I’ve got a ton of digital pictures on my hard drive and I’m trying to figure out the best way to organize them. Because I used different methods for uploading them, there are several ways they’re currently filed. One program I used created a new folder by the date of the image, some I uploaded individual and threw them into folders by the event, and others were scans that I threw into folders labeled by the subject.Lastly, today I used the Microsoft wizard and it renamed all pictures (grrr!) and dumped them into the ‘Images’ parent directory.
I can’t decide on a good way to organize them consistently, so I’m looking for ideas. How do you organize your digital photos?
First you need a consistent manner of uploading your pictures.
Ever since I went digital (in 2004) I’ve followed a simple procedure:
Place memory card into a card reader. (Don’t use the camera.)
Open the folder (2007) on the dedicated external drive. Open the folder for the month (April) then create a new folder for the date. (04-27-08).
Open the card reader from ‘My Computer’. Drag and drop the images from the card to the HD. (Don’t use Wizards, Photoshop, or any other program. Drag and drop is the fastest.)
From there it’s a matter of sorting everything into individual folders for events, family, scenics, etc. For this I will COPY the images (not CUT, as I want to keep the originals in chronological order in a separate folder) and place them where they belong.
This is my system, it has served me well these last four years, but almost certainly the poster below me will belittle it. Meh. You asked for ideas, not ultimate solutions.
I drop mine into a folder like Postcards does and then make sub folders where I make copies and edit them down to the optimal size of where they will be shown (phone, computer, TV, digital frame, email, ect). Then I then make one subfolder in “My Pics” that captures the best edited ones of the event so that I can show people without making them go thru the 300 picture I took. Someday I’ll get into up loading them online somewhere, but for now I don’t bother with that too much right now.
Well, I should have stuck with the drag-and-drop method, which is what has worked for me in the past. I didn’t realize the Microsoft wizard was going to rename my files. That was irritating and I won’t be doing that again.
Main thing I’m looking for, though, is how you organize the files once you’ve uploaded them? Do you have a consistent convention that you use for all images? I mean, do you sort by event, subject, date, or something else?
I should note that I have been known to go overboard with directories and subdirectories, only to find that drilling down to the files themselves is a pain. I have a tendency to over-compartmentalize, if you will. (Sometimes, I wonder if I’m the only one that does that.)
If you don’t mind spending some cash (about $300) then Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is just about the best way to organise (as well as batch process and a few other things) your digital photo collection. There may well be some cheaper or free alternatives, but Lightroom is the best I’ve come across.
I have been making a new folder every time I empty the camera with the date YYYY-MM-DD first so they show up in chronological order, I.E. “2008-04-27 Six flags”. I have been using Microsoft’s built in scanner and camera wizard and it renames all the pics with the folder title then 001, 002, etc.
This works OK but could defiantly be improved upon.
Anyone else have the drag and drop problem of the pictures you take vertically coming out sideways. It’s not a big deal to go through and rotate the pictures, but having my videos come out sideways is kind of annoying. Any advice?
Well, even though your camera monitor may display the pictures you’ve taken vertically (i.e., ‘portrait’ style), they’re still stored horizontally, and will need to be rotated once they’re copied to your computer.
As for your videos, the same rule applies. Shoot your videos horizontally.
I would check out the program google aquired called Picassa. Its great you can tag photos but the people in them and have “smart playlists” kinda like itunes so one picture can be in more then one category
That is a **nice **application. I wish I had $300 to blow on it, but alas, the old drag-and-drop is going to have to do. Now, to organize my directories…
I think I’m going to start out with organizing by subject and event. The date organization (YYYY-MM-DD) was easy when the application I was using did that automagically, but now it just seems like a lot of meaningless directories.
And my only beef with the MS Camera Wizard was that it renamed my pics. I like the way my camera does that. Why would MS feel the need to change that (and use a stupid convention to boot*)? It didn’t even warn me it was going to do that. :mad:
My Canon Powershot A75 names image files: IMG_#### (or MVI_#### for movies), where the numbers represent the shot number. The camera remembers how many shots it has taken, even if I’ve uploaded and deleted them from camera memory. They sort just fine. The stupid MS Wizard renamed all of them: Picture ###, starting over again at 001. Even the movies are named “Picture”. It’s not that big of a deal, I suppose, but it’s damn presumptuous of MS to do that without warning.
I agree with this, although I use a slightly different method for organizing.
I have one folder for each year. Under that, I have one folder for each “batch” of photos (this used to correspond to a roll of film before I got a digital camera). Each of those folders is named YYYY-MM-DD Subject area, like “2008-03-22 Trip to San Francisco”. That allows me to view the folders in chronological order but still see generally what’s in the folder.
For each picture, my camera names the file IMG_xxxx.JPG (I don’t use RAW format). I modify the file name to be “IMG_xxxx description of photo.JPG”. This allows me to map each photo back to the original on the card (if I haven’t erased it yet) and also allows me to do a keyword search if I’m later looking for a photo with a particular subject. It also allows me to view a list of photos in the order in which they were taken.
I am sure that many programs offer good features for organizing your photos but generally they do so in some sort of proprietary database that doesn’t migrate well to other tools. That’s why I like keeping it simple using just the folder structure provided by Windows, and judicious file naming.
What’s the difference between uploading directly through the camera and a USB cable vs. using a card reader? I don’t have a card reader handy (I suppose I could dig one up), so I just plug the camera in.
It wears down the camera battery and is usually slower than the card reader. And if you’re like me (uploading every day) it’s easier to keep a card reader in one USB port rather then constantly tethering the camera. (I also shoot with three DSLRs, so desk space is at a premium.)
Call me old fashioned, but my preferred method is to select about one in every hundred pictures, have it printed, and put it in a photoalbum. The photoalbum allows me to keep a chronological index of events, it allows me to write captions/past in stubs/maps/programmes/dried flowers/notes; and just in general allows for better “memory management” in a more accessible and more time-proof way. What if your computer crashes? How likely are you to watch all those hundreds and hundreds of pictures again?
I use a program called RENROT to rename photos, and automatically (and losslessly) correct the orientation. It’s a command line tool, but pretty good. I’ve also done the same thing with Amok Exif Sorter.
I do the YY\MM\EVENT naming thing when uploading, then use RENROT to rename all the files to YYMMDD@HH-MM-SS_{SEQ} (where SEQ is a sequence number from 001), but not move the photos. I think it will automatically create a new tree based on year\month folders, but I am not sure. Amok Exif Sorter will do that.
What this allows me to do is to integrate photos from two or more cameras at one event into one folder and get all the photos in chronological sequence, as long as the clocks are the same. If they are not, I use DigiKam or Exifer to re-edit the Exif info to get the photo timestamps correct - I had to do this after buying a new camera in NZ and forgetting to set the time on our small camera from UK time :smack:
Yeah. I came here to recommend Picasa (single “s”). I installed it only recently and already I’m amazed how I could manage tons of my photos before. It’s so much easier. Word of warning, though. First time you start it and let it to scan your hard drive for pictures it takes long time. Long like some six or more hours in my case (two HD and lots and lots of pictures all over them). But once it’s done, you can find any photo within seconds and you can organize them any way you want - date, name, whatnot and do some other funny thing like adding captions or keywords.
Another recommendation for Picasa. It’s free and it’s excellent.
When I’ve taken photos I put a folder of the latest batch into “My Pictures”, appropriately named, and let Picasa do the rest. You can look at them by keyword, by folder, or by timeline/date taken, with comprehensive search facilities. It lets you upload to a Picasaweb account (free with Gmail) and process the photos for export into any format or size you like, but preserves the original photograph so you never lose anything. Lots of neat processing tools, and a really intuitive interface.