How to organize over 10,000 photos totally out of order

[stonefam4]

Hello - I have taken over 10,000 pictures through the years and used to keep them pretty organized, but I've gotten so busy that I slipped into survival mode . . . that and I've switched computers several times. I know how to use software to organize photos (Bridge, Aperture) but does anyone have advice on how to clean up the mess I've created? I've got folders here and there, several different drives, etc. Goals:

• delete dups from backups (afraid to delete until I'm sure I've got them somewhere else)
• organize by events
• then, ultimately tag and move on, etc.

At this point I feel like I need to get out the ole paper and pen and start cataloguing what's where. Anyone else out there ever get to this point and figure something out? Would sure appreciate an efficient workflow suggestion.

You know what would be cool is if I could somehow dump them all into a folder (or app), sort and then start moving. Is that a possibility. Just don't know where to start.

Thanks bunches!

 

[IgsEMT]

captured time. I keep mine organized by folder name(events) yyyy-mm-dd-CI (Client' Initials)' filenames are yyyy-mm-dd-CI_###. ACDSee and LR do a great job organizing it that way.

 

[Big Mike]

I also use a file structure based on date. So I have folders for each year, then within those, I have folders for the date of either the upload or the capture date.
That is enough to give my system some structure.

I use Lightroom as my primary sorting & processing software. So in Lightroom, I add keywords to my images. This does involve looking through the images but I can easily select a group of images and apply the keywords to all of them. I can then use the keywords to search the images later.

 

[stonefam4]

Thanks for your reply!

I had heard about ACDSee. I'll check it out. Here's the deal though. I've managed to get folders of pics (many dups) here and there on my desktop, external drives, MBP, etc. and now I don't know what's where and I'm afraid to delete anything until I'm sure. I'm otherwise very organized but it's seemed to get out of control fast. I don't know about renaming over 10k files by date but that's a fantastic idea going forward. What would you think about moving all photos into one folder, sorting them by create date, deleting dups and then trying to drag-n-drop to organized files and then creating a new library in aperture or something. I don't know the answer so that's just a thought.

Other than that, I thought I could just create a catalogue of what's what and where and then pick it apart a little at a time.

Kind of at a loss....

 

[stonefam4]

I use Aperture. It's a little different than LR, but has similar functions. I need help getting my images back to their happy place, then I can move forward with a better system like you're suggesting. Based on your keyword suggestion, do you think I could (gulp!) import all images into Aperture, tag and keyword all of them (by grouping) and then start deleting dups and further organizing?

I just want to get everything back to two places: my MBP (via ONE app) and ONE backup drive. And maaaayyybe a cloud-based backup as well.

Thoughts????

Thanks for your help!

PS - oh, and just for fun, I've tortured myself further by putting images on my phone and iPad as well - creating further fragmentation.

 

[IgsEMT]

Well, GIVE your self probably half a day for it
move them all into one folder (PICTURES), sort by date (i.e 2010 folder, 2011),look it over and delete duplicates, take same-day pics, create a folder yyyy-mm-dd and place them in there - once all are organized, go into every folder and start renaming. For renaming, I prefer ACDSee b/c its faster then LR. Even client presentation, I think acdsee is better. Everything else for me, is LR.

 

[tirediron]

My structure goes like this:

Master directory: Photography

1st level sub-directories: Clients -- Personal

2nd level sub-directories: Weddings Nature
Dance Travel
etc etc

Each of those directories contains a sub-directory for each year and then a sub-directory with the image named with the date and location/subject. So, a wedding shot in 2010 for the Jones' would be: Photography -> Clients -> Weddings -> 2010 -> Jones_<Date>. Shots of eagles in 2009 would be: Photography -> Personal ->Nature ->Birds ->2009->Eagles_Goldstream_Park_<Date>. Individuals images are tagged with keywords using ACDsee to make searching for a specific image easier.

 

[stonefam4]

ACDSee Pro or Photo Manager 12?

Is Aperture no good at photo organization?

 

[Big Mike]

I don't know about renaming over 10k files by date but that's a fantastic idea going forward.

You don't need to rename the files...you just need to name the folders that they are in.

And unless you have copied over the original files, they should still have the creation or capture date attached to the file. So if you have 10,000 existing files, just set your file browser to sort them by capture date. Then just copy/move them into the folder structure that you have created.

 

[stonefam4]

Thanks Big Mike! I'll just stick to the (Mac) Finder solution for organizing and then import all into Aperture with a clean slate.

If it doesn't work, can I get a refund on your advice? LOL!

 

[KmH]

Busy wedding photographers can shoot 10,000 photos every month of the wedding season.

 

[stonefam4]

That is a very interesting reply KmH......... I look forward to applying that to organizing my library. Thank you so much!

 

[KmH]

The forum isn't here just for you. In fact, most of the people who visit TPF aren't members.

10,000 photos is not a large number of photos.

 

[DiskoJoe]

For my copies i leave the series number on the file that my camera generates and then add a title after that. this way they stay in order.

man, all you guys work to hard at this.

 

[fokker]

For my copies i leave the series number on the file that my camera generates and then add a title after that. this way they stay in order.

man, all you guys work to hard at this.

So, all your files are in one big folder?