Photo Organizing - Part 4 Access & Share Anywhere with Google Photos


Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar Channel and this is the 4th video in a series about the processes and tools I use to organize my photos.  In the previous videos, we've covered storing centrally, simple physical organization and using Picasa to manage and group photos.  In this video, I'll discuss using Google Photos to access my photos anywhere and share them with friends and family.

Access Anywhere

I realized early on that I wasn't going to be able to store all of my photos on my iPhone.  I don't have unlimited storage after all, who does? -- and I don't like having to delete a bunch of photos so that I can make room for more.  Having central storage on my PC solved that issue (see Parts 1 & 2 of this video series for more on that).  Every time I do my quarterly photo chores, I transfer all of my photos to my PC and clean off my phone so that it is empty.  Great!  The problem was -- I still wanted to be able to access my photos from anywhere.  I do that using Google Photos.
As you might recall from Part 3 of this series, I use Picasa as my photo manager and grouping tool.  Within Picasa, I turn on "Sync to Web" for each folder or album that I create.  That essentially creates a duplicate copy of my photos in the cloud.  Why don't I just send my photos directly to Google Photos rather than using this elaborate conduit?  The answer is that Google Photos isn't reliable or robust enough to cover all of my needs just YET.  I'm sure the developers at Google are working round the clock, so I'm always open to that possibility down the road.  Right now I have issues with duplication of photos, unreliable sync, and lack of features such as sorting, grouping, making collages, and printing. 

Google Photos Basics

Google Photos stores all of your photos indiscriminately in a big vat.  Then it uses Albums to organize them. It doesn't differentiate between Folders and Albums the way Picasa does. Instead, when syncing your photos from Picasa, folders and Albums all become Albums in Google Photos. So you can look at the big vat containing every picture indiscriminately by clicking on Photos (which also happens to be the default view), or you can view by folders or albums by choosing Album view.  Google Photos does not give you any options for sorting. It sorts by date only, most recent on top, and uses the date imbedded in the photo file metadata. Fortunately, you CAN change photo dates within Google Photos, but it's a rather painstaking process. I finally got my Albums to sort in the order I wanted them, but it took some doing.  If you go into an individual photo, you can hit the edit button to do some light editing (apply limited filters, crop, basic lighting adjustments and rotation), but this is a limited function. In addition, you can hit the info button to get access to the photo file's metadata. Here you can add a caption (captions carry from Picasa where they are easier add) or change the date on the file. You can also choose the More button to add this individual photo to an album or download it to your device. 

Access and Share

What is important about Google Photos is that all my synced photos are in the cloud, so they are available everywhere. Here are some ways I take advantage of that:
  • Access individual photos from iOS app - instead of having my photos stored on my phone, I can access all of my photos from Google Photos. I downloaded the iPhone and iPad app and have it right next to the Photos app. I can find photos the old fashioned way, by quarter. For example, if I'm looking for photos of last year's 6th grade celebration for my daughter, I know to look in the 2016 Q2 folder. BUT -- and this is so incredibly cool -- Google Photos now incorporates quite a bit of artificial intelligence object recognition. So, not only can you search by person using facial recognition and location (using the photos geotagging info), but you can also search by object or activity or event. There are preset categories, or you can really try anything that comes to mind.  For example, if I search for "dog", here is what I get. How about beach?  Or vase?  Obviously there are misses and overinclusions, but WOW. This is so helpful in searching for the right photo. I love this feature and it's only getting better.  As an aside, I'm obsessed with the confusion AI has in working out some differences. Hats off to @teenybiscuit who shares these on Twitter.  Is it a chihuahua or muffin?  Puppy or bagel?  Or my favorite - goldendoodle or fried chicken?
  • Share individual photos with others - you can share individual photos right from Google Photos. Want to send someone a text with a photo -- just go into the photo, select the sharing button and click on Message.  It embeds the photo right in the text. How about if you want to email several photos?  From the main screen, choose the More button (3 dots) and then Select Photos. Choose the photos you want to email, then the sharing button and Mail and within a couple of seconds they are ready to send. 
  • Share Albums with others - if you want to share a bunch of photos, that is also easy on Google Photos. Create an album of those photos by selecting the photos you want, choosing the sharing button and then choosing Shared Album. At this point, you can choose a previously created album or create a new one. I'm going to call this new album Test. Then you can Share by hitting that button and choosing contacts from your list or type in new email addresses.  This will send them a link to your album so you don't flood their inbox with 50MB worth of photos. 
  • Enjoy photos - up until about a year ago, I was still printing a good portion of my photos and putting them into a physical photo album quarterly believe it or not.  I also used to print out several photos and snail mail them to some older relatives.  Recently, I've acknowledged that the way we consume photos now is very different than even 8 years ago. And that holds true for older generations as well. So, instead, here are the ways that I currently share and enjoy photos:         
    • Monthly photos to small circle - once a month I send a bulleted update about our family which includes photos to our parents, our siblings and my grandma. I don't post on Facebook (see my video about that), so this is how I maintain contact with far flung family. 
    • Quarterly collage to larger circle - during my quarterly photo chores, I select 8-12 photos and create a collage in Picasa (see Part 3 for more info on how to do that), which I send out with no captioning to a larger group of friends and family -- a pared down version of our Xmas card list. 
    • Photo albums for events - after certain events or trips, I create an album of all of my photos in Google Photos and share it with all of the folks that participated. I also invite them to add their own photos to the album.
    • Digital photo frames - In place of physical photo albums which were never opened and were taking up space, I made our central TV and my kitchen laptop into digital photo frames.  They continuously scroll through all of the photos in my photo library at random. I love this since it means my whole family gets to appreciate photos from the past without having to sit down and slog through a photo album -- an activity that no person has EVER relished.  I'll do a video on how to do this using a number of tools on your PC, computer, tablet or stand alone digital picture frame device. 
My process has evolved over the past decade based on advances in both photo taking and photo management technology.  And maybe more importantly it has evolved, based on the cultural changes in the way that we all access and enjoy photos. But for now, this is the process that works best:
  • Do photo chores quarterly
  • Centralize all of my photos onto my PC mothership
  • Organize simply by quarter of the year
  • Manage using Picasa
  • Access and share using Google Photos
I really appreciate any feedback you leave below and thanks as always for watching!

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