When our clients make the investment to have us organize their photos, they often wonder what their role is in the organizing process and if they can do anything to prepare their collection. Our most important piece of advice? Send us everything that is important to you. We have a mindful method that will ensure you receive:
- The best version of each photo, video, or piece of memorabilia
- Duplicates that are set aside to be discarded or kept based on your approval
- A complete collection organized by key people, events and timelines
What to Send
Your collection is unique to your life and special memories, so you can choose which pieces you would like to send us. Gather the things that are important for you to have access to or that you would like to share with others. We often receive a mixture of photo prints, memorabilia, and mementos in shoeboxes, plastic bins or old photo albums. You may also have varied digital formats of photos, pieces of memorabilia, and home movies. Digital copies of photos and videos are often on all different sources such as external hard drives, camera cards, CDs, website logins, or USB sticks. All of the digital sources will be backed up onto our Network Access Storage device to be reviewed for the proposal. You can send us everything you would like included in your final collection, and we will sort and organize it from there.
Sending your Collection
Once you have gathered everything that you want organized, send it all to us. You can either ship us your collection or bring it to our office in person. If you are shipping your items, we recommend using a professional shipping company so everything remains secure and intact. We ask that you remove photos from frames unless you would like a photo to remain in its frame once your project is complete. In that case, you can send us the photo inside the frame, and we will digitize the photo before returning it to the original frame.
Preparation Tips
These tips will help us support your goals and ensure you have the best possible photo organizing experience. First, you hired us for a reason, so please don’t try to organize before you start working with us. This makes more work for you and may also create more work for us. Next, send us all of your photos rather than trying to select the best one from similar or multiple copies. We have a duplicate detection system and will check in with you on selecting the best versions later in the process. When gathering your photos, put them in containers loose instead of held together by paper clips or rubber bands. These binders can cause bending or dents in the photos and may damage the prints. Additionally, use Post-Its on the back of prints to write any details you want us to know rather than writing directly on the back of the photo. Due to copyright laws, we cannot convert any commercial movies or music, so be sure to leave those at home. Finally, only send us items that you want to include in the inventory of your collection. Once your collection is in our hands, trust the process! We are here to collaborate with you and deliver a beautifully organized photo collection that you can access and share whenever you like.
How We Work
As soon as we receive your collection, our photo collection specialists get to work gathering and sorting through all of your items. First, we organize by type so that we can complete an inventory that is used for a proposal. The proposal includes:
- The scope of your collection including quantity for each type
- Our recommendation for how to get your collection organized and secured
- A breakdown by phase of the services we would provide and the estimated cost per service
Next, the proposal is reviewed with you. During that conversation we will discuss your organizing goals and plan for duplicate management. Details such as whether you want the photos returned to their albums or archived in a box are covered with you before we proceed. Once the proposal is approved, we begin working through the plan following a step-by-step workflow. When you hire us to organize your collection we make sure we become experts on your family photos. As each phase is completed, we check in with you along the way. You can read more about our process here. When we finish your project, we return your collection to you neatly organized in premium, archival boxes along with your collection backed up on an external hard drive.
If you’re ready to pull your photos and videos out of hiding and have us get started, contact us for a free consultation today.