Photo Organization, How do you do it?

[eastley]

Hey all.

Like many here since I got my camera I have taken 1000's of shots.

The main issue with this is organization of those photo's on my PC, I was wondering how do most do it? What file structure do you use? Do you rename your images? If so and you have multiple images of same location how do you get around that?

Do you use software to help your organization? I myself don't, I got find the image I want, view thumbnails through Vista and open in photoshop if I want to edit them.

With all these questions in mind is there anything more that I and other new comers/hobbyists should know? The dos and don't?

Kindness regards

Andrew

[MarkNicholas]

Like this in date order
My Pictures
>>>Camera
>>>>>>30D
>>>>>>>>2008.04.20_Trip to Venice
>>>>>>>>2008.05.30_Photos at Home
>>>>>>>>>>>CR2 files
>>>>>>>>>>>Jpeg_1440px_LR2
>>>>>>Coolpix 5700>
>>>>>>>>>etc. etc.

[Mr. Pickles]

I put images in folders with date names.

I then Import them all into Lightroom. I use keywords inside of Lightroom that get imbedded into the image files so I can find any image anywhere with those keywords, or using a lot of the EXIF data itself.

Makes it easy to find every image with a keyword of "Family" that was taken with my 50mm lens...for instance.

[Jon]

my folder structure:

year/month/day/model, location, event, etc (if model then additionally sorted by setup, some events are also sorted by class eg heavyweight, middleweight, etc)

[loraksus]

I do Date, description. i.e.
2008-03-28 - Vancouver Trip
2008-03-29 - Vancouver Trip
2008-07-09 - Kettle Valley with Nat
2008-07-17 - Banff Pano 0
2008-07-17 - Banff Pano 1
If I've edited stuff / done post, it's in those same folders.

Works... sort of... I have 135 gigs worth (although most of that size is huge PSD files from panoramas) and at this point, scaling is a bit of a challenge.
Takes a bit of work to get everything organized and you don't have the granularity needed to tag photos unless you do something like "2008-08-04 - nat, brett, bb, dogs, karl big white"

[shutterbug3070]

External HD/Garrett/Mar-Apr 2008/20080419 Garrett's 2nd Bday/img_9234(camera gives it this img name)
External HD/Garrett/Mar-Apr 2008/20080410/img_9078
External HD/Animals/img_9546.jpg



date which is how camera downloads it and then I rename folder to include event if major event for my personal

For (practice) business (I have sold a few): I keep the originals on my external drive by date as above, then:
Desktop/Shutterfly Kisses Photography/Sr Portraits/Jessica 100208/img_1025
Desktop/Shutterfly Kisses Photography/Orders/Jessica/img_1025
Desktop/Shutterfly Kisses Photography/Pricelists/PortraitPricelist-My costs
etc.

wish i had better storage of my photos especially my son....SOOOOOO SOOOOO many files and yet only labeled if major event....hard to go back now and remember the date for certain pictures that were just snapshots without an event labeled .... need to find a better way to organize his photos and

I did download Google's Picasa recommended by a fellow club member) and it took forever to scan everything and I don't know how it is labeled, categorized, etc.....too overwhelmed to go figure it out....

don't get much printed right now but about 10 a year since I am SAHMommy with limited funds....

trying to get better about labeling event even if just snapshots

[loraksus]

I should note that my system with the dashes and spaces can cause problems, especially if you're going to be linking them or tossing them online. Sometimes they get detected as smileys, sometimes the links just break because the spaces screw up on websites. Sometimes you get "%20"s, sometimes not. Sometimes %20 will work, sometimes not.
It looks good on your own computer of course, but all sorts of problems can happen online.

shutterbug3070's date convention (i.e. 20081007) is a much better idea and is one that I've started using online.
I would use the format YYYYMMDD and do all numerics, since that makes sorting alphabetically easier / possible within any filesystem.
Saving dates, etc, in metadata can be problematic, especially if it gets screwed up.

[mcbit]

I use the following naming scheme

yymmdd description XXX

which makes it easy to force chronological order wherever the files are viewed

Files are stored in folders named by category :Work: :Family: :Landscapes: etc....

Since the first version of Adobe Bridge I have been using the 'Batch Rename' feature to easily & quickly rename files to this format. I now work, like Mr.P., in LR and love its organisational, filter and search features. At first I was a little disappointed as it appeared that LR would not allow me to rename files using an identical scheme but have since found that there is excellent customisation underlying the top level interface. I use LR for just about everything now apart from perspective changes and pixel editing.

[alan sh]

I group mine by type of shot (holidays, days out on the bike, family stuff etc). Inside each, I have a folder for each activity of that type. Under that, I either put my files into JPG & RAW folders or, if it's a holiday, I generally have another folder for each day.

I do not rename my photos unless I work on them. The originals always stay as they came out of the camera.

I have around 50,000 pictures and so far, that has worked for me

Alan

[JimH]

Create Folder: %Path%%to%2008/YYMMDD (then ad suffix _1, _2, etc if multiple shoots that day)
Open LR and create new catalog in new folder above
Import with LR creating custom file name YYMMDD_HHMMSS (make sure multiple cameras have time/date sync's before shoot), assign current meta profile, assign keyword(s).

[Take12]

Apple's iPhoto sorts/groups photos by (editable) event (date) fully automatically. The user doesn't need to do anything!

[brian.austin]

Originally Posted by JimH

Create Folder: %Path%%to%2008/YYMMDD (then ad suffix _1, _2, etc if multiple shoots that day)
Open LR and create new catalog in new folder above
Import with LR creating custom file name YYMMDD_HHMMSS (make sure multiple cameras have time/date sync's before shoot), assign current meta profile, assign keyword(s).

You create a new catalog for every shoot? That seems extreme.

[Rense]

take a look at this thread

[brian.austin]

Originally Posted by Take12

Apple's iPhoto sorts/groups photos by (editable) event (date) fully automatically. The user doesn't need to do anything!

So iPhoto reads my mind? Gasp!

Lightroom, Bridge, and Elements Organizer can all do the same thing.

[Take12]

Originally Posted by brian.austin

So iPhoto reads my mind? Gasp!

Of course not, brian. How could iPhoto read what isn't there...?

[JimH]

Originally Posted by brian.austin

You create a new catalog for every shoot? That seems extreme.

Yep - a new one for every shoot. Yeah, I know, if you back it up and it corrupts you can restore the back up. Blah, blah, blah. Storage is cheap and I like fast. Would much rather restore a catalog by shoot then one big one from all of them. To much left to chance for me - YMMV.

[brian.austin]

Originally Posted by Take12

Of course not, brian. How could iPhoto read what isn't there...?

I suppose it would mean something if I actually used a Mac...

[brian.austin]

Originally Posted by JimH

Yep - a new one for every shoot. Yeah, I know, if you back it up and it corrupts you can restore the back up. Blah, blah, blah. Storage is cheap and I like fast. Would much rather restore a catalog by shoot then one big one from all of them. To much left to chance for me - YMMV.

I just checked. My LR catalog is 255Mb with 24000 images. I optimize about once a month.

I'm sure it would be faster to divide them up but I'm just too lazy to do it. I don't feel I'm waiting too much due to speed issues, though.

[Sparc]

I rely completely on keywording and using Apple's powerful spotlight searching as well as Aperture's Smart Filtering. I'd never remember where and when I took a photo of a cornfield two years after I shot it so folder names don't work for me at all. The only pain in the arse is that I hate keywording.