frequently asked questions

A digital photo organizer takes your digital photo overwhelm and turns it into a photo collection that you can easily enjoy and have a peace of mind that it is backed up. Your digital photos will be consolidated from multiple sources, duplicates will be removed (leaving only best file of EXACT duplicates), files will then be sorted into a simple chronological folder structure that is backed up onto your preferred cloud service. Once those steps are complete I will teach you how to maintain the system going forward.

Busy parents overwhelmed by their digital photo mess. Empty nesters preparing to downsize and have printed photo spread throughout their current house. Anyone that want their photos to be organized, easy to find and ready to share with family and friends.

There is always a chance for something to happen! External hard drives can fail, computers crash, phones get misplaced, natural disasters can ruin your physical photos. You don’t want the only copy of your memories to be gone in a second. It is often less expensive to prepare before your photos with a back up than trying to recover them after the fact.

Using screen share software I will, remotely, help gather images from all of your old devices. You are in control of you computer at all times and can end a screen share session at any time. You will need to be at your computer to start the screen share and plug in various devices. Once gathering is completed you will send your drive to me and I will work independently organizing and deduplicating your photos. Once the organizing is complete you will decide if this is as far as we go with the project or if you would like to create a legacy collection adding facial recognition or metadata.

More details:
Prior to our kick-off meeting, I will send a link to the private screen sharing appointment. At the start of our session, I will call you on the phone and you will enter the screen sharing meeting via your computer. Once we are both in the meeting, you will grant me access to your screen and mouse control. During the first meeting, we will chat for approximately an hour over the phone while we discuss the current state of your photos, options for cloud service solutions and decide on the ideal plan for you going forward.

After we’ve made a plan, we an end the phone call, while I continue to work independently. You’re welcome to watch or do something else on your to do list.

When we close the screen sharing meeting, I no longer have access to your computer. We will need to initiate a new session for each gathering appointment.

A digital photo organizing session is $875 and includes up to three sources. Additional sources can be added for $50 each.

Computers and phones are the most frequently used sources. Additional sources would include external hard drives, individual cloud services (ie. Dropbox, Google Photo, Amazon, etc.). USB drives or CDs do not count as a source. During our kick-off meeting I will show you how to transfer old memory cards and CDs to your external hard drive. If you prefer you can send them to me to transfer for $5 per device.

This can vary greatly from client to client depending on a number of factors (your internet speed, number of sources, number of photos, etc.) On average it will take about 2-4 weeks starting with our initial call and ending with the wrap up session. Through screen sharing I will do most of the work while you are away from your computer and we will touch base as needed. 

Yes, you will need to purchase a new external hard drive and pay for the cloud service of your choice. Usually a 2T hard drive works for a photo collection and costs around $60. Hard drives typically last 4-5 years and it is nice to have a fresh start for your newly organized photo collection. We will discuss the options that will be best for you during our first call. I will provide all the screen sharing and photo organization programs needed.

For backing up your data I follow the 3-2-1 method. 3 copies of data, 2 different types of media, 1 off site. My current backup combination is: 2 External Hard Drives and Amazon Photos. Technically I have a fourth copy since I have Backblaze for all of my computer files.

Consolidating of photos from all of your sources, removing duplicate photos (only exact duplicates are removed), sorting images into a chronological folder structure, setting up cloud backup and training you to maintain your new photo management system.

Everyone’s projects and needs are different. After we handle the preliminary photo organizing we can look at your collection and review what next steps may be helpful for you if any at all. Those include but are not limited to:
- File renaming
- Adding facial recognition so you can pull up photos of family members
- Adding metadata digital photos or scanned prints (special family events, holidays, vacations, first day of school, graduations, etc.)

You can! But be honest with yourself, will you take the time to complete all the steps? If you want to work on it yourself but would like instructions to get you started I highly recommend Miss Freddy’s Backup Bootcamp (affiliate link) or you can book 45 minute consultation with me (Get Morganized).

Digital Photo Organizing session can happen anywhere in the world via screen share. 

Your privacy is important to me. Digital Photo Organizing clients I am seeing your photos mostly as thumbnails with the exception of spot checking duplicates that may be found or any photo without a date. If I do find a private photo I will move it into a folder, outside of your organized collection, for your review. During the screen share you will be able to see what I’m doing at all times.

Scanning clients, I will see every print that you give to me multiple times. If anything private is found it will be sorted into a separate folder from the rest of your scans.

When I have completed all the steps in the photo organization process we will schedule a wrap-up session where I will show you how to access your photos and maintain your photo collection going forward. After the wrap-up session is the perfect time to start on your family yearbooks or special event albums.

In general I suggest starting with digital photos since they are more vulnerable to loss and corruptions and easiest to organize. You will your photo overwhelm start to diminish right away. If you have a specific photo project to work on or a deadline (think graduation) and we can work towards that goal starting with the format that makes the most sense for your situation.

Scanning is charged by the size of the original image:
$0.49 / photo (8x10 or smaller)
$0.69 / photo (negative or slide)
$0.99 / oversized items (up to 12x12)

Yes, absolutely! You can ship them to me, and I will let you know when they arrive. Return shipping, should you desire it, will be included on your final invoice. I will have you pack up your photos and ship them to me. We will discuss how best to do this.

You will be responsible for the shipping expense to get your items back to you if you desire to have them back. I will, however, be sending the digital files on thumb drives at no expense to you.  

A quick way to estimate the number of physical photos you have is by stacks.
           - 1” stack of photos = 100 prints
           - 1” stack of slides = 20 slides