How do you organise your photographs?

v0n

v0n

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
8,130
Location
The Great Lines Of Defence
I used to use ACDSee32 in the old days, but then it got bloated and weird and I had to spend few minutes every time I started it on sorting out plugin issues and the darn thing trying to watch all the video files and movies on my hard drive, so in moment of anger I uninstalled it and I liked Lightroom beta, but import function in retail version is broken under Vista. I tried Irfanview but it doesn't install properly in vista either. So I use Picasa, even though it won't resize when "export resizing" from a folder containing files smaller in size than what you are trying to resize the whole lot to. Sigh... there is no perfect solution.
 
Associate
Joined
21 Feb 2003
Posts
1,348
Like this, and I use Nikon View to look at them all.

Photography drive -> Camera model -> genre (e.g. wildlife) -> species (e.g. birds, mammals) -> then the photos.

Works the same for all types of photography. I don't really see the point in doing things by date etc as I'll forget the dates after a while. I keep the folders as basic as I can so that its quick and easy to find everything. Now I can find any photo taken with any of the camera's I've owned within a few seconds.

All I do do is if I'm on holiday I'll have a folder called, for example, Mull 2007. The within that I'll have a 'best shots' folder and after that everything else will be in the folders the camera put them in when I took the shots.
 
Soldato
Joined
1 Sep 2005
Posts
10,001
Location
Scottish Highlands
v0n said:
I used to use ACDSee32 in the old days, but then it got bloated and weird and I had to spend few minutes every time I started it on sorting out plugin issues and the darn thing trying to watch all the video files and movies on my hard drive, so in moment of anger I uninstalled it and I liked Lightroom beta, but import function in retail version is broken under Vista. I tried Irfanview but it doesn't install properly in vista either. So I use Picasa, even though it won't resize when "export resizing" from a folder containing files smaller in size than what you are trying to resize the whole lot to. Sigh... there is no perfect solution.

You see your problem there is not Lightroom, Irfanview or Picasa.... its vista! Get rid of it, and come back to old XP. ;)
 
Caporegime
Joined
1 Nov 2003
Posts
35,691
Location
Lisbon, Portugal
I do it all manually, just so I know where everything is.

I store all my pictures on a seperate hard drive, backed up to my external drive.

I store it like this...


2007 ---> Category, e.g. cars, holidays ---> then event with date.

Off the top of my head I have one called

F:\350D\2006\Motorsport\Motorcross World Championship\(Date)+(Location)

another is

F:\Canon Video\2006\Motorsport\Motorcross World Championship\Date+Location

Spelling it out completely allows for fast easy navigation.
 
Last edited:

Deleted member 651465

D

Deleted member 651465

Is anyone in to renaming their photos?

I renamed 2 folders from my University graduation and a previous holiday (taken with 1D MK II n and Sony point-and-shoot respectively), but since going on holiday to Cyprus recently I don't know if I can be bothered to rename 60 odd photos :(

Main purpose of renaming before was so that the images could be easily found in Spotlight on my mac (for editing later), but since this thread goes on about organisation I thought i'd twist it a little.
 
Soldato
Joined
1 Sep 2005
Posts
10,001
Location
Scottish Highlands
EVH said:
Is anyone in to renaming their photos?

I renamed 2 folders from my University graduation and a previous holiday (taken with 1D MK II n and Sony point-and-shoot respectively), but since going on holiday to Cyprus recently I don't know if I can be bothered to rename 60 odd photos :(

Main purpose of renaming before was so that the images could be easily found in Spotlight on my mac (for editing later), but since this thread goes on about organisation I thought i'd twist it a little.

Since I normally take 200-500 pics a day when im out with my camera.... erm, no! :p I would be here all year if I was to. If I did want to do something like that, again I would use Lightroom to add keywords, and arrange them in albums.
 
Associate
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
1,682
Location
Wolverhampton UK
I use a secondary disk with a folder called Pictures, then a folder for each year.
Every time I transfer photos I create a new folder in the current year with the title for the pictures, for example 'Bodnant Gardens'.

I currently use Google's Picassa2 for managing everything as it's so quick and convenient for most things as well as being free.

Until you get more involved with your photography, I would suggest you give it a try, for entry level photo editing with a wealth of easy to use features, I doubt it can be beat.
 

Deleted member 651465

D

Deleted member 651465

Don't get me wrong I've got hundreds of named folders which contain photos of processed work (Photoshop) that aren't renamed. Just wondered if anyone bothered naming shots individually.

As for Lightroom.. I tested it as a beta and found Photoshop + Bridge CS3 to suit my needs when it comes to editing pictures and arranging by metadata so I doubt I'll get the final Lightroom now (didn't like it anyway)
 
Associate
Joined
21 Mar 2004
Posts
638
Location
Dorset
SilverPenguin said:
Like this, and I use Nikon View to look at them all.

Photography drive -> Camera model -> genre (e.g. wildlife) -> species (e.g. birds, mammals) -> then the photos.

I also use Nikon View and filed by All Photos, Year and Subject. Trouble is with Nikon View I can't view edited images that aren't saved as jpegs eg psd. Any way round this (other than always saving as jpegs!). Is Irfanview better than Nikon View? I don't even use a Nikon camera but preferred their software to Canon's!
 
Soldato
Joined
26 Nov 2003
Posts
6,674
Location
East Sussex
I just this second ran out of patience with picture project.
Up til now it has been fine, but it adds only some pictures from an import to a collection - and I want them all in a collection in the software so I can easily go through by date.
But noooooOOOOOooooOOOooooo. Stupid program ><

Adobe Lightroom @ $300 can kmfa too.

Any free and decent alternatives JUST for transfer and organising?
 
Soldato
Joined
1 Sep 2005
Posts
10,001
Location
Scottish Highlands
Helium_Junkie said:
I just this second ran out of patience with picture project.
Up til now it has been fine, but it adds only some pictures from an import to a collection - and I want them all in a collection in the software so I can easily go through by date.
But noooooOOOOOooooOOOooooo. Stupid program ><

Adobe Lightroom @ $300 can kmfa too.

Any free and decent alternatives JUST for transfer and organising?

Picasa
 
Associate
Joined
23 Jul 2006
Posts
12
I've got a partition (D:/) just for photography, then in that I have:

D:/<year>-<month>-<day> <one or two word description>
For example, D:/2007-06-05 Sunset.

Within each folder, I have a RAW folder for (surprisingly!) CR2 files, then I use Rawshooter to whack all the converted TIFFs in a subfolder of 'RAW'.

At the same level as the RAW folder, I have a PSD folder, for full size, edited images, and a 'Web JPEG' folder for resized/bordered images ready for online use.

So, essentially, it's D:/<year>-<month>-<day> <one or two word description>/<file type>/<loads of photos>
 
Soldato
Joined
1 Oct 2008
Posts
12,466
Location
Designing Buildings
Sorry for this shameless bumping of a topic.

So far I've just been just saving my pics to one of my storage HDs, under images / camera images / date taken.

The problem I've got or think i may have is when I've been taking photos at the football I'm rattling off about 200 images just for anything up to a dozen decent shots over the 90 minutes. So space can be eaten up pretty quick. I'm not sure whether just to bite the bullet and delete the other 180 odd pics or leave them there for now?

I'm sure I'll get things more organised at a later date :(
 
Associate
Joined
29 Feb 2008
Posts
1,173
Location
Nottingham
Delete unwanted photos. No point keeping out of focus shots if your never going to use them. Most people will keep 1 for every 5 taken if your lucky. Best thing about digital is it costs nothing to take more photos than you need!
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom