“What is de-cluttering? A client I worked with recently already had all of his photos on one computer, but the sheer number of photos that had accumulated was really overwhelming. We decluttered his entire archive by getting rid of bad and blurry photos, as well as eliminating large numbers of “burst” duplicates — where we chose the best photo out of groups of very similar photos. This cut down the size of the archive tremendously and turned viewing photos into an enjoyable and manageable activity instead of a daunting task.”
– Margaret, Personal Digital Organizer
Decluttering refers to the process of manually culling through your digital photo archive and deleting photos that aren’t worth keeping. It’s incredibly easy to take photos on our smartphones, tablets, and digital cameras by the hundreds or even thousands — but it’s not as easy to cull through these photos and delete the ones we don’t truly need or want. Not only is photo decluttering a time-consuming and manual process, it’s also difficult to purge our memories, even though they may not all be worth holding onto.
How do we decide what to delete and what to keep?
- “Accidental” photos: blurry photos, photos taken of the inside of your pocket or purse, etc
- “Junk” photos: photos of kids’ feet or nostrils from when they use the camera as a toy, photos of damage or upkeep in the home, etc
- “Reminder” photos: things to do or buy, screenshots and joke photos that we send to others’ after scrolling through our Facebook feed, but have no need to keep for the future.
- “Burst duplicates”: multiple versions of the same photo in an attempt to capture the very best frame, moving iphone photos also create these. Since these photos aren’t actually true duplicates, our de-duplication software won’t catch them. It takes a human eye to decipher not only which groups of photos are burst duplicates, but also to decide which two or three of the group should be kept, and which should be tossed.
It’s worth noting that if you sign up for our Fresh Start Advanced package, you’ll be able to communicate to us specific parameters for what you want us to delete and what you want us to keep. Whether your standards for what stays and what goes are stricter or more flexible, we’ll work with you to make sure your photo archive is tailored to your needs and the de-cluttering process is easy.
