Finding photos

[JimAuburn]

To me this is the achilles heel of digital photography: finding photos once you've taken and stored them. You end up with thousands upon thousands of images on your hard drive, and most cataloguing programs rely upon YOU to tag the images so that you can find what you're looking for later. Tagging, of course, is program-specific, so even if you take the time to tag files in one program, if you later find a better cataloguing program, you're out of luck so far as finding your files is concerned, or you have to retag every damn file.

Plus the tagging process itself is laborious and time-consuming and consequently most people, I suspect, never do it. So what you end up with is a hard drive full of files with names such as x03d8234.jpg, and there's no way in hell that several months later you can quickly find a photo you want.

How do you solve this problem? I'd love to find a better solution.

[Rense]

Tag while your a downloading from CF-card.

Breezebrowser puts the tags in a external file (xmp) with the same name as your original image file or in the IPTC fields of the imagefile self, so nothing program specific here.

The good catalog programs (like idimager, imatch) also let you export the keywords to a system neutral format.

To make the tagging even easier, you can use a controlled vocabulary.

[mikman]

I always put the photographs on to my hard drive the day I've taken them. I then name the folders by the date and often put a one-word description behind it.

For example, it'll say "5.9.09 - Amsterdam" or "10.8.09 - Paintball". For me, that's usually good enough. All my better photographs, the ones that I've edited and that I considered 'finished', go into a special folder that also contains subfolder for different topics or subjects, such as "Portraits" etc.

[korman]

Originally Posted by JimAuburn

How do you solve this problem?

I rename my files automatically after download from IMG2345.* to 20091023-2345.* That solves most of the sorting problems in a directory browser.

Then I add the pictures bunch-wise to the proper albums or directories. That's usually quite quick, because I rarely have a memory card with 200 wildly different pictures. Mostly they all fall into one or two categories (like "Vacation March 2009 - Detroit" or "Aunty Milly's 90th Birthday").

Last I add a few keywords to them in a batch like location and things that apply to most.

That's pretty quick and is good enough for the first pass.

Later on, if I really care I'll add some more detailed keywords for pictures I care about. After a little birding, most pictures will have for example the keyword "Bird", but only a few will have better ones like "Great spotted tit". Sure, sometimes the keywords aren't totally correct, and better ones for all would be desirable, but for the invested time it's a good enough solution.

Korman

[aam1234]

I do the same as mikman.

[brian.austin]

Originally Posted by Rense

Tag while your a downloading from CF-card.

Same here. Lightroom keeps previous tags so you can just click to add rather than retype (mistype or use a plural when your previous tag wasn't).

Works so far.

[Arved]

I realized this would be a problem from the very start of my digital photography "career." I knew I needed a database. They now call them "DAMS" - Digital Assett Management Systems. At the time, Photools IMatch was the best available, and I've used it ever since. It's probably been eclipsed by other applications by now.

Be warry of products produced by one-man-shows, like iMatch. The developer is so busy providing support for his product, squashing bugs, answering questions, and adding support for newer cameras, that he has little time to actually develop a better product. "Version Management" or "Version Control" was promised in iMatch's next major release. Well, it's been 8 or more years (I've given up count), and we still don't have it, but we're still in the 3.x series release, too, for all these years.

There are a few sites that have done reviews and comparisons of DAMs. One I suggest looking at is ImpulseAdventure - Comparison of Digital Photo Catalog Software

[Douglas]

I usually just dump them in a folder and rename the folder to whatever my subject is. Like Hockey Oct23, or something. But I dont shoot that much, unfortunatly, for a system more complex then that.

[cyclohexane]

Good, searchable IPTC information. Something like Photo Mechanic makes it quick and painless once you get the hang of it.

Of course, it's not quick and painless trying to go back and catch up on all the years I wasn't doing it.

[Max@Home]

From Day One (or was it Two ??) I use Breeze's DownloaderPro ($ 30 a year) to
(a) download my files from card,
(b) rename them in 'cameraname-b'-original name
(c) put JPG and RAW files in different subfolders under a
(d) main folder in the the 'Y-M-D - Event' format, that sits under a Cameraname-a/Year/Year-Month/ main structure

EOS 5D2/2009/2009-10/2009-10-23 - Camelhairs/CR2/5d2_mg-2345.cr2

If I shoot 'multiple events' in a day, I (manually) make more day-folders, if I shoot an event with multiple cameras, the subfolders are named the same, and contain the extra info 'MC' (that I put there) so I know I should look 'elsewhere' to images from the event too

RAW folders are then separated in RAW and RAWBest, RAWBest gets 'developed' to JPG and sits in a DPP or PSE or PSCS or LR subfolder, depending on the RAWconverter used, also under the 'main event' folder.

...€0.02...

Kindest regards!

Max@Home

[20DNewbie]

Same as milkman except I burn them right to DVD when I'm done these days. I didn't used to burn them, then last month I decided to dump some inactive stuff from my hard drives and low an behold I freed up over 22+GB just from photo folders.

That reminds me, I need to defrag.

[ms2thdr]

Hi I'm new here but I think this is a place I can drop into. For me I do similar to korman. I download with Lightroom into a folder that reads YYYY_MM_DD_Place and all the images get renamed to that name with a sequence number attached. I also do a gross keywording of the import with the place and maybe the subjects. I just came back from 2 weeks in Hawaii and over 7000 images I couldn't keep track of them otherwise.

[Mike_PEAT]

Originally Posted by mikman

I always put the photographs on to my hard drive the day I've taken them. I then name the folders by the date and often put a one-word description behind it.

Another vote for this, except I may use a few words...it's easiest and doesn't require any additional software.

My files already include the date as part of the filename, so I don't need to rename them.

If I do different subjects in one day of course I put each group are in a different aptly named folder.

[freeload]

I had a huge mess of photos in different folders, duplicates and all that jazz.
I was/is using Google Picasa to organize the pictures, but what helped me the most was an exif sorter, like Amok Exif sort. I now have my files in a YYYY\YYYY-MM\YYYY-MM-DD structure. (Reason for YYYY-MM-DD is that Picasa shows the folder name)

Now I use Amok to copy from the SD-card to my network drive, sorting on the fly.

In Picasa I try to tag as many pictures I'm capable of - an the face recognition in the lates version also helps out.

[Joves]

Im old fashioned. I just categorize the photos when I load them by subject. Granted it isnt the streamlined way but, it works.

[moxi1]

Hi there,

I do it similar to Joves the last caller. I have many different subjects, like fauna and flora, those are subdivided into the appropriate category i.e. Sea Birds, Mammals etc..
Once I download a card ( at least once a week) I delete the crap, name the pictures and drag them into th categories. That seems to work for me.
I think it is important NOT to keep everything and only the good images.

Cheers Moxi1

[korman]

Originally Posted by moxi1

I think it is important NOT to keep everything and only the good images.

I think, this is the key to improvement. For amateurs, if in doubt, throw it away and do it better the next time.

Korman

[Max@Home]

Originally Posted by moxi1

I think it is important NOT to keep everything and only the good images.

Originally Posted by korman

I think, this is the key to improvement. For amateurs, if in doubt, throw it away and do it better the next time.

...doesn't work for *me*, I wanna learn from my mistakes...

...€0.02...

Kindest regards!

Max@Home

[Mr Mikey]

I make a folder with the days photo subject, I do add a date to the end if i have other similiar folders. once done I also copy this folder to my external back up drive even before any editing is done.
Being an amateur photographer, I tend to save the bad with the good photos, this has proven worthwhile on a few occasions when I have gone back to the same location and reshot it, comparing the photos has been a good learning method for me, especially with the progression of better cameras over the years, I can see the difference in cameras/lens as well as what I have improved upon.
This does tend to take up more storage space though.

[Joves]

Originally Posted by Max@Home

...doesn't work for *me*, I wanna learn from my mistakes...

...€0.02...

Kindest regards!

Max@Home

I have to agree! Fact is I have a file called Screwedthepooch for the ones I messed up. This is especially true when Im using a new camera and, finding out how to use it to get the best out of it. What I really love about digital is no more notebooks since the exifs tell me everything.