Frequently Asked Questions

Photo Organizers are a community of independent business owners who offer a wide-range of photo creation, organization, and management services. These Personal Photo Organizers’ services range from simply helping clients with a system to sort and organize their photos to taking on large projects that involve a life’s worth of photos. How much they are involved is completely up to the client. These Personal Photo Organizers can provide clients with systems and solutions for them to do it themselves, or they can work alongside their clients during the task, or they can completely take over and do it all for their clients.

Source: The Photo Managers

Hiring a professional photo organizer is an excellent approach to manage your printed photos, digital photos, negatives, slides, documents, scrapbooks, children’s artwork, audio and video tape, etc.

Everyone wants to know – “How much does it cost?” – and the answer to that question is always, “It depends”.

Let’s take a look at why costs vary and what you should consider when you are trying to decide if you should hire a professional photo organizer.

Three Things to Consider When Hiring Photo Organizing Services

1. Success requires your time and effort.

People have photo albums, slides, negatives, scrap books, documents, audio tape, video tape and film all over their homes – across family homes – in boxes in the back of their closets (including your grandparents and parents), and hidden in different folders on their computers and other devices.

It’s no wonder that a lot of people don’t know where their favourite or unknown photos are stored, and it’s not surprising that they keep most of their best family stories buried!

Whatever your situation looks like right now, remember that it took years to get to this point.

It will take time to sort and organize.

Your success completely depends upon your level of commitment. You should make sure you have the time, energy and a budget to commit to work with your organizer.

2. Photo organizing works best when you work with a professional photo organizer who is knowledgeable about the best approach.

Your professional photo organizer should ask you what your ultimate goal is and create a plan that is specific for you.

Your professional photo organizer should keep you motivated and accountable and prevent you from unknowingly doing harm.

Your professional photo organizer should take you through the process that is proven, and also customize the service for your unique situation. They should work with you to make it easy to stay on track, exercise consistent discipline, and keep moving forward on your path to success.

3. Working with a professional photo organizer requires an investment of time with a budget.

Prices for professional photo organizing services are always based on the scope of the project, the time needed to complete your project, and the organizer’s level of expertise.

The larger your needs are, the more time will be needed to organize.

Your investment will ultimately get you great results and give you enormous long-term value. Hiring a professional photo organizer shouldn’t be a price-driven decision. When it comes to working with service providers like professional photo organizers, you always get what you pay for – so hiring the least expensive service, such as scanning services only from London Drugs or Costco probably isn’t a good idea. They are not interested in your goals and you could be at risk of losing your photos. Why would you put your memories in the hands of someone who is not qualified or is not invested in your unique interests?

Your family photos are priceless and irreplaceable. When you ask most people what they would rescue first if a house fire or other emergency threatened their homes, most people have “family photos” at the tops of their lists.

Your timeline. If you have a short deadline, some organizers will charge you a rush fee. Try to give your organizer as much time as possible in order for them to get to know you, your family, and your goals. If you absolutely must complete the work on short notice, you may have to adjust your expectations on cost and work on just a portion of the project, so you can meet your timeline.

Getting help with scanning/digitizing of prints, slides, negatives, documents and movies. Scanning and digitizing of these items can be a time-consuming process, so you’ll need to pay accordingly to have your organizer perform or manage these services for you. These services are typically priced by the scan, or by the length of the videotape, but some organizers charge by the hour.

The age of the media you’re working with. Delicate old prints, photo albums, slides, negatives, documents and movie reels need to be handled with special care.

If you have digital photos across multiple devices, it will take time to consolidate them into one place and organize them. Photo organizing services include looking for duplicates, and renaming your images based on the date the photo is taken, the event in the photo, and the person in the image.

Renaming and metadata (whom, date and where) can be achieved for you to easily search for your photos. This process takes your time, but is worthwhile to create a system that will allow you to locate specific photos. Imagine what it would be like to be able to find all of the pictures of your mom (or daughter, or spouse) by just doing a quick search on your computer. Or how easy it will be to create a beautiful and meaningful photo album/book to give to your son for his college graduation. When your photo collection is well organized, these tasks are so much easier!

The type of project you need help with. When your professional photo organizer helps you with the hands-on organizing your photos, work will typically be priced by the hour, or by the session. If organizers are creating slideshows, photo books or albums for you, they usually charge a fixed amount, which includes a limited amount of photos, and a set number of revisions.

If there is a service you want other than the photo organizing services I can provide, I would be happy to assist you in locating and purchasing the service. For example, there are additional costs for backup hardware, software subscriptions and, photo book printing and shipping.

Click here for How It Works.

Yes, it is important to meet with you personally, even if I will be carrying out some of the service outside your home. I will need to know what you want and how best to reach your goals. Services such as scanning and photo restoration can be done in-home or off-site in my home office. I am happy to accommodate your preference.

I can do photo scanning in your home or off-site in my home office. I will never ship your photos out to another business for scanning.

I specialize in printed photo management

I provide in-home services to get your photos organized

I’m highly skilled using the latest technology

I provide a customized work flow process

I love what I do!

Click here for more information about My Services.

In preparation, locate all the places in your home such as closets, the basement, garage, and attic, where you may have loose photos, albums, letters, negative film, slides, memorabilia, children’s artwork, report cards, achievements, and vital statistic certificates. I recommend calling your family to collect items to be included and to engage them in the project. It can be a great family project!

I work with both Mac and PC platforms. I use the latest hardware and software technology designed to provide high quality image scans.

I will do everything I can to honour all rush job requests. I will let you know upfront whether or not it is feasible.

I will work attentively towards realizing your pleasure with the service and results! I will continuously communicate with you during the project to ensure your satisfaction. If you change your goal during the project, I will let you know how that might affect the timeline and cost of the project, and then you can make an informed decision on how you would like to proceed.