organizing your pictures on your comp

DeepSpring · Sep 17, 2006

As I am starting to get more and more pictures, my computer is becoming a holy mess of files. Right now in My Pictures I have a folder for Photography and then inside that I have folders for portraits, still life, and so on. It sounds ok but then I end up with the .psd file and the jpeg and often several different versions of the jpeg and its getting a bit messy.

How do you organize your stuff to keep everything nice and neat and easy to find?

I want to try and get a system set up before I have so many pictures it will take a year to place them in the right place.

Tolyk · Sep 18, 2006

DeepSpring said:
As I am starting to get more and more pictures, my computer is becoming a holy mess of files. Right now in My Pictures I have a folder for Photography and then inside that I have folders for portraits, still life, and so on. It sounds ok but then I end up with the .psd file and the jpeg and often several different versions of the jpeg and its getting a bit messy.

How do you organize your stuff to keep everything nice and neat and easy to find?

I want to try and get a system set up before I have so many pictures it will take a year to place them in the right place.

Personally I keep all my originals saved by in folders which state the year and month I took them, and regularly back them up onto CDs whenever I have enough to justify the backup. (or I use a re-writable CD over and over until I've filled it up, then burn them to a regular CD.. just in case my comp fries.. Sometimes it pays to be cautious after all), and any modified versions I have the same filing system for, aside from the backing up, unless I really don't want to go through the hassle of the edits again.

So, mine looks something like this:

c:\photography\originals\2006-07

or

c:\photography\edits\2006-07

I'm sure it's not the best method, but I've never bothered to come up with something better.. it works. Though, I rarely even use my digital camera these days.

DeepSpring · Sep 18, 2006

That system makes more sense in backing up everything because it is easy to see what has been burned because it's all listed by photo session you could say. I was planning on getting another external hdd strictly as a clone drive for wherever i save my pctures so that shouldn't be a problem, burning the right ones.

They really need an iPhoto for windows

hovis · Sep 18, 2006

I do something similar - I have a main folder for (say) an event or date, then a sub folder where all the RAW files go, another sub folder for the finished large images, and a third for the finished small (web sized) ones. I have a separate gallery folder for stuff that I'm going to share / print (the ones I really am proud of). I have one PC that is dedicated as a file server, with a 130G Raid drive to keep things protected, but still do CD backups every 3 months or so... Keeps things straight...

rmh159 · Sep 18, 2006

Something else worth considering is a DVD burner. Newegg.com usually has decent deals on them where you can get a drive for $50 or less. Much easier to use DVD-RW's than CD-R's.

I use a similar method where I date each folder and then put a breif 2 - 3 word description of the event. RAW files I seperate though so I can burn them and then delete them easier. Also any file I edit ... I just Save As and put a letter at the end. So DSC123456 is the original DSC123456a is after basic editing (Levels and Curves) DSC123456ab is with some type of affect. Works for me.

I know there are other programs out to do this type of thing but I've use Adobe Lightroom (I think that's the name) and wasn't really impressed. Maybe I'm not using all of the features but I didn't really see any great value that it provided.

lorrir · Sep 19, 2006

My son races dirtbikes and I shoot at least 250 frames a weekend. My folders are listed by race name/venue and date. I have a folder for photos I resized for downloading to the internet. I also have an external hard drive and back up photos to CDs when I start to get full.

One of the most important things I have is a huge surge protector. I am more afraid of a power surge than my computer dying.

Hair Bear · Sep 20, 2006

I've been using iPhoto on the Mac but have just realised the Unix system its based on makes a lot of dupe files.

My hard disc filled up very quickly as I had an original folder with images, a retouch folder and then iPhoto would make a dube of the retouch as it was dragged in to the user window and a smaller thumb nail for the program.

I found the pref and turned this off but now have to go back and sort them all out!! Still winters coming <LOL

Big Mike · Sep 20, 2006

I also sort my images with folders listed by date of when shot or when I upload the cards. I have sub folders for Photoshop (working) copies and then folders for web and printing.

There are several programs you can use to tag or index your images to make finding them easier. Picasa seems to work fairly well.

kkart · Sep 21, 2006

DeepSpring said:
They really need an iPhoto for windows

Why? We have something better

IDimager (the lite edition is free) http://www.idimager.com/

XNview (One heck of a killer IPTC editing app and is free) http://xnview.com/

Both of these I use and are extremely powerful, if not complete overkill.

RCollins · Sep 29, 2006

There is a small but powerful utility named RoboFolder. It can help to easily organize several thousands photo collection. The major difference of the RF is you are able to see the instant preview of the resulted folder structure. You can make a decision or change your renaming template before transfer. One of the features I mostly like is ability to split my RAW files from JPEG one and writing my session info into the XMP for DNG files and into IPTC of for JPEG ones. Highly recommend.

JIP · Sep 29, 2006

What I would like to know is do the above programs or are there any programs that will grab all photo files on your computer and organize them. I have so many scattered photo files my screensaver is "my pictures" slideshow and I am constantly seeing photos come up and say to myself "where did that come from" I also have alot of dupes of different pics it would be great to get everything together to try and eliminate some of the dupes.

jacull · Sep 29, 2006

There is another thread under "Digital Discussion & Q&A" that you may find helpful. It is called "Digital File Organization"

fightheheathens · Sep 29, 2006

i store my photos by the date i took them.

If i go travel, then i store the photos by location and date. I probably need a better way though...

nyyphan · Sep 29, 2006

JIP said:
What I would like to know is do the above programs or are there any programs that will grab all photo files on your computer and organize them. I have so many scattered photo files my screensaver is "my pictures" slideshow and I am constantly seeing photos come up and say to myself "where did that come from" I also have alot of dupes of different pics it would be great to get everything together to try and eliminate some of the dupes.

Picasa will sort of do that. I've only used it for 2 weeks now, so I'm by no means an expert, but it scans your full computer (or if you want, you can select certain drives and/or folders) and you can organize them by date, or event. Its pretty easy to set up and get started, but the only downside I've found is its difficult to sort pictures (for instance, I had it scan then organize by date modified, yet I've got scans that are "read" as newer and I've saved in a folder for 2002, and they're put near the top.)

I have my directorys set up like this:

f:\pictures\
then folders for My Boys, Glacier Park, Wildlife, Cars, Tattoos, Weddings, Sunsets, and Misc., and in each of those, I have a folder for each year. It may not be the best way, but I've done it that way for so long, it'd be hard for me to change.

cal_gundert05 · Oct 30, 2006

I have a Mac and since I just got PS CS2 I won't be using iPhoto, so I wanted a filing system separate from iPhoto's.

In the "Pictures" folder, I created two folders: "2006-10" and "2006-11" (I just went digital this month, but Nov is coming up fast). This keeps the months in order (as opposed to using Oct, which comes after Nov alphabetically), as well as the years. I duplicated the photos I already had and then renamed them (001, 002, etc). If/When I edit a photo in PS, I'll save the edited version by adding "PS", "PS2" (for a second edit) to the end of the original filename (so there could be "001", "001PS", "001PS2", etc).

I love organizing/filing stuff, so I'm really excited about this!