Photo archives are tremendous for our mental health and usually put a smile on our faces as we reminisce about times gone by. There is more to looking backwards through your photo albums, even the ones stored on your phone, in the cloud, or on a hard drive.
3 Benefits of Reviewing Your Old Photos
New ideas for this year
The moments that you really want to capture in a photo are usually when the camera is not there, or if you do get a photo taken, you may think of ways it could be better… Taken in better light conditions at a different time of the day, or with some props taken to add visual interest.
When you look back through your photos, you’ll remember the locations, the experience, the weather, the terrain to reach a picturesque spot, and possibly the people you met along the way. Those are all things that can inspire new ideas for photos to take on the same trip another time.
A chance to organise digital photo albums
Most cloud storage albums, or even photos stored on your computer, a USB dongle or a memory card, can be organised into folders. The folders are essentially digital photo albums.
Having these to hand throughout the year is incredibly handy for making it easy to rejuvenate your framed prints with anything that takes your fancy.
Dip into your holiday folder to find a bright picture of the family on holiday to update your wall displays in the summer. As the autumn rolls in and Halloween is approaching, print a themed photo of the kids in costume or a flat lay photo of last year's spooky decorations to give a room that holiday feel.
Without having photos organised in folders, you would likely find yourself having to scroll through hundreds (if not thousands) of photos stored in a single digital album.
For those who prefer to flip through photo books, the folders are the ideal starting point for creating theme photo albums or photo books. And, for any photo gifts you plan on giving someone, you’ll be able to pop open a folder and find the perfect one to use.
The photos stored that you have no intention of using, simply delete them to free up storage space and possibly save yourself on cloud storage subscription fees.
Improve poor quality images with photo editing
All your photos will rarely be picture perfect ready to print and frame. Most will be mere memories captured but lack a certain feel to them to make them worth printing. Cameras cannot capture what the eye can see.
To get a truer memory captured in a photo, editing is usually required. To improve the colour saturation, soften some edges, or crop out dust particles that appear in the photo from the camera lens.
Every professional photographer worth their salt will edit photos prior to printing. The post editing process is what makes the photo professional. Not just the skill of knowing the camera settings, the angle to shoot, and perfecting the timing of shooting.
With technical improvements to digital apps and photography services, it is becoming easier for anyone to edit photos professionally. The more you learn about the photo editing features on your smartphone, or through cloud services, and gain experience applying them, the better you’ll be able to look at old photos and know right away which images can be improved.
You may be surprised to see that some of the photos that you thought were duds can actually become terrific prints that are perfect to print and frame to display in your home or even to create a gallery using a multi-aperture frame.
Old photos are tremendous for gallery displays simply because you will have far more to choose from. Don’t let yours go to waste.