Digital Photography Hacks

Create a Home Inventory

Creating a home inventory and storing it in a safe place will make it easier to work with the insurance company at a time of loss.

A home inventory can make dealing with an insurance company much easier. And your camera phone is a convenient way to create and store this inventory. With a little preparation, you can canvass your entire residence in just an hour or so.

You’ll need a stack of 3” 5” cards and a bold-tip felt marker. Carry out your inventory one room at a time. Daytime hours are best, because you’ll have enough ambient light to record the objects without using flash. Many camera phones don’t have flash, and for this job, it’s just as well. Photographing shiny objects with a flash is difficult at best; it’s hard to record detail in the lighter tones. Ambient light is less contrasty, which makes it better for this project.

Start with your first item and write the following information on a 3” 5” card:

• Name of object

• Serial number

• Date purchased

• Purchase price

Make your letters big and bold, as shown in Figure 7-12. Put the card next to the item and snap a picture.

Figure 7-12. A sample item in a home inventory

When you finish one room, move on to the next until you’ve completed the entire house. Then, upload your images to the computer [Hack #76] . You might want to give each image a filename that makes sense, such as bedroom_tv.jpg, bedroom_vase.jpg, ...