How do you organize your library?

adversus · Aug 7, 2010

Of photos, that is.

I use Aperture, so it manages my files for me, which I'm happy with. I'm talking more about projects vs. dates.

I've seen a lot of folks extol the virtues of keeping photos by date, and others by subject and/or project type. I've been doing by subject, but now that my library is approaching 100gb and 10k images, I'm finding it's getting a bit too unwieldy.

So, how do you manage your library?

1. Split by date?
2. Split by subject/project
3. Something else?

fokker · Aug 7, 2010

I tried arranging folders by subject matter in windows explorer for a while, but it was horrible really. It just gets way to hard to find what you're looking for, and if you have more than one subject it becomes confusing. I moved back to organizing by date, and let lightroom take care of seearching by subject matter by tagging keywords on the shots.

Josh66 · Aug 7, 2010

adversus said:
So, how do you manage your library?

1. Split by date?
2. Split by subject/project
3. Something else?

A little bit of everything for me.

My RAWs are organized by date. Folder structure is something like this:

My Pictures > RAWs > 2010 > 08-2010 > 08-06-2010

My JPGs are organized by subject. Like this:

My Pictures > People > Sarah > Playground
-or-
My Pictures > Holidays & Parties > Christmas 2009 > B&W

You get the point. The RAWs seem best organized by date, because that how I look at the in Lightroom. The JPGs, the date doesn't necessarily matter. The way I have them set up, any picture I want to get is very easy to find.

Sam6644 · Aug 8, 2010

I actually just use iPhoto... which is lame, but I like how simple it is.

It's not very streamlined in my workflow but I like the way it imports and organizes everything for me. I don't like lightroom and aperture (I'm a control freak with my files and I can't stand them doing stuff in the background for some reason)

My photos are all organized into iphotos "events" and then listed by date. It's integration into the rest of OSX is pretty nice.

Box801 · Aug 8, 2010

Year>Event>jpgs/raws

sovietdoc · Aug 8, 2010

i just import everything into LR by date, and then I make collections based on content

a single photo can be in multiple collections

Morpheuss · Aug 8, 2010

I organize my stuff by the subject matter and the place

Boomn4x4 · Aug 8, 2010

First by year, then folder names all start with the date and then a short description.

2010 > Jul04_Party_At_Parents

or

2010 > Aug03_County_Metro_Parks

For browsing pictures, I use Picasa.

Gaerek · Aug 8, 2010

I'm simple. It's just year/month/date&event. Makes it very easy to find what I'm looking for. That's just for my RAW archive. For anything I edit, it's more organized by subject. I probably need to go through and change how I do things there.

Stormchase · Aug 8, 2010

i have only been at this for a little over a year now but ...
i have canon photos folder in windows explorer and
animals
birds
bugs
people
family
ect.
Within that i have it by date. It does get a little confusing when there are 2 or more subject matters. If i do a shoot that will have a lot of different subjects i make a new folder for that (Disney Animal Kingdom) wich will have many subjects. After i make sence of that folder i might break it down into the others but it one of two folders so its not to bad. if its one i really like i find it right away.

Taylor510ce · Aug 8, 2010

I typically tag files in Adobe Bridge with keywords. Then I leave them in dated folders. All edited pics (typically for printing or forum posts ) go to a folder I have marked as Forums, or a print folder that is made up of print size folders. I typically only tage and mark the RAW and .PSD files because depending on my DPI and my sizing, I change up the sharpening and blurring. As of now, I do not organize the edited files to deeply. Since I am constantly getting better at Post Processing, I feel that when I actually begin making any money on them ( knock on wood ) I am going to re-do the full edit so that its up to par.