There was an article on wired.co.uk yesterday “GeekDad has too many photos” where the author noted that whilst modern digital cameras are fabulous because they enable us take as many shots as needed to get the right ones, they come with a severe drawback – they generate a digital overload!

We download all these photos but there are too many to keep and show because so many are so similar (or wrong which is why we retook again and again and again). It falls to us to review and cull those we no longer need. This culling process is time consuming as I know all too well – any occasion I take my camera out, I can easily spend a couple of hours reviewing and culling when I get home.

Once culled, those that remain need tweaking to be just right. A little touch up here and there, adjust the light on those, fix the contrast on these .. it goes on. More time but worth it as I have the best collection of photos I could hope to produce.

Now I know I’m pretty organised but even I suffer at the final step of processing my photos. I have a ‘Processed Photos’ folder on my laptop where the good ones get stored and here’s what should happen next: they get distributed to my wife, the kids and my parents. Do I do this? NO! My hand picked, polished collection of photos remains on my laptop along with all the other albums that came before.

I believe we’re actually worse off when it comes to family photo albums now than when we had to rely on the local chemist to print our snaps.

Don’t get me wrong there are plenty of ways to share online, but when faced with these I’ loose the will to share. I’m not about to run around the house armed with USB sticks, nor can I spend the time trying to squeeze these photos into emails that will disappear off into the ether only to return some time later to my wife’s computer. What about Facebook and co? I’ve talked many times about my issues with their privacy policies and aside from their photo resolution massacring it’s still a complete faff trying to upload and organise.

This is one of the reasons I started DAD and today sees its public launch. I’m over the moon because DAD makes the final sharing stage so incredibly simple. By setting up a few simple rules, I can put my photos into the processed photos directory knowing they will be distributed exactly as I like. Automatically, the index of photos goes to my wife and children, so they can pull the photos they want; all the photos go to the PC under the TV; those I tag appropriately automatically get sent to my parents and my brother.

Efficient, time saving – but more importantly I now have a family photo album that people get to see and enjoy.

Priceless!

And you can enjoy this super simple sharing and organisation by downloading DAD today. It’s our first release and we want your feedback. Together we’re going to create the ultimate fix-it for digital overload and we will rid the world of digital disorganisation!

Here’s a very short set of slides I’ve used to visually explain how DAD helps us photographers.