DIY Photo Organising

What if your gift could make someone smile not just on Christmas Day, but every month of next year? In this third episode of my Christmas photo gift series, I share how to make a photo calendar in four simple steps. It is quick to make, it is practical, and it gives someone you love a new memory to look forward to every time they turn the page.

In this episode:

• Why a photo calendar is one of the quickest and most loved photo gifts.
• Six theme ideas to get you started, including my own favourite from when my children were in primary school.
• Why I choose the printer before I choose a single photo.
• A calendar idea that lasts for many years, not just one, and where I found it.
• How to find the right photos quickly in Apple Photos or any other photo app
• Which photos often do not print well on a calendar, and a little trick to still use them.
• The settings that turn a nice calendar into a very personal one.
• An option for those who want complete design freedom.

A little extra for you this week:

This week I am taking you behind the scenes. I share some of the calendars I mentioned in the episode, plus a short video on how to create one yourself in Apple Photos or online with Mimeo Photos. Newsletter subscribers receive the link automatically. Not subscribed yet? You can get it here.

Mentioned in this episode:

Episode 132: Make a Photo Advent Calendar Full of Memories

Episode 133: Make a Photo Book Gift in 5 Simple Steps

Golden Rule 2 of the 5 Golden Rules of Photo Organising: Know Your Why

YourSurprise birthday calendars (no affiliation)

Mimeo Photos (no affiliation)

Canva calendar templates

Over to you:

Who would you make a photo calendar for this year? And which theme would you pick? I would love to hear.

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Enjoyed this episode? Please share it with a friend and leave a review or a star rating. It helps more people find these episodes.

Coming up next week:

Still in the Christmas gift theme, next week is all about giving the gift of old photos. Perfect if you have a box of prints or slides sitting in a cupboard!

Chocolates get eaten, socks get lost, and most gift cards end up in a drawer. But a photo book will be treasured for years. In this episode, I share 5 simple steps to make a photo book as a gift, from the first idea to the moment you hand it over. It works for Christmas, a birthday, an anniversary, or any time you want to give someone a gift full of memories. And no, your photos do not have to be perfectly organised before you start.

In this episode:

• Why a photo book makes such a personal and lasting gift
• The two questions to ask before you even look at a printer
• Gift book ideas, from a trip you took together to family recipes
• Why I never print a year book before the year is over
• What to look for when you choose your photo book software and printer
• My number one rule for choosing photos, and how to collect them without making duplicates
• Why captions matter, and two design tips that can save you disappointment and money
• The small job to do once your book arrives, so you do not end up with a new photo mess

FREE DOWNLOAD: MY PHOTO BOOK PLANNER

Plan your next photo book with my free printable planner. It follows the same 5 steps as this episode, with space to write down who the book is for, your printer choices, your hero shots, and the captions you want to add. Download it here. If you're already receiving my newsletter, you will receive the download link automatically.

Mentioned in this episode

Episode 132 Make a photo advent calendar full of memories

Over to you

Who would you love to make a photo book for this year? Let me know, I would love to hear about it.

What if this year, the advent calendar was not about chocolate... but about memories? In this episode, I share a gift idea from my dear friend Christina that costs very little and that the person you give it to will probably keep for years. A photo advent calendar turns the photos you already have into a countdown full of shared memories, and it is not just for children. If you start now, you still have plenty of time to have it ready before the first of December.

In this episode:

• What a photo advent calendar is, and the simple basic recipe you can change to suit you.
• How to find the right photos quickly, even if your photos are not organised yet.
• Why everyday moments often bring out the best stories.
• Easy printing options that do not need to be complicated.
• What to write on the cards when a blank card feels a bit scary.
• How to adapt the idea for your partner, your parents or grandparents, a friend, and children of different ages.
• A little extra tip to keep the memories with your photos.
• Why this idea works for more than just Christmas.

Free printable: Photo Advent Calendar Writing Prompts

Not sure what to write on your cards? My free printable gives you sentence starters for your partner, your parents or grandparents, children of all ages and your friends, plus tips and an example card. Download it from here.

Mentioned in this episode:

Episode 125: Turn Your Photos Into Keepsakes (Golden Rule 5 of Photo Organising: Do Something!)

Over to you

Who would you make a photo advent calendar for? Let me know in the comments!

Share the love

If you know someone who would love this idea, please share this episode with them. And if you enjoy listening, a review helps the podcast reach more people who might find it useful.

AI can edit, restore and even help manage your photos, often for free and often without you even realising that you are using AI. But just because you can change a photo, should you? In this episode I share the five questions I ask myself before I let AI change a photo (which I kind of hardly ever do). I start with a very personal one: the last photo of me and my granddad, where my eyes are closed. I also share what happened when I tested AI restoration on an old photo of my brothers from the 1970s. There is no single right answer here... but there is your answer.

In this episode:

• The difference between fixing a photo and changing the story it tells.
• What AI does well and where it goes wrong.
• Why a photo that shows its age may not need fixing at all.
• How a change you make today could confuse your family in fifty years.
• Why AI is great at finding duplicates and blurry photos, but cannot know what a photo means to you.
• Two simple habits that keep you in control when you do use AI.

Mentioned in this episode:

The iOS 27 and Apple Photos series, Episodes 128 to 130

What would you do with the photo of me and my granddad? Would you open my eyes, or leave it as it is? Tell me in the comments, I would love to know. And if you’d like to see the before and after comparison, make sure you’ve subscribed to my newsletter, I’ll share the pictures there.

Stay in touch

• Subscribe to my newsletter. It usually goes out two days after each new episode, so you never miss one. As a subscriber, you also get little extras, for example access to a video about the episode topic.
• Add to my wishlist. Is there a topic or a question you would like me to cover in a future episode? Let me know.
• Learn with me. If you would like step by step help to organise your photos, have a look at my online courses.

Have you ever come home from a family holiday or a birthday party, and then spent the next two weeks asking everybody to send you their photos? And when they finally arrive, they come through WhatsApp, compressed and without the capture date?!

In this episode, I show you how sharing photos on your iPhone has become a lot easier with iOS 27. Shared albums in Apple Photos got a big upgrade, there is a new way to turn your photos into a slideshow video, and I share four quick wins that help you enjoy your photos every day. This is part three, and the last part, of my short series about iOS 27 and Apple Photos.

In this episode

• The six changes to shared albums in iOS 27, including temporary shared albums that delete themselves after 30 days.
• Why full resolution sharing is good news for prints and photo books, and what it means for your iCloud storage.
• How family and friends with an Android phone or a Windows computer can now add their photos to your shared album.
• One downside I found in my own testing, and what really happens to a photo when you add it to a shared album.
• How to make your own slideshow in Apple Photos and save it as a video.
• Four quick wins: save a video frame as a photo, find the photos you took yourself with Captured By Me, see all your selected photos on one screen, and get more out of the Photo Shuffle wallpaper.
• One small thing you can do today to get your photos back into your life

Mentioned in this episode

• Part 1 of the series: Episode 128, Find Your Photos Faster with iOS 27
• Part 2 of the series: Episode 129, 3 New Ways to Edit Photos on Your iPhone

Subscribe to my newsletter. It usually goes out two days after each new episode, so you never miss one. As a subscriber, you get little extras, for example access to a video about the episode topic or more tips.

Is there a topic or a question you would like me to cover in a future episode? Let me know via the wishlist.

Learn with me. If you would like step by step help to organise your photos, have a look at my online courses.

The iOS 27 update has added three new AI editing tools to Apple Photos on iPhone, and in this episode I walk through what each one does and how to find them.

Clean Up, the tool for removing things you do not want in a photo, just got a lot better. Extend and Reframe are brand new, letting you expand a photo past its original edges or even shift the angle it was taken from. None of it touches your original photo, so there is no harm in giving these a try.

In this episode:

• What is new for editing photos in Apple Photos with the iOS 27 update.
• Clean Up, improved. How this existing tool now copes with bigger and more complicated objects, not just small blemishes.
• Extend - how to expand a photo past its original edges with a simple pinch gesture.
• Reframe - how to change the camera angle on a photo after it has already been taken.
• Where to find these tools on your iPhone, step by step.
• Why your original photo is always safe, and how to undo any edit with Revert.

Want a reminder of all 5 Golden Rules of Photo Organising?

This episode connects back to Golden Rule 4, Sort and Organise, my framework for getting your photos under control. Grab my free one page 5 Golden Rules of Photo Organising checklist here.

Got a topic or question you would like covered on the podcast? Add it to my wishlist here.

Curious about my courses? You can find them on my website here.

iOS 27 is out, and it brings three new tools that make it much easier to make your Photos Library more searchable. In this episode, part one of a three part mini-series on iOS 27 and Apple Photos, I walk through the new features that allow you to add keywords and star ratings on your iPhone and also the handy new Identity Documents album.

Add keywords to your photos on iPhone

iOS 27 finally lets you add keywords straight from your iPhone or iPad, not only from a Mac like before. A keyword can be a name, an event or a place, anything you would actually search for later. In the episode I show you exactly where to find this feature and how to add a keyword, how to see and manage your full list, and how to mark your favourite keywords so the ones you use most are always close at hand.

I also share a quirk I found while testing this myself, about what happens to your keywords when you send a photo by text message or AirDrop. It caught me by surprise, so I cover it in full in the episode.

Rate your photos with star ratings in Apple Photos

Star ratings are a new feature in iOS 27, but they are switched off by default, so do not worry if you went looking for them and came up empty. In the episode I explain how to turn on Show Rating Controls, how to rate a single photo or a whole batch at once, and how to filter your library down to just the photos with a certain rating.

I also share my own simple rating habit, and why I recommend writing your own rules down on paper, especially if you plan to use more than one star level. It is a small step that saves a lot of second guessing later! To make it even easier for you, I’ve created a handy worksheet for you to download for free!

The new Identity Documents album, and how to keep it more private

iOS 27 automatically gathers photos of your passport, driving licence and other identity documents into a new album called Identity Documents, so they are easy to find in a hurry. It is a handy feature, but it is worth a privacy check. Listen in to discover how you can easily add an extra layer of privacy.

Free worksheet: My Photo Rating and Keyword Rules

A rating and keyword system is most useful when you keep it simple and stay consistent. I put together a free worksheet to help you do exactly that, so you can keep your Photos Library searchable for good.

Download it here.

Got a topic or question for the show?

I am always building my list of future episodes from what you tell me you want to hear. If there is a topic or a question you would love me to cover, send it my way using this link here.

Is keywording (or tagging) your photos still worth it, now that AI can search them?

Photos on your iPhone and Mac can find things without you lifting a finger, so does that mean keywording your photos is a waste of time?

In this episode, I explain what a keyword actually is, what Apple Photos can already find on its own, and where keywording still makes a difference, including a simple habit that keeps your search results from splitting in two.

In this episode:

● What a keyword or tag actually is, and why it exists

● How Apple Photos can already find photos using plain language, no tagging required

● What AI photo search still cannot know about your photos

● Why a written keyword still earns its place, even with smart search

● How the newest update, iOS 27, lets you add keywords straight from your iPhone or iPad

● A simple habit that keeps your keywords consistent, so nothing gets lost in search

If you have other photo-related questions, don’t hesitate to let me know via the wishlist so I can answer it!

In this episode, I am sharing my practical dos and don'ts for decluttering your photos, using tools that are already sitting inside the Photos app on your iPhone and Mac. This was the most asked question from my recent webinar, so if you have been staring at your camera roll wondering where to even begin, this episode is for you.

In this episode:

● The Do that makes every decluttering decision easier.

● How to remove duplicates with a single tap.

● Other easy places to start your photo decluttering project.

● Favouriting versus deleting.

● How to avoid overwhelm.

● The importance of understanding your settings.

Mentioned in this episode:

● Episode 122: Why your Photo Project keeps stalling - Golden Rule 2 Know Your Why

● Episode 124: Find Any Photo in Seconds - Golden Rule 4 Sort and Organise

Golden Rule 5 of Photo Organising: Do Something!

You've backed up, organised, and sorted your entire photo collection. But what's the point of all that photo organising effort if your photos just sit somewhere on a hard drive? In thisfinal episode of the 5 Golden Rules of Photo Organising, Chantal shows you how to turn your organised collection into photo books, gifts, and keepsakes you'll actually treasure, plus the simple habits that keep your Photo Hub running smoothly for good.

In this episode:

• Why doing something with your photos matters.
• The simple six-step process behind every successful photo project, from deciding what to create through to hitting order.
• Ideas for photo books, framed prints, wall art, calendars, and personalised cards, plus a few fun (and slightly wild) photo gift options.
• Tips for creating digital projects like slideshows and video montages.
• How to maintain your Photo Hub going forward, so all the hard work you've put in actually sticks.

Mentioned in this episode:

Blog: How to create Photo Books in 5 easy steps

 Episode 108 How to make a photo gallery wall at home with Haleh Shoa (and on YouTube: https://youtu.be/iRUJZ25tkGo)

Photo Organising Courses

Got a topic you'd love covered? Add it to the wishlist