How do you manage your photos?

[DHR]

What applications are you guys using to manage your photos. I'm not using any software to do this at the moment but want to as i'm getting tired of making a new holder in my pictures, copying all the DSC0000 named files over and then not remembering if i've already done them or not!

I used ACDSee years back, is that still the standard?

 

[Pho]

I'm using Picasa at the moment. I can import directly from my card reader* and it sorts the folders out for me. Free too which is a bonus.

http://picasa.google.com/


*What realistically happens though is I dump all my photos in a folder on the desktop and forget to process them for weeks .

 

[Scam]

I use Adobe Bridge which reads a 'Nikon D50' folder which is all my RAWs/originals. Then i make TIFF and JPEG folders in My Pictures to which i save my processed versions. Not ideal really.

 

[ElDude]

I use common sense. I do actually own a copy of ACDsee, which is installed for viewing images, but I organise things myself. I guess that's what happens when you're from the age of DOS

It could be good for sorting, but I really don't want to let some program rename and sort all my images, especially when I only keep images I REALLY want to keep now (after a "huge" 7gb purge last month).

I like my way of sorting things. Canon folder with a Canon camera type sub folder, with unedited shots. Altered folder for the edited images, and another one named framed, for the web friendly ones. Oh, and another folder that has all of that in a rar file, which is kept on two drives

Strange being organised on a PC, when my room/life is a mess

 

[Craig321]

What applications are you guys using to manage your photos. I'm not using any software to do this at the moment but want to as i'm getting tired of making a new holder in my pictures, copying all the DSC0000 named files over and then not remembering if i've already done them or not!

I used ACDSee years back, is that still the standard?

Neat folders (as categories) work fine for me

Picasa seems pretty good, the one by Google.

 

[Johnny|lucidcomposure]

I pretend that I manage mine when really they just run a mock!

Its a never ending process that your never fully satisfied with.

 

[Fords]

My Pictures > Year > Date & Event

Works well for me RAW has caused a small problem with file sizes, but I try and ditch the rubbish as soon as possible.

 

[Deleted member 11679]

My Pictures > Year > Date & Event

Works well for me RAW has caused a small problem with file sizes, but I try and ditch the rubbish as soon as possible.

I agree with this, although I should really...as I wrote it under my girlfriends account by accident

 

[hp7909]

Using the (IMHO) excellent Adobe Photoshop Album. & its free too, see here

 

[Will_3rd]

use iPhoto naturally

 

[Shimmyhill]

Aperture for the DSLR with cats rather than shooting date.

Iphoto for my compacts and imported into rolls.

 

[Wile E. Coyote]

My Pictures > Year > Date & Event

Works well for me RAW has caused a small problem with file sizes, but I try and ditch the rubbish as soon as possible.

Similar for me except im not so good at tidying out the crap

 

[aumz]

I just do it myself with folders. Named by event rather than dates.

Now that I have moved onto DSLR I will add subfolders for any RAW files.

 

[TC1]

I use common sense. I do actually own a copy of ACDsee, which is installed for viewing images, but I organise things myself. I guess that's what happens when you're from the age of DOS

It could be good for sorting, but I really don't want to let some program rename and sort all my images, especially when I only keep images I REALLY want to keep now (after a "huge" 7gb purge last month).

I like my way of sorting things. Canon folder with a Canon camera type sub folder, with unedited shots. Altered folder for the edited images, and another one named framed, for the web friendly ones. Oh, and another folder that has all of that in a rar file, which is kept on two drives

Strange being organised on a PC, when my room/life is a mess

Thats how i do mine. I need to name all mine though. I am thinking of getting an ext Hard Drive to save them all onto with my Videos too.

 

[growse]

RAWs go into a working RAW directory, which RSE then looks at. Saved tiffs are then put into a second working directory, after photoshopping go into portfolio directory containing a dir for each shoot, labelled as date - title. Raws eventually get stored flat in a raw archive. I don't rename my final jpegs/tiffs so I can easily refetch the original raw image that made it.

Final viewing I use Extensis portfolio for the desktop, and my own code for web viewing. Although I'm still developing the latter

 

[Oxygen]

I dump everything taken into a file - Junk - with the date on it.

Sort it into subfolders under - events - month. That way I can have Chinese New Year - Feb - 2004 and so on.
Edited and Flickr folders for the online stuff sent to family and friends.

Everything gets copied to an external HD on a monthly basis for archive.
Now and then ( around 6 months ) I do burn the lot to a rewrite DVD and put on the shelf * just in case

When I get that DSLR, it might need a rethink for the RAW files

 

[SDK^]

I'm now using Adobe Lightroom as my photo management and editing tool.

I import RAW or JPEG files into Lightroom from my subject folder and apply custom Metadata presets & keywords to images. Once they are imported I go through and rate the images on a scale of 'rejected' or one to five stars. Once that's done I change the filter to 'only show rejected files' and delete all of them.

Lightroom's sorting and filtering is very powerful; there are hundreds of options to sort your images by, including 'by lens' which is useful if I only want to view images taken with my 17-40 or 100-400 etc…

I can then edit my images and output them to either file, web or print in the same application !!
The best thing though is that because Lightroom is a completely non-destructive editing environment - photographs are never changed. The changes you make are stored in metadata as a series of instructions, so, whether you are viewing them on screen, creating a web gallery, or making prints, Lightroom is simply applying those instructions to the original, untouched photo file. This means that any change applied to an image is 100% reversible at any time.

 

[growse]

choppage

How well does lightroom serve as just a gallery for flicking through images? I said above that I apply some settings in RSE currently and then do other things (borders, levels) is PS afterwards. Question is, can I use Lightroom as a general gallery viewer for final adjusted tiff/jpegs, or is it more a Raw editor/converter.

 

[nero120]

How well does lightroom serve as just a gallery for flicking through images? I said above that I apply some settings in RSE currently and then do other things (borders, levels) is PS afterwards. Question is, can I use Lightroom as a general gallery viewer for final adjusted tiff/jpegs, or is it more a Raw editor/converter.

I wondered the same thing - Im using the 1.0 30 day trail and it is perfect for not only manipulation of jpegs/raws, but also as a gallery too. Very quick and easy to use. Its the most fully featured photo library and manipulation tool I have ever seen. Go to adobe.com and get the trial version, you won't be dissapointed!

Edit: Link for the lazy: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/

 

[SDK^]

How well does lightroom serve as just a gallery for flicking through images?

Lightroom is pretty good for this, it takes a little longer to load than something like ACDsee but browsing through RAW files in Lightroom is much quicker than ACDsee.

Adjustments can be made to JPEGS in Lightroom, not sure about TIFF's though because I don't use them