Reasons to Invest in a Good Photo Organizing Software

When we began writing this post, we realized that this heading should actually read “Reasons to Invest in a Good Photo Organizing Software in the BEGINNING”…

So you’re looking at getting into photography – maybe you’re just about to buy your brand new camera, or you’ve been taking photos for a while (but not that many), or maybe your camera has been gathering dust on a shelf for a while (no judgement here).

We’re really excited for you to start capturing those incredible images, but we can’t caution you enough here – get yourself set up with an editing AND organizing software from the beginning. And here are our top 3 reasons why:

1. You’ll save yourself a LOT of time

No really – when we first began using Lightroom (more on that below), we imported 20,000 photographs ?. There was over 5 years of photos from our travels there – none were sorted, none were organized, none were starred, some were edited, some were not, none were starred… Ugh – you get the idea. So when we began we were faced with the daunting task of organizing 20,000 photos in one hit.

And how are those 20,000 photos organized now? Well, they’re not. They are still unorganized and whenever we need a photo pre-2012 we’re spending a lot of time searching through hundreds of images to find the precise moment, location and example of what we need.

So the moral of the story here is to invest early and get yourself set up from day one.

2. You want to enjoy your photos

Simply taking a photograph is only the first step in the process of photography. Your amazing photographs are not much use to you if they just sit on your camera, or in a place on your computer where you can find or enjoy them.

By investing early on in an organizing software you are better equipped to find your photos when you want them. But there is one major bonus to this when it comes to enjoying your photography. Without importing, organizing and editing a photograph, you can’t get to the last stage – which is exporting that photograph for use. Whether you’re planning to make a book (we LOVE ours), print them out to frame for your wall, or send them off to social media, friends or family, you ultimately want to be able to USE you photographs.

So pick a software where you can actually enjoy them.

3. If you invest in a good software with the right process you’ll never lose a photo again.

Ever had that feeling of dread when you realized you pressed “Enter” to delete instead of “Cancel”? It’s an awful feeling and if you’ve set up your system properly you should have a backup copy of that precious, accidentally deleted photo somewhere.

Setting up your system properly requires choosing software that has a logical map of your images and where they are stored. One of the reasons we like Lightroom (please note this is not the only good software out there!), is that the software creates a very logical system of folders in a location that you choose. So even if something happens to your Lightroom software, your photos will still exist wherever you put them.

It’s also vitally important to consider how you’re planning to back up your photos. Are you using cloud-based backup? Or a second external hard drive? Whatever your choice is, set it up early so you can sleep a little better at night.

So finally, what software do we recommend? We use Adobe Lightroom Classic (note this is not CC, but the full Classic version), and we like the way the system runs. Is this the only choice out there? Absolutely not! You should spend some time researching the best choices and getting a feel for what might fit your needs.

Also don’t forget that we offer a great Lightroom Photo-Editing Course, that you can either take in-person or online, to help you figure out how to use the software effectively so you get the best setup from the beginning.