Process for photo printing

I take my camera card &/or phone to WM and do my choosing and editing right at the kiosk. Not a lot of colour adjustments: just cropping to get the part of the image I want onto the printed pic. I choose which photo of a series I want to feature and often print it in a larger format, but most pic's are printed in 4x6.

I print way more photos than I actually use, but I live a long way from a printing place, and I don't go there every week, so my process guarantees that I always have photos to play with.

I also love options right up until the last possible moment, so having lots of photos lets me play with them on the page until I have a combo I love.

I do not scrapbook chronologically. I keep my photos by year and then with the year by date. I've been tweaking my process which I'm sure sounds very convoluted to anyone else, but to me it makes perfect sense.

1. I look for a story I want to tell and that dictates the time frame I'll look for stories and edit photos for it with PSE. (Ex. last photo editing session, I saw a few stories that really piqued my interest in Aug & Sept of 2016, so I also looked at October and November as those stories weren't told yet)

2. I've started keeping a spreadsheet in my excel scrap workbook for photos edited/stories to tell. So as I come to the photo with the story to tell in my computer folder, my spreadsheet would get annotated with the date of the photo(s), the general story name (this may or may not be the title), if it's going to be traditional or digital or a pocket page, any notes (if there is memorabilia I know of or a kit I want to use or a cut file or if I need another picture to complete the story), if it's a double page, multiple pages, the style of pocket page if using. The last item is huge for me, because I used to forget which style or not get the right sizes of photos printed for the style I use.

3. If the story is to be told in a pocket page or traditionally, I also have sizes of prints on my spreadsheet and I will add the number of each size to the corresponding column as I edit the photos for printing. As I edit, I add the photos to a TO PRINT folder by size of the print (4x6, 5x7, 8x10, 12x18) to make it easier on myself for ordering. Since I'm editing my photos, I have a couple of templates for 4x6 photos so I can get smaller different sized prints, and I just seem to create my own during the process for the 8x10 or 12x18 sizes. Although I should really create some templates for that to save time.

4. If it is a story that needs journaling, I will open a Word document and add the date and story name and then journal about the story. I then note that the journaling is finished on my spreadsheet. There is a column I just check it.

NOTE: I find that I really need to do the journaling before printing the photos, as I've often gotten to the journaling part later and decided there was more than one story thus more than one layout for the set of photos.

5. For those I'm going to do digitally, I don't mess with the photos, I'll do that when I'm ready to do the page.

6. Once I get the photos back, I will put them with their journaling if any and then in a large bag with papers or kits that go with the story/photos.

I'm ready to pull a kit and scrapbook.

**Note** Part of that tweaking process is for me to be better on top of downloading and noting stories to tell. I'm currently working on my 2017 photos for downloading. Once downloaded, I'll be adding these stories to tell, and will add a column for photos edited/printed to my spreadsheet. I want to download monthly, maybe printing every other month or so.

Even though I've done a handful of digital layouts, I'm primarily a multi photo paper scrapper, so this is my process for organizing and editing most of my photos. While I don't decide the actual layout ahead of time, I do plan out just about everything else.

*First, I throw all my originals into a folder on my PC. They're organized first by year, then by Originals or Edited. Everything goes into Originals, and then I choose photos for the stories that will become the pages of my books. Copies of the photos I decide to use go into the Edited folder, and they're separated into more folders, by Story. I use a code to organize the Story folders which is: month number, followed by title, followed by how many pages the finished layout will be (ex: 11. Thanksgiving 2016, 2p).

*Second, I look at the quality of the photos. If I have a poor quality photo, I can't print it too large. If I love the subject and the photo is good quality, I'll enlarge it to a 5x7 or occasionally 8x10. The poorer quality photos usually get printed 3x4 using the collage feature on PicMonkey (two to a 4x6). I may end up trying 3x3s, but I haven't done it yet. It's by looking at the quality of the photos and judging how many photos I can fit on the page that I can plan how many pages my layout will be. And that, in turn, helps me to plan the order of the pages of my books (place a 1p next to another 1p).

*Third, I edit my photos primarily using PicMonkey. I just do basic edits (straighten, crop, lighting, etc.), but for zapping zits on my teenagers, I prefer using the program that came on with Windows 10. The PicMonkey spot fix leaves a weird halo effect. I actually like the editing. I like being able to bring out the best in my photos, and it gets me excited to scrap them.

*Last, I usually print at Walgreens. I like the quality, and they run frequent specials.

Hope that helps! It sounds like a lot, but it's really manageable.

I don't worry about leftovers. Prints are so cheap. I still remember the bad old days when photography was so expensive and "you got what you got". 

I am totally impressed(and intimidated) with everyone's process. 

Wow, some of you are super organized and thoughtful about what you print. I love the ideas, but can't see myself taking it to that level.

For me, it depends on how many photos I have to print. If it's just a few layouts, I will make a general plan in my head and order what I need, after editing, cropping, resizing. If I have a lot, like after a vacation, I will order prints of all of the pictures I like with some general editing, then plan my layouts. I reorder prints as necessary to fit. I usually need pictures in hand to be inspired to create a layout.

I'm not nearly as thoughtful about the process as the rest of you

Since the beginning of the year - I've been printing weekly. When I download my camera, I edit a little - usually brightening a dark photo or cropping. On Fridays I upload the photos I plan to scrap to Walmart.com and order 4x6s. Occasionally I have a photo that I know needs to be a 5x7 so I'll print it that way. This week I tried something new and made a photo collage of some photos - I plan to cut it down to use for scrapping. We'll see if it works the way I had intended.

I'm going back and (slowly) filling in the gaps in older albums, one year at a time, and I'll batch order those photos from Snapfish or Shutterfly a month or several months worth at a time - all 4x6

This is pretty much what I do minus the editing because I'm lazy. The most I do is determine what size I want the print and if I want it cropped in a particular way I will do that before I print. I will often print in smaller batches so I can get a feel for the project and work out what gaps I have in the story and I'll reprint in a different size if what I chose the first time no longer works. I'm also quite ok with throwing out the photos I don't end up using.

For non vacation projects I print at home.

Same. Got a Selphy a while back. Learned to use it to get pix I like from it.  Now I print on demand.  It has made me super productive cuz I can do any old photo any old time. 

At the end of every year I move all the photos to a file on my computer called "photos" in which I organize by year-> month->event. I back this up to my hard drive.

Then I create folder called "to print". I go through the photos for the year and decide what to print and copy to that folder. Rule of thumb is 1-5 pics per event. If I really can't decide, then I will do more but I try to keep each event to one layout (either one or two pages). Some events I do do more for. Dance recital, homecoming, snowcoming etc. Graduation will def be more than one layout. Christmas and Halloween usually have a few events to scrap so those span a few pages. Once that folder is created I usually send them out to be printed in batches when websites are having sales. Usually two or three batches. This year I printed 175 photos from 2016. Some years it has been double that amt. I delete the photos in the to print folder as I print them but they are still in the photos folder on my computer and hard drive.

 With this method I end up with very few printed but unused photos and the few I do my teenaged daughter is more than happy to take of my hands.