Scrapping a Large Event, or How to Deal with an 8 inch stack of pictures -- Part III

You can find Part I and Part II.

So you culled down the stack, made some collages, picked out some sketches and printed ALL.  THOSE. PHOTOS.  You are taking your time and enjoying scrapbooking them.  But after a while the Chef Mickey character breakfast starts to look like Fantasmic, and you found that sticker from Mt. St. Helen long after you scrapped that page.  Here's how I organize my photos to keep all the places and faces from getting confused.

In the words of The Offspring, You Gotta Keep 'Em Separated.  Once I download my photos from my 73 SD cards (I am completely paranoid about losing all of my vacation photos in one fell swoop, so I have an SD card for each day) and convert them from RAW files to jpeg, I set up a file storage tree that starts with the location, then folders for particular places and events, including a general folder for those shots that don't fit anywhere else.  You could do separate days (Day 1, Day 2, etc.) if that's the way you like to set up your scrapbook, but its important to file those photos away while you still remember what they are of.  I speak with the voice of experience!  When I go to scrapbook a page, I open the file with the corresponding photos, so I can find all of the photos for that place/event/thing, so I don't miss any.

Even if I'll be putting some of the photos in divided page protectors, all the photos from that place will be together.  I can also decide to tell some individual stories from photos in the "general" photos if I choose at that point.

To keep from losing any memorabilia or photos, I've stored everything in the 3-ring American Crafts album and divided page protectors that will become the album for my trip.  

That's one thick album!

Then as I scrapbook, I can look at the digital version of the photos I want in the folder on my computer, find the prints in the divided page protectors, and pull them to use.

I'm adding my completed layouts to the back, so eventually all I'll have to do is reorganize by location and take out any empty page protectors.  

Do you have any special ways you organize your large projects?  Please share!