OMG I hate ordering photos

I hear you. I hate the whole process of ordering pictures. Choosing which pictures to use, deciding what size, editing (the pc I use for editing is old and slow but it has PS CS3 on it), using Photosheet, uploading. The only thing that makes it bearable for me is to listen to podcasts while I'm doing it.

That's why I print my own in small batches when I'm ready to scrap them

I've come up with a monthly system that makes my life a bit easier. I take hundreds of pictures a month.
Each month I create a folder on my phone and copy pix to that month ready to order, then I upload that folder through a photo app (I use free prints) and it's about a 5 minute process from start to finish for about 150 photos. It's not so bad when I keep up with my monthly printing.

I feel the same way. Editing and uploading photos for printing is always a chore. I need to come up with a routine to make it easier.

I batch process and nearly every photo of mine gets edited in some way or another. But I always do everything set for design A page protectors...that makes the process easier. I usually have thousands of photos to go through just to pick out a hundred or so when I am working on a 4-8 weeks. It's not fun, but it's easier to dedicate a group of time to each part. First part is choosing photos from my DSLR and my phone, the next part is editing, then collaging vertical photos and some horizontal photos that don't need a whole slot onto 4x6's in photosheet, uploading to Costco photo and finally, choosing whether or not duplicates are needed for anything. I usually start an upload as soon as the collaging is finished for any given month and go into editing for another so 2 things are going at once, but otherwise, it's one step at a time. Then when the order arrives, I date the backs of my photos and sort them in correct date order (collaged pictures end up at the end of the pile and since DSLR and phone photos are named differently, they are in different parts of the pile as well) before getting them set up in my PL album. Extras, like vertical 4x6's, pictures that I want to have for 12x12 layouts or ones I wanted extras of to put in frames or something are all put into a photo box with a tab labeled for that month. I bet that all sounds like so much fun that you all wish you could do it for me, right?!

I've said the same thing about not waiting.  I was behind almost 18 months at one point.  I started with the most recent month and go backwards.  For instance, I would do all of say, July 2017 and then go in reverse order...so June 2017 and May 2017 would also get done in that order.  The next order would include August 2017 and then I'd work on April 2017 and March 2017 and I'd keep that going until I had backtracked all of my missing months.  I found that having my most recent photos to work with as a 'reward' for also getting older month caught up a little at a time was a motivator for me to catch up.  I ended up doing that process every 2 weeks or so.  I'd do the 2 most recent weeks and 1 to 2 older months as well...as long as I had 100 photos to order (price drops from 17 cents to 14 cents per print at Costco if you order at least 100 at a time...which is also why I batch process my photos a couple months at a time), if I didn't have at least 100 photos, I'd simply give it another week and work on another older month and the most recent week of photos.

Well you got me there! But I just ditched my camera for my iPhone! Because I never felt like dealing with the photos either!

I absolutely hate it too for a few reasons.

My digital photos are a fricking mess so it takes way more time. I have been trying to organize them but it will literally take me a few months.

I get sad when I look at my photos because our family isn't close like it used to be.

I just get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of photos on my phone my laptop and my printed ones before digital.

I have at least 10 double page layouts completed that have no photos on them because I just keep putting it off.

I love scrapbooking but finding photos just takes the fun out of it.

Yeah should have added that my photos suck or are the wrong orientation!

You are sick. I'm sorry, but there, I said it!

It's my least favorite part of scrapbooking.

^^^ THAT! I think the dissatisfaction with my photos is (one of) my issues, too, along with sheer numbers. I take a LOT of photos-- like last weekend, we went to an exhibit of Samurai armor at the Phx Art Museum-- we saw that exhibit and walked through a couple other exhibits at the museum, and altogether, I took over 350 pictures! 323 with my camera, and more with my phone. I know most of them aren't going to be as good as I'd like them to be... but I need to look through all of them before making any decisions. I need to come up with some sort of three-step or 5-step process for photos, I think- something that takes me through making decisions about good / bad / delete, save, edit, print, scrapbook... (I have an issue with not deleting photos, too- I can only delete the REALLY, REALLY bad ones; any others I will think 'well, it's not that great but maybe I'll use it / need it' so I keep them.)

I bought a Canon Selphy and thought that would 'help' me out because I can print photos right when I want to scrap. But since I've had it, I found out that for me, the whole 'editing / printing photos' part of scrapbooking is an impediment to my creativity. If I had to print them ALL at home, I wouldn't ever scrapbook, I don't think.




^^^  I didn't know that, about the price dropping.  I also think doing recent photos is more 'fun' so I should do this sort of thing, too-  edit / print recent photos AND some older ones to get a backlog taken care of.  I don't scrap PL style, but I do save my photos on my computer by date.  Maybe this weekend I'll do some photo editing and send a big order to Costco.  (probably not, lol-- but maybe.)

I totally understand. I just got home from WM where I edited and printed over 200 photos from our vacation and that's not even half of them. UGH!! I don't particularly love the whole printing photos process either..

Lightroom has made photo editing so much faster for me.
Now I print at home on the Epson Picturemate PM-400 now so I don't have to fuss as much with batching a huge order any more.

ETA: But I do miss the days where you just "made it work" with the photos in the folder you got from Target or CVS. I scrapped a lot more back then because I had the photos there just waiting for me.