Sorting your photos to create an album: the simple 4 step method
On your phone or computer, photos pile up as the months go by. A birthday, a weekend away, a new baby – and suddenly you’ve got hundreds of snaps sitting in an unnamed folder. But before you can even think about creating a lovely photo album, you first need to sort through it all. You know it’s an essential step, but you’ve always put it off.
But rest assured, with the right method, this step can be done easily, in four stages that we’ll explore in this article.
Why sort your photos before creating a photo album
We all have that habit: taking one photo, then another, then yet another, without ever sorting through them afterwards. Over time, your photo library becomes a real jumble. And when the urge strikes to create an album to preserve these memories, you quickly find yourself stuck. And yes, sorting isn’t an option – it’s the starting point.
How do you organise photos in a photo album?
Organising your photos is, above all, about giving them a logical structure. Some people prefer to follow a chronological order, whilst others organise by event or location. There are no hard and fast rules; it all depends on the story you want to tell. A trip lends itself well to a simple chronological order, from the first day right through to your return. A whole year, on the other hand, is best broken down into key moments: celebrations, holidays, family reunions.
You can also mix approaches, maintaining a chronological framework whilst highlighting certain highlights that deserve a page of their own. The important thing is to choose a central theme before you start, so you don’t lose your way along the way and the album remains a pleasure to leaf through from start to finish. We’ll come back to this topic a little later.
Too many photos, too little time: the real stumbling block
Let’s be honest, it’s not a lack of willpower, it’s a lack of time. Between work, family and the rest of daily life, sitting down to sort through thousands of photos can quickly become daunting. Many people put it off year after year. Until they’ve built up an unmanageable backlog, sometimes spread across their phone, the cloud and an old hard drive forgotten in a drawer. That feeling of facing a mountain to climb eventually saps any desire to get started.
However, just a few minutes a day are enough to make progress without burning out. There’s no need to do it all in one go or aim for perfection on the first attempt. The aim is simply to build up, bit by bit, a selection that’s tidy enough to allow you to consider, later on, creating photo books that will finally bring these memories to life rather than leaving them to gather dust in a folder.
How to sort, organise and select your photos: The simple 4-step method
Once you’ve understood why sorting is essential, the next step is to work out how to go about it in practice. You don’t need complicated software or any special skills. Four steps are all it takes to transform a jumble of photos into a solid foundation, ready to become a photo album.
Step 1: Gather all your photos in one place
Before you even start sorting, you need to know where to look. Many people have their photos scattered all over the place. Some are on your phone, others on an old computer. A few more are in a cloud storage service you’ve almost forgotten about, and sometimes even on an old memory card at the back of a drawer. The first step is therefore to gather everything into a single folder, or at least onto a single storage device.
This consolidation takes a bit of time at first, especially if the backups date back several years, but it saves you from having to do the work over and over again. Once you’ve done this, you’ll finally have a clear picture of what you actually have, and it’s often at this point that you realise the scale of the task ahead.
Step 2: Sort out duplicate photos and those to be deleted
Once all the photos have been gathered together, you often come across surprises: shots taken twice by mistake, blurred photos, or pictures where people’s faces are hidden or the framing is off. This step is about doing an initial clear-out without overthinking it. The aim isn’t yet to choose the best photos, but simply to set aside those that have no chance of making it into the album.
You can work quickly at this stage, relying on your initial instinct rather than analysing each image in detail. This rough sort significantly reduces the volume of photos to be dealt with – sometimes by half – and makes the rest of the process much easier.
Step 3: Sort your photos by theme, date or event
Once the initial clear-out is complete, it’s time to get organised. What’s the best way to organise your photos on your computer? The simplest method is still to create folders by period or event. For example, summer holidays, the May birthday, or the festive season. Some people prefer to organise by theme, grouping together, for example, all family photos in one place and photos with friends in another.
You can also combine the two approaches, with a main folder for each year and sub-folders for specific events within it. Whichever method you choose, the key is to be consistent from one folder to the next, so you can easily find a specific photo when you need it, without having to go through everything from the start. Organising your photos isn’t complicated, but you just need to use the right method and set aside a bit of time.
Step 4: Selecting your best shots
The final step, and undoubtedly the trickiest: choosing. What’s the best way to sort through your photos at this stage? The trick is to deliberately limit yourself, for example by setting a maximum number of photos per folder or per album page.
This restriction forces you to make decisions and stops you from wanting to keep every photo on the pretext that it’s ‘not bad’. It’s also good practice to go back over your selection a day or two later, with a more neutral eye. This slight step back often allows you to discard photos you might have kept on a whim, and to keep only those that really tell a story.
Bringing your selected photos to life: time for a photo book
After these four steps, your photo box is finally starting to look like something. The best shots are there, organised and ready to be used. All that remains is to give them a proper home – one that will allow you to leaf through them and share them for years to come.
The photo book format that suits your story and your photos
Once your selection is ready, there are several formats to choose from to show them off to their best advantage, depending on the type of memories you want to share. A portrait-format photo book highlights faces and intimate moments, such as a wedding or a birth. For a more varied selection of photos, without a dominant orientation, a square photo book offers a balanced layout that easily accommodates both landscape and portrait shots. AgfaPhoto Print offers these different options, with a wide choice of papers and layouts. To transform a selection of photos into a keepsake that you’ll cherish for years to come and love to leaf through with others.
Landscape photos in your photo book
If your selection consists mainly of landscapes, wide-angle shots or outdoor scenes, a tall, narrow format really makes all the difference.
The double-page spreads open wide, allowing horizons, mountains or sunsets to breathe without being cut off halfway.
This is exactly what AgfaPhoto’s landscape photo book offers, as it’s designed specifically for this type of photograph. A travel journal or a memento of a hike fits perfectly here, with images that retain their full grandeur.
Time to create your photo album
Sorting through your photos is by no means an insurmountable chore once you follow these four steps. Gather, clean up, organise, then select. That’s all it takes to transform a chaotic folder into a beautiful story ready to be told. Each step takes a little time, but none requires any special skills. Just a bit of organisation and consistency.
Once your selection is ready, the hard part is over. All that’s left is to choose the format that suits you best. Depending on the memories you want to highlight, you can finally bring your photos to life with a photo book from AgfaPhoto Print. Your memories deserve better than a forgotten folder on a hard drive. They deserve to be leafed through, shown off, and treasured for years to come.