Posted by Greg Smith on February 23, 2010 at 12:59 PM
So for my first post and question/s I would like to address the topic of organizing ones Photos. I currently have a 1TB hard drive with bays for more, and two external hard drives. On one of the external drives I have thousands of Photos that are scattered around in no particular order - it's a mess. Obviously I've not taken the time to organize in part due to the fact that up until recently I've had no direction or planning in which way I intend to go with my Photos. Now that I do I'm trying to come-up with a plan but need some advice.
I have numerous different areas I focus on when out shooting, those being in part: Landscapes - Wildlife - Historical Buildings and Locations - Abandoned Mines and Towns - Abandoned Ranches - Indian Rock Art - Sunrises & Sunsets - etc. - etc. I shoot mostly in RAW and those I intend to keep and Process I convert to Tiff and then on to JPEG depending on what I intend to do with the Images. If I ever get to the point where I sell my Photos they may have to be re-sized for printing. And then of course all of these Photos have been shot in different locations and down the road I may not remember where, (unlikely but possible).
So my question is, if you were me how would you go about organizing your Photos so that they can be quickly found at a later time? It's a question that I've been thrashing around for some time and can not come-up with a clear solution for. I look forward to learn how you would do it.
Greg
Nevada
Posted by David Graham on February 23, 2010 at 1:36 PM
Greg,
I've been an active photographer since the age of 7...thats 63 years ... and I'm still looking for the best system of image organization. Until 2000, when I went digital, I was one of the "Hell, I jus' KNOW where it is...and can probably find the negative if given enough time" school of image organization. Now, with the veritable explosion in the cyber volume of images I can only say that the best decisions I've made were: 1.) to shoot in RAW, 2.)to fully maintain RAW image files, and 3.) to keep to a rigid calendric filing system. Every image keeps its date and frame # and every day's folder contains sub-folders labeled as to subject, location, caption, theme, and whatever other rubrics may be deemed memorable and pertinent. And "memorable" is better than "objectively accurate" in the long-run in my opinion. There are a variety of other "special purpose" folders containing tiff files (from the RAW originals) to serve different purposes...to be worked up for printing at home, those in prep for professional printing lab, for the web(as jpegs), for the several digital picture frames that serve as convenient "portfolios", for album prints, for submission to camera club contests, to be submitted as entries to judged or juried shows, and so-forth. Most important is to realize that only you know what folder topics are or will be important to you.
There's nothing very specific here, and maybe nothing that's very helpful at all, just one guy's approach to the eternal quandary of any visual artist!
Best regards, and a belated welcome to this list. Can't begin to tell you how much I've learned from it since joining only about a year ago.
Dave Graham, East River, SD
Posted by David Graham on February 23, 2010 at 1:39 PM
Greg,
I've been an active photographer since the age of 7...thats 63 years ... and I'm still looking for the best system of image organization. Until 2000, when I went digital, I was one of the "Hell, I jus' KNOW where it is...and can probably find the negative if given enough time" school of image organization. Now, with the veritable explosion in the cyber volume of images I can only say that the best decisions I've made were: 1.) to shoot in RAW, 2.)to fully maintain RAW image files, and 3.) to keep to a rigid calendric filing system. Every image keeps its date and frame # and every day's folder contains sub-folders labeled as to subject, location, caption, theme, and whatever other rubrics may be deemed memorable and pertinent. And "memorable" is better than "objectively accurate" in the long-run in my opinion. There are a variety of other "special purpose" folders containing tiff files (from the RAW originals) to serve different purposes...to be worked up for printing at home, those in prep for professional printing lab, for the web(as jpegs), for the several digital picture frames that serve as convenient "portfolios", for album prints, for submission to camera club contests, to be submitted as entries to judged or juried shows, and so-forth. Most important is to realize that only you know what folder topics are or will be important to you.
There's nothing very specific here, and maybe nothing that's very helpful at all, just one guy's approach to the eternal quandary of any visual artist!
Best regards, and a belated welcome to this list. Can't begin to tell you how much I've learned from it since joining only about a year ago.
Dave Graham, East River, SD
Posted by David Graham on February 23, 2010 at 1:41 PM
Sorry for the double-post. Thought I was just doing an edit on my previous post.
Mea culpa maxima est!
Dave Graham in East River, SD
Posted by Bill Pelzmann on February 23, 2010 at 2:49 PM
Greg, it appears that you would benefit greatly by looking into one of the image management programs such as Lightroom, Aperture, etc. Until Lightroom was released I was perfectly happy managing my landscape images in a file/folder system organized by State/Location/Date. I still maintain that physical file structure, but there is so much more that can be done with good image management software.
I store ALL files for each image in the same folder, unless they are special purpose files that will be deleted and can be easily regenerated.
I have 50,000+ images (~ 1TB) that I store on a 1.5 TB external drive. Lightroom handles this easily.
These are backed-up regularly on a second 1.5 TB external.
Less frequent backups are on older, smaller external drives stored offsite.
And, as a last resort, the original RAW files are written to DVD.
Be sure to include backups into your workflow. Hard drives WILL fail.
FYI: Lightroom is due for a major new release within the next month or two.
Posted by TACHE@PA.NET on February 23, 2010 at 2:54 PM
Greg,
I'm going to second Dave's comments and add this: buy Lightroom.
Let me see if I can walk you through the process. Lightroom, in addition to its editing (developing) capabilities, functions as a giant database. That helps.
Now, you have to design your database. What is your first order of sorting? In my case, it is a general category--mammals, birds, wildflowers, lichens, etc. Lightroom's labels field provides me a place to lay out that primary sorting criteria. There is also a field for location. It sounds like that might be a good primary sorting. Either way.
Then you get the ability to "grade" your photos with stars--for me, that is 1, which is reference only, through 5, which makes me feel like Guy Tal.
The Keywords field is a good place to put down details that will help you find a specific picture later. If you keep a fairly small set, you can sort by the keywords.
I save the select and deselect flags for building groups of pictures for specific purposes. I tried using it for sorting, but it becomes difficult to remember why you selected a given picture.
Lightroom's Export functions will do your converting and resizing in batches. Converting an resizing can even be attributed to named export actions. For example, I have one that converts whatever I want to an appropriate size and sharpness for NPN. The only glitch to that is the naming function. That can be a frustrating process until you figure it out. If you get Lightroom, give me a holler at tache@pa.net and I will spend the time to try and explain it better.
P.S. If any of you Adobe folks are snooping around, you need an easy function key for the copyright mark and you need the capability for at least three labels to support nature photography--four would be better. The ability to label a five-star photo of an Ebony Jewelwing as Insect, Odonata, Damselfies, Jewelwings, in addition to the species' common and scientific name in the keywords, would be deeply appreciated.
Posted by Greg Smith on February 23, 2010 at 3:07 PM
"John"
I've been mulling over getting Lightroom to accompany PSE-7. Isn't there a newer version due out soon, or is it already out?
"John"
Thank you for your reply as well. Organizing can be a challenge but it's so very important.
Greg
Nevada
Posted by Greg Smith on February 23, 2010 at 3:08 PM
Sorry "Bill" thank you for the Lightroom suggestion.
Posted by Jim DeWitt on February 23, 2010 at 5:12 PM
You didn't say whether you use a Mac or a Windows computer. If you are Mac based, at least evaluate Aperture. I prefer it to Lightroom.
There have been reams of info written about digital asset management (DAM). One of the first things you need to do is to create a folder system on your computer that makes sense to you. It could be by year, by category, or some other criteria.
Next, purchase a DAM application. There are several out there, like Light Room, or Aperture, but a true DAM program will likely serve you better in the long run. I have just installed ID Imager Pro. I am in the very early stages of learning to use it, but it appears to be very robust. ID Imager Home Page
I suggest that you research to learn about DAM, organize your file system and then find the program that meets your current and expected need.
--P
Posted by Luke Ormand on February 23, 2010 at 7:17 PM
I can't be certain because I have never used Light Room - but I believe Adobe Bridge does the same thing for managing files. You can rate them, tag them, stack them, access them etc. It's also great for previews and for loading files into Adobe Camera Raw.
When I upload images to my computer, I convert them to .DNG files (because I have CS3 with the new D300s which isn't backward compatible). I then open up the folder I put them in using Adobe Bridge and preview my images rating them all and opening the ones I want with Adobe Camera Raw before working on them in Photoshop.
As for my file system, it's broken down myself into categories of wildlife (birds, insects, marine mammals, etc.) as well as water bodies, plants, photoart etc. etc.
- Luke
Posted by Greg Smith on February 23, 2010 at 8:16 PM
Jim - I recently built my own PC/Windows 7 System to be used strictly for Photography.
Preston - I'll read-up on DAM - thanks for that info.
Luke - PSE-7 that I use has an organizer but it has it's problems - Lightroom has been highly rated
for DAM from what I've read about it.
Thanks everyone for your responses. I think I'm going to be very glad I became a member here. WOW - what a difference from another site I'm a member at!
Posted by Ed Cordes on February 23, 2010 at 8:22 PM
Greg, this is a "MUST" do for you. Everyone will have their own twist to it. However, you must organize. I have all my images filed under the year they were made. Within that folder I have the images stored by upload date and as I up load them I re name by the date of upload. Of course the meta data has the exact date and time the image was made. If I have a large number of images from a trip I create a folder named for the trip, but still store it within the year. For instance 2009/Florida 2009/file number.
I also strongly suggest you buy Lightroom. This program will allow you to key word each image and search for it later by the key word. LR stores thumbnails for your browsing on your main drive, but allows you to have the originals on any HD you want. You can right click and find the location of the original any time you want, then turn on the appropriate drive to retrieve the image.
I typically store the current year's images on my Tower's HD with a back up to an external. I have all my images (all years') additionally backed up to another HD and that additionally backed up yet again on drives that I bring to work for off site storage. The off site storage acts as a safety in case of disaster to my home system.
Hope this helps.
BTW, while Bridge can key word and search, it can only show thumbs of files in HDs turned on and selected. LR lets you view all of your thumbs whether or not the HD is on or accessable.
We're using a "dual" management system, left over from our days before Lightroom, but incorporating the management system we've used the last 20 years in our studio. That's because we're using disc backup in addition to drives.
I've not done all the naming and keywording I should for Lightroom to manage files on drives, so at present it's barely limping along.
But in addition to the drives, we need disc backups in our threatening climate and environment. We have long used file cabinets in the studio to hold discs from all shoots organized by client name and date along with all the paperwork from each shoot. It's been natural to continue that process with discs from our nature shoots, but organized by location, subject and date. That's proved handy and provides a feature you don't get with Lightroom or any other DAM- a way to keep all paperwork for each shoot with the images- everything from brochures to maps. I've not brought Lightroom up to speed, simply because I'm still in the habit of grabbing discs and any needed paperwork from the file cabinets.
Posted by Greg Smith on February 23, 2010 at 10:21 PM
You guys are great, thanks for your responses. It looks like I've got my work cut-out for me.
One more plug for Lightroom here. I am not a pro, and I'm not a real computer geek either, but I found it fairly intuitive. You can select by flags, stars, colors, keywords, etc. It's a wonderful tool. Once you begin using it to manage your files, you have to remember to access them through LR all the time. I made a mistake of having several "catalogs" of images in LR, one less complete than the other, and had to re-process a bunch of images...but again...I'm not a computer geek. I had also imported folders from my camera into Windows and then had to import them into LR, and then realized I should just use LR for all management of files and create new folders from within it, not through Windows explorer, etc.
On organization: Even with all the sorting systems in LR, I still have a fairly complex folder structure that involves categories and locations: Birds (not a specialty so catch all is fine), Butterflies, Macro Bugs (that's my technical term;-), Mammals, Crater Lake, Mt. St. Helens, Prineville sunsets, Mt Hood Alpine, Mt Hood in the City, Mt Jefferson, Friends, Pets) but inside those categories, I have folders by date of capture. I like this system so far, but it does require me to create an additional date folder when I have birds and landscapes from the same day, which is not uncommon. I use LR to export web posting size photos, smugmug uploads, etc. and these stay stacked with the original.
BTW, there are several very nice upload plugins available for a donation. I have one that uploads directly to facebook, one for photobucket, and one for smug mug.
Posted by Greg Smith on February 24, 2010 at 11:07 AM
Thanks to all for your continued input. About Lightroom: The latest version is Lightroom 2 but I seem to remember reading that there is a newer version due out, (or perhaps it's already out), is this true?
Posted by Bill Pelzmann on February 24, 2010 at 1:34 PM
The Beta version for Lightroom 3 was released last October.
You can download and test it now for free. However, they strongly warn that this is a test and Adobe will not guarantee your work will transfer to the final release version.
The final LR 3.0 should be available in the next few months. I have not seen an official release date.
Posted by Mel Ladewig on February 24, 2010 at 8:20 PM
In my day job I work on databases with 30,000 tables, some containing millions of rows. I like to let the database work for me.
In the case of image processing I like a database driven organizer. Lightroom is certainly a good and powerful tool, but Adobe Photoshop Elements (after version 3) has a really useful organizer as well offering nearly all the organizational features of Lightroom. You can keyword tag an entire import set in an instant. For the most part I dump all my images into one folder and use lightroom's synchronize feature to keep everything in order.
When I import an image into the organizer, I tag it with the relevant information and use features like stars and color tags to organize images. Then I can recall the image using queries combining fields like keyword and date to access the image I'm looking for.
One caveat. When doing this you need to make sure both the images and the catalog are backed up, or that you use XMP sidecars with your images and back them up. Without those components you can loose your metadata.
Mel-
Posted by David Edwards on February 26, 2010 at 5:15 PM
I use Lightroom and use the Metadata Library Filter to sort my images from each folder. I have one folder per major location, eg Yuraygir National Park. When I import my images I add 'Location' info to the metadata, eg Red Cliff, Back Beach etc, so I can then use the Metadata Library Filter to find my shots easily. I typically have the four Metadata Library Filter columns set to -
* Date
* Location
* Lens
* File Type.
This way, I can filter using any of these things to find the images I'm after. There are many more metadata options you can use as your filters as well. I don't use keywords, I found they got out of control and confusing for me.
Discussion
19 repliesI have numerous different areas I focus on when out shooting, those being in part: Landscapes - Wildlife - Historical Buildings and Locations - Abandoned Mines and Towns - Abandoned Ranches - Indian Rock Art - Sunrises & Sunsets - etc. - etc. I shoot mostly in RAW and those I intend to keep and Process I convert to Tiff and then on to JPEG depending on what I intend to do with the Images. If I ever get to the point where I sell my Photos they may have to be re-sized for printing. And then of course all of these Photos have been shot in different locations and down the road I may not remember where, (unlikely but possible).
So my question is, if you were me how would you go about organizing your Photos so that they can be quickly found at a later time? It's a question that I've been thrashing around for some time and can not come-up with a clear solution for. I look forward to learn how you would do it.
Greg
Nevada
I've been an active photographer since the age of 7...thats 63 years ... and I'm still looking for the best system of image organization. Until 2000, when I went digital, I was one of the "Hell, I jus' KNOW where it is...and can probably find the negative if given enough time" school of image organization. Now, with the veritable explosion in the cyber volume of images I can only say that the best decisions I've made were: 1.) to shoot in RAW, 2.)to fully maintain RAW image files, and 3.) to keep to a rigid calendric filing system. Every image keeps its date and frame # and every day's folder contains sub-folders labeled as to subject, location, caption, theme, and whatever other rubrics may be deemed memorable and pertinent. And "memorable" is better than "objectively accurate" in the long-run in my opinion. There are a variety of other "special purpose" folders containing tiff files (from the RAW originals) to serve different purposes...to be worked up for printing at home, those in prep for professional printing lab, for the web(as jpegs), for the several digital picture frames that serve as convenient "portfolios", for album prints, for submission to camera club contests, to be submitted as entries to judged or juried shows, and so-forth. Most important is to realize that only you know what folder topics are or will be important to you.
There's nothing very specific here, and maybe nothing that's very helpful at all, just one guy's approach to the eternal quandary of any visual artist!
Best regards, and a belated welcome to this list. Can't begin to tell you how much I've learned from it since joining only about a year ago.
Dave Graham, East River, SD
I've been an active photographer since the age of 7...thats 63 years ... and I'm still looking for the best system of image organization. Until 2000, when I went digital, I was one of the "Hell, I jus' KNOW where it is...and can probably find the negative if given enough time" school of image organization. Now, with the veritable explosion in the cyber volume of images I can only say that the best decisions I've made were: 1.) to shoot in RAW, 2.)to fully maintain RAW image files, and 3.) to keep to a rigid calendric filing system. Every image keeps its date and frame # and every day's folder contains sub-folders labeled as to subject, location, caption, theme, and whatever other rubrics may be deemed memorable and pertinent. And "memorable" is better than "objectively accurate" in the long-run in my opinion. There are a variety of other "special purpose" folders containing tiff files (from the RAW originals) to serve different purposes...to be worked up for printing at home, those in prep for professional printing lab, for the web(as jpegs), for the several digital picture frames that serve as convenient "portfolios", for album prints, for submission to camera club contests, to be submitted as entries to judged or juried shows, and so-forth. Most important is to realize that only you know what folder topics are or will be important to you.
There's nothing very specific here, and maybe nothing that's very helpful at all, just one guy's approach to the eternal quandary of any visual artist!
Best regards, and a belated welcome to this list. Can't begin to tell you how much I've learned from it since joining only about a year ago.
Dave Graham, East River, SD
Mea culpa maxima est!
Dave Graham in East River, SD
I store ALL files for each image in the same folder, unless they are special purpose files that will be deleted and can be easily regenerated.
I have 50,000+ images (~ 1TB) that I store on a 1.5 TB external drive. Lightroom handles this easily.
These are backed-up regularly on a second 1.5 TB external.
Less frequent backups are on older, smaller external drives stored offsite.
And, as a last resort, the original RAW files are written to DVD.
Be sure to include backups into your workflow. Hard drives WILL fail.
FYI: Lightroom is due for a major new release within the next month or two.
I'm going to second Dave's comments and add this: buy Lightroom.
Let me see if I can walk you through the process. Lightroom, in addition to its editing (developing) capabilities, functions as a giant database. That helps.
Now, you have to design your database. What is your first order of sorting? In my case, it is a general category--mammals, birds, wildflowers, lichens, etc. Lightroom's labels field provides me a place to lay out that primary sorting criteria. There is also a field for location. It sounds like that might be a good primary sorting. Either way.
Then you get the ability to "grade" your photos with stars--for me, that is 1, which is reference only, through 5, which makes me feel like Guy Tal.
The Keywords field is a good place to put down details that will help you find a specific picture later. If you keep a fairly small set, you can sort by the keywords.
I save the select and deselect flags for building groups of pictures for specific purposes. I tried using it for sorting, but it becomes difficult to remember why you selected a given picture.
Lightroom's Export functions will do your converting and resizing in batches. Converting an resizing can even be attributed to named export actions. For example, I have one that converts whatever I want to an appropriate size and sharpness for NPN. The only glitch to that is the naming function. That can be a frustrating process until you figure it out. If you get Lightroom, give me a holler at tache@pa.net and I will spend the time to try and explain it better.
P.S. If any of you Adobe folks are snooping around, you need an easy function key for the copyright mark and you need the capability for at least three labels to support nature photography--four would be better. The ability to label a five-star photo of an Ebony Jewelwing as Insect, Odonata, Damselfies, Jewelwings, in addition to the species' common and scientific name in the keywords, would be deeply appreciated.
I've been mulling over getting Lightroom to accompany PSE-7. Isn't there a newer version due out soon, or is it already out?
"John"
Thank you for your reply as well. Organizing can be a challenge but it's so very important.
Greg
Nevada
There have been reams of info written about digital asset management (DAM). One of the first things you need to do is to create a folder system on your computer that makes sense to you. It could be by year, by category, or some other criteria.
Next, purchase a DAM application. There are several out there, like Light Room, or Aperture, but a true DAM program will likely serve you better in the long run. I have just installed ID Imager Pro. I am in the very early stages of learning to use it, but it appears to be very robust. ID Imager Home Page
I suggest that you research to learn about DAM, organize your file system and then find the program that meets your current and expected need.
--P
When I upload images to my computer, I convert them to .DNG files (because I have CS3 with the new D300s which isn't backward compatible). I then open up the folder I put them in using Adobe Bridge and preview my images rating them all and opening the ones I want with Adobe Camera Raw before working on them in Photoshop.
As for my file system, it's broken down myself into categories of wildlife (birds, insects, marine mammals, etc.) as well as water bodies, plants, photoart etc. etc.
- Luke
Preston - I'll read-up on DAM - thanks for that info.
Luke - PSE-7 that I use has an organizer but it has it's problems - Lightroom has been highly rated
for DAM from what I've read about it.
Thanks everyone for your responses. I think I'm going to be very glad I became a member here. WOW - what a difference from another site I'm a member at!
I also strongly suggest you buy Lightroom. This program will allow you to key word each image and search for it later by the key word. LR stores thumbnails for your browsing on your main drive, but allows you to have the originals on any HD you want. You can right click and find the location of the original any time you want, then turn on the appropriate drive to retrieve the image.
I typically store the current year's images on my Tower's HD with a back up to an external. I have all my images (all years') additionally backed up to another HD and that additionally backed up yet again on drives that I bring to work for off site storage. The off site storage acts as a safety in case of disaster to my home system.
Hope this helps.
BTW, while Bridge can key word and search, it can only show thumbs of files in HDs turned on and selected. LR lets you view all of your thumbs whether or not the HD is on or accessable.
I've not done all the naming and keywording I should for Lightroom to manage files on drives, so at present it's barely limping along.
But in addition to the drives, we need disc backups in our threatening climate and environment. We have long used file cabinets in the studio to hold discs from all shoots organized by client name and date along with all the paperwork from each shoot. It's been natural to continue that process with discs from our nature shoots, but organized by location, subject and date. That's proved handy and provides a feature you don't get with Lightroom or any other DAM- a way to keep all paperwork for each shoot with the images- everything from brochures to maps. I've not brought Lightroom up to speed, simply because I'm still in the habit of grabbing discs and any needed paperwork from the file cabinets.
Greg
Nevada
On organization: Even with all the sorting systems in LR, I still have a fairly complex folder structure that involves categories and locations: Birds (not a specialty so catch all is fine), Butterflies, Macro Bugs (that's my technical term;-), Mammals, Crater Lake, Mt. St. Helens, Prineville sunsets, Mt Hood Alpine, Mt Hood in the City, Mt Jefferson, Friends, Pets) but inside those categories, I have folders by date of capture. I like this system so far, but it does require me to create an additional date folder when I have birds and landscapes from the same day, which is not uncommon. I use LR to export web posting size photos, smugmug uploads, etc. and these stay stacked with the original.
BTW, there are several very nice upload plugins available for a donation. I have one that uploads directly to facebook, one for photobucket, and one for smug mug.
You can download and test it now for free. However, they strongly warn that this is a test and Adobe will not guarantee your work will transfer to the final release version.
The final LR 3.0 should be available in the next few months. I have not seen an official release date.
In the case of image processing I like a database driven organizer. Lightroom is certainly a good and powerful tool, but Adobe Photoshop Elements (after version 3) has a really useful organizer as well offering nearly all the organizational features of Lightroom. You can keyword tag an entire import set in an instant. For the most part I dump all my images into one folder and use lightroom's synchronize feature to keep everything in order.
When I import an image into the organizer, I tag it with the relevant information and use features like stars and color tags to organize images. Then I can recall the image using queries combining fields like keyword and date to access the image I'm looking for.
One caveat. When doing this you need to make sure both the images and the catalog are backed up, or that you use XMP sidecars with your images and back them up. Without those components you can loose your metadata.
Mel-
* Date
* Location
* Lens
* File Type.
This way, I can filter using any of these things to find the images I'm after. There are many more metadata options you can use as your filters as well. I don't use keywords, I found they got out of control and confusing for me.
All the best,
David.