How do you organize your digital photos?

[tirediron]

I am curious as to how others are organizing digital photographs on their computer. I don't mean which software you are using, but actually how you "file" them. I have mine in a system of layered directories with the top of the tree being the broadest categories (eg Nature, Travel, etc) and then gradually working down into subcategories (trees, sunsets, etc). This is workable, but it seems to me like there should be a better (more efficient) way of doing this....

 

[Hertz van Rental]

I think this should have been posted in the General Q&A section.
You are more likely to get a useful response there so I'm moving it.

 

[darich]

I have a folder on my hard drive called (rather imaginitively) "Photos". Within that folder i have subfolders. When i go a trip and download my images they go into a subfolder. I rename each subfolder with the date and location/theme. But because the computer doesn't know the date is a date (the pc thinks it's just a number) the chronological sorting is impossible. To get round this i use the following format 050710 (yy/mm/dd). Typing the date in this manner means the folders can be sorted chronological or date order. so my San Francisco folder is called "050301 San Francisco" since i was there at the start of March this year.
This way means i can see at a glance the date of the images and also the content or theme of that folder. When i have too many i move them onto a remote hard drive using the same naming convention. It also means i never have to worry about a folder having a duplicate name because even if both are San Francisco they'll have different dates.

 

[DocFrankenstein]

Same here... the basic structure is by date taken.

Then ACDSee allows me to file them with many characteristics, like rating, category, time... etc...

 

[Purified]

Haha.... um.... My photos are scatterd everwhere. No subfolders. Just 10 folders in random places that say either 'images', 'pictures', 'photoshopped' or 'originals'.

I am ashamed of myself. >.<

 

[mentos_007]

I have one partition for my pics on the disc. I have a folder there "photography" and subfolders "album 1", "album 2" and so on... whenever I download pics from my camera I name them for example: "sea", "wood" and so on and Ip ut them into "album 01" or higher. I create a new album when the previous one reach 300 MB. I don't catalogue the pictures into categories like nature or portraits. I just name them... for me it is ok.

 

[Artemis]

I use my brain, mine are simply sorted in the my pictures, under "300D" file
5 gig file is seperated by names such as "Artistic" "Abstract" and then the biggest folders being "Normal" "Normal2" and last but not least "Unsorted"
But ive never had trouble finding a picture...

 

[HoboSyke]

I just usually sort them by the date of the series of pics taken.. cheers.

 

[SLOShooter]

I have a photos folder. Within that are folders by date taken. I keep all the original files in these folders. Within each "negative" folder is a variety of folders marked "edits" "web" "print" yada yada. They contain post-processed versions of the "negatives".

I'd say the most important part of any ordering scheme is to keep your original files somewhere sepereate from your edits so that you don't change an original by accident and loose the ability to go back to it at some later time.

 

[Big Mike]

I also keep them in folders by the date, I use the date that I upload them off of the camera. I also have a bunch of files from CDs when I shot lots of film, those are in a 'Photo CD' folder and then sorted into dates or events.

Within the date folders, I have sub category folders. Usually a folder 'For Print' and another one 'For Web'. If I plan to work on an image I make a 'Photoshop' folder to keep the working copy of the image.

 

[bogleric]

I have mine organized inside a pictures folder catagorized by place and date in the subfolder name. I used to use Adobe PhotoAlbum but it took so much time to catalog them and I was organizing them on the hard drive anyways.

The PhotoAlbum is helpful if you want to find pictures of a person etc that wasn't normally keyed off the directory name. Like for a 50th bday, anniversary, award ceremony, etc.

 

[Islair]

I have a second hard drive on my computer that I store all of my music and photos. I have the same folder that everyone else seems to have and have it broken down into subfolders by my location and date. So I have a folder Hayward July 2004, Hayward August 2004, there is even one Hayward Late August 2004, etc. Everything goes by location and date. Even though I might take mostly landscapes during these trips and toss in a few portraits nothing taken in those folders is ever moved to a portraits file or a landscape file. It is just easiest for me to go by dates.

THEN....when I actually start printing enlargements I use a "printed" folder. That way when someone says "ohhhh I love that 16x20. Can I buy one?" It is easy to find.

Just go with what feels comfortable to you and that will work the best.

Laters,
Islair

 

[Jeff/fotog]

I keep them in files by topic or date, depending upon the importance of the 'topic.'

THEN BACK THEM UP TO CD.

Of course, Cd's have a shelf life too, but crashes only happen when you have the maximum number of good images on your computer.

www.jefferyraymond.com

 

[Meysha]

I do the same folder thing here by using the backwards date system on an external hard drive.
But I also have folders for the special procedures I do on certain photos. So I'll also have an (undated) folder for my duotones, my lomos, my unfinished PSD files, my finished PSDs, my wallpaper sized images, photos to print. (the last couple are more like temporary folders)

I keep my folder size under 700MB so I can burn them to CD, then when I'm using the cd I know which folder it is in on my computer.

Then finally, I have a little folder for TPF where I save a copy of the web sized pics I've posted here - so I don't double post them. Awww.

Software-wise, I use Picasa by Google. It's great. You can add keywords to the EXIF data and search for pics that way, but that's a bit of a pain if you've already got a large database of photos. I usually know roughly when I took a pic so I just scroll through the files by date until i see the thumbnail of it. I love that program. it's just great.