How do you keep your photo's organised ?

dayloon · 3 Aug 2006 at 19:40

I just wondered what utility or piece of software people here use to keep their digital photo's organised? I've got 1000's now and all are stored in seperate directories (based on year, month) but it's started to get a little out of control.

Valleyman · 3 Aug 2006 at 19:43

dayloon said:
I just wondered what utility or piece of software people here use to keep their digital photo's organised? I've got 1000's now and all are stored in seperate directories (based on year, month) but it's started to get a little out of control.

I use Adobe Bridge. It's about as good as I've found for organising photos and it intergrates nicely with Photoshop.

FreeStream · 3 Aug 2006 at 19:45

If it doesn't fit in a folder like "Airshows" It goes into a "Places" folder, with a more specific folder, then another folder with Location - Date.

Findind the one I want takes seconds thanks to Spotlight!

King_Boru · 3 Aug 2006 at 19:52

I use Nikon Picture Project. Split down to Portraiture, Landcapes, etc,... works fine for me

.

growse · 3 Aug 2006 at 20:43

I'm writing my own software to manage it.

nomore · 3 Aug 2006 at 20:46

I use Aperture.

Colin_da_Killer · 3 Aug 2006 at 20:48

I organise my photos in seperate folders on ym hard drive. With "Date - Venu" format.

Then anything I especially like from that folder gets copied into my Portfolio Folder with subfolders of "genres" like "Portraiture" "Landscape" "Nature" "Macro" etc etc.

I like my system it works for me.

Broadbandplacey · 3 Aug 2006 at 20:52

simply a folder per year, per month inside it, and a folder per shoot with a title

if i cant find it, spotlight will

SDK^ · 3 Aug 2006 at 21:03

One folder containing subject and date folders for current stuff and another one for backed up photos

It's worked so far for 30,000+ images

MichaelG · 3 Aug 2006 at 21:25

Many ways to skin a cat. (None of which are very popular with said animal)

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 3 Aug 2006 at 21:52

" Portfolio folder main folder
Subfolders
"portraits, Landscapes, studio, Events

Events folder contains subfolders of what event I went to photograph

somebodys wedding *name, month, year"
Motorsport event "title, month, year"
Party "names, month, year"

Something like that

nero120 · 3 Aug 2006 at 21:57

Okay, let me spice this up. How do people cope with RAWs? Do you store them seperately? Do you store a RAW copy and a JPEG copy of each pic? Do you keep all your RAW? Cmon people, cough up!

SDK^ · 3 Aug 2006 at 22:09

I separate the RAW files into a sub RAW folder within the subject folder and leave the small JPEGS as preview thumbs.

growse · 3 Aug 2006 at 22:19

I'm ditching the raw's at the moment, through lack of space. Also, not convinced they're 100% useful....

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 3 Aug 2006 at 23:13

mine is purely the RAW folders.

I used to have jpeg and raw only folders but this was back when using Adobe bridge and it was just ruddy anoying and time consuming getting to the files.

Psymonkee · 3 Aug 2006 at 23:19

/noob question

What is the RAW format and is there any real advantage?

growse · 4 Aug 2006 at 04:13

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAW_image_format

Basically, it captures the raw data which the sensor was exposed to, and therefore allows a much larger variation in things like dynamic range when post-processing before saving it out as a regular format. Downside is that they're huge files.

Alex53 · 4 Aug 2006 at 07:53

Similar to above. I have folders with the date in yyyy-mm-dd format and a description of each shoot eg. '2005-09-03 Breed 77 concert'.

The RAWs are all there and then sub-folders with the processed images, depending on the purpose, like 'TIFFS', 'JPEG large' or 'JPEG web'.

Whole drive gets backed up to external drive. (incremental)

PS: I equate deleting a RAW image to throwing away a negative.

-RV- · 4 Aug 2006 at 09:44

I use Photoshop Elements.

I usually create a Category for the Event & Date for example "RIAT 2006" and then tag the individual shots with specific subjects like "B1B Lancer". I then also Rate all the images 5 star being the best and 1 star being worthless.

Then to search for your best images for an event click 5 star and the event and then your done, simple!

Shimmyhill · 4 Aug 2006 at 09:47

nomore said:
I use Aperture.

I use Aperture aswell - interested to see how you organise yours within aperture.

Another thing i am not sure of is the library, seeing as it out all pics into 1 package how do you backup to dvd when the library is over 4.5gb ?

Before Aperture like most i had a year folder, then folders for the day pics where shot. I also had a work in progress and final image folder (still have these)