital Photo Organizing Challenge// Organize// Organizing Process// Organizing Products & Tools// Photos// Popular Posts// Printables16 Comments

« THE 10-WEEK DIGITAL PHOTO ORGANIZING CHALLENGE
HOW TO ORGANIZE A COLLECTION WITH SORTLY »

Comments

  1. Beverly Mascara says

    June 22, 2019 at 3:54 pm

    I have finished reading and copying for print each of your 10 steps. I have used other Photo Organization but am really please with your thought process and steps. Thank you

    Reply
    • Natalie Gallagher says

      July 10, 2019 at 10:01 am

      So awesome Beverly! Be sure to come back and report on your progress as you complete the assignments!

      Reply
  2. Jeannie Patzner says

    June 28, 2018 at 12:23 pm

    Hello. I am excited to get started. Where can I find ‘assignments’ for each of the days? I only see Day 1.
    Thanks.

    Reply
    • Natalie Gallagher says

      June 29, 2018 at 2:09 pm

      Awesome Jeannie!

      You can access all of the assignments in the introductory post, which can be found here

      Reply
  3. Carolyn says

    July 15, 2017 at 9:46 pm

    I just found this series and am looking forward to finally organizing my photos.

    Do you have a recommendation for the size of the EHD? Is a 2T drive enough for an average family?

    Thanks!

    Reply
    • Natalie Gallagher says

      July 16, 2017 at 10:23 am

      Welcome Carolyn! Yes, 2T drive should be more than sufficient for the average family photo collection. If you are a hobby photographer (or a pro photographer for that matter) with a massive collection, you may need more storage.

      Reply
  4. Bobbie says

    September 19, 2016 at 8:17 pm

    Natalie, this is a great post for a desperately needed project. Thank you! Question: I have an EHD that I have been using with a PC and sometimes with a Mac (eek!). I’ve read that one EHD should be NOT be used on both PCs and Macs, Is this correct? I just read something about partitioning an EHD into two for PC/Mac, but that looks a little complicated to me right now. Should I try partitioning or keep using the drive I have? Thanks for any advice.

    Reply
    • Natalie Gallagher says

      September 20, 2016 at 10:53 am

      Hi Bobbie,

      I use separate EHDs for my Mac and my PC for backups. Typically, EHDs are configured to work exclusively for either a PC or a MAC. If there is a way to partition them to work with both platforms, I wasn’t aware of that. Honestly, since the price of EHDs are now so reasonable, I’d use separate ones for each platform. So glad to have you as a reader Bobbie…check back and let me know how your project is coming along!

      Reply
  5. Hazel Thornton says

    January 28, 2016 at 10:37 am

    This looks to be a good series. I’m looking forward to reading, and implementing, the rest of it!

    Reply
    • Natalie Gallagher says

      January 28, 2016 at 11:17 am

      Thanks Hazel! Glad to hear it.

      Reply
  6. Kate A says

    January 28, 2016 at 1:10 am

    I love this! Any organizing always starts with getting like things together in one place and then you start the process! I love the idea of a “hub” and I really appreciate your ideas for your 10-week series! Great post!

    Reply
    • Natalie Gallagher says

      January 28, 2016 at 11:17 am

      You got it Kate! You can’t organize it until you know what you have, and you don’t know what you have when it’s all spread out in umpteen locations.

      Reply
  7. Holly Corbid says

    January 27, 2016 at 9:51 pm

    Love the concept of the digital hub. Great tips and ideas for where to seek out all of those photos!

    Reply
    • Natalie Gallagher says

      January 27, 2016 at 10:56 pm

      Thanks so much for stopping by Holly!

      Reply
  8. Andi Willis says

    January 26, 2016 at 11:06 am

    What a great series! So many of my clients are overwhelmed by their digital photo clutter, but since they can’t “see” it like their physical clutter, it keeps getting ignored. It is amazing how many different places we keep our digital pictures.

    Reply
    • Natalie Gallagher says

      January 26, 2016 at 2:31 pm

      Totally agree Andi! This is true for other types of “digital clutter” as well…computer, email, etc.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

LOOKING FOR SOMETHING?

Woman holding a gift

FOLLOW ME ON BLOGLOVIN’

Follow

SEARCH BY CATEGORY

COPYRIGHT

I love it when you share my tips, ideas and inspiration! Please keep in mind that all images and text on this site are the property of Refined Rooms, unless otherwise stated (regardless of whether photos are watermarked or not). Feel free to use one image, provided that a link back to my original post is included. Please do not remove any watermarks, crop, or edit any of my images without first obtaining written permission from me. All free printables are for personal use only. Pinning is always welcome and appreciated! Thank you!

DISCLOSURE

This site contains affiliate links for your shopping convenience (which means if you make a purchase after clicking a link I will earn a small commission, but it won’t cost you a penny more). Click here to read my full disclosure policy.

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Copyright © Refined Rooms 2019 · Savory theme by Restored 316 | Site Designed by Courtney Kirkland