questions about organization

[AndyH]

I am in the process of reorganizing my photos. Do you all keep a copy of all of your original photos and then put the edited ones in the same folder? Or, do you overwrite the originals once you edit it? Also as far as uploading pics to the web for storage and photo sharing, do you keep them full size or shrink them down? Also any other ideas or tips for organizing?

Thanks

 

[Polyphony]

I have folders for originals and edits. I also have folders for jpegs, tiffs, and raws.

 

[pbelarge]

I actually have separate exterior hard drives for my originals, and the edited versions. Hard drives are relatively inexpensive. I keep one copy of my originals and edited versions in a locked fire safe in the lower portion of my house.

As of this year, I keep each years files on a separate hard drive for that year.

 

[Josh66]

I have a separate folder for originals (RAWs), and all edits go into 'My Pictures'.
(With various sub-folders...)

RAWs are sorted by date/file number, edits are sorted by subject.

edit
I treat film scans the same as edits - they get sorted by subject. The originals (my negs) get sorted chronologically in a binder.

 

[ann]

I tend to work in project mode, so i have a folder with orginals, a sub folder for work files (not every image gets worked on) and then a subfolder for prints.

Back up copies are made for 4 external drives, one of which is kept off site , except for updating.

 

[KmH]

I save all my image files: RAW, PSD, TIFF, JPEG. Memory is cheap. I have it all organized as a database so it is easy to draw images from a wide range of file sources.

Good netiquette requires photos be sized to display on a maximum number of monitors without the need to scroll, so no larger than 800 pixels on the long side.

For what it's worth, if you need more screen real estate to view a photo in a browser, you can always toggle the F11 key.

 

[Overread]

My method is as follows:

1) A single harddrive for photography only in the computer (you can of course use your regular computer drive along with all your other data, I just find it easier for sorting and backup)

2) Inside that I keep each "event" or photographic shoot in a separate folder. These I title with a brief name and the date that the shoot took place (sometimes I might not get photos into the computer right on the day so noting the date in the title helps).

3) Inside that folder I put all the photos from the shoot - in my case I shoot RAW so its a folder of RAW files (later once edited this folder also holds the RAW processing details files)

4) Each time I process a RAW I save it as a PSD (photoshop save format, though TIFF can also be used) and I save those into a "keeps" folder inside the main folder for that shoot event. I use the PSD because it keeps my layer details and also does not lose data like JPEGs will so its good to come back to touchup editing if needed.

5) For the internet I also keep a few folders inside the keeps folder - 1000pixel JPEGs, 100% crops - in the past (before I used flickr with its auto resizing codes) I also kept other pixel dimensions for different sites.

When it comes to backing up these photos I try to keep things simple and backup the whole archive manually to two external harddrives. This does mean that I end up with a lot of originals and backups of dud shots, but I prefer to keep a complete archive of things ( plus it saves me ages of having to delete shots)

 

[Josh66]

For what it's worth, if you need more screen real estate to view a photo in a browser, you can always toggle the F11 key.

Cool! New trick to add to the bag...

Didn't know of that short-cut before...