Digital Predicament

I have recently joined an online scrapbook making thing. In order to do the scrapbooks that I want, I need to organize the images that are on my computer. Not a big deal, right?

WRONG!!!!!!

There are well over 10,000 images on my computer taking up 35 GB of space(Just from the past 5 years!) How in the WORLD am I supposed to organize that many pictures plus a hundred or so videos in the next week???

Needless to say, I'm overwhelmed right now.

So I've been googling (I love to google!) Organize digital images. There's tons of websites that talk about using the right folder names, and tags or keywords... all that jazz. But as nice as that is... I'm still a bit lost - maybe just from the mere SIZE of this project I'm about to take on.

I've read about Free image organizers that I guess you can download, or use different websites. But if you read the fine print, some of them "reserve the right" to use your images and pictures any way they want. No thank you.

There are programs you can buy too, that can make the job easier, but I'm already trying to save every little penny right now so Christmas will be nice.

Anyways - Here's how I "THINK" I'm gonna do it.

I'm going to arrange folders by Date The year... Then the month... Then the day - and then try to include a description of what the images in that folder are. Then I'll put tags on all my images - who's in the picture, where it was taken, any other special tidbit I feel the need to include. That way, the images will be easily searched.

Then I can just click on November from this year, search for taylor, and I can see all the pictures I took of her this month. I can even click on Taylor, thanksgiving, and I'll be able to find the pictures of taylor from thanksgiving.

This will definitely be a HUGE undertaking. It'll mean hours on the computer I'm sure. But It'll be nice to see these images of the past few years again. And it'll be nice to have this awesome system in place for all the new pictures I'll take.

So, I'm off to organize my pictures. I hope it doesn't take too terribly long. We'll see. I'll keep you updated!

For my Friend Tiffany's Comment about Picasa!!! Here's a little website I think you should read!
http://www.groovypost.com/howto/security/how-to-lose-face-with-google-picasa-literally/
Kinda scary if you think about it.