How do you keep your images organized?

[DWJ]

Between my land shots and my scuba shots I have several thousand images hanging around on my hard drive. I typically have them organized by very general category.
This would be like “Grand Cayman Feb 04” or by what ever function I’m attending.
The problem is that I’ll be looking for that perfect shot of a Blue Tang I know I have. I’ll spend an hour browsing through Bahamas images or the Cayman images looking for that special shot. So I’m due for a reorganization.

How do you keep your images organized so you can locate them quickly?

Dave

 

[doctormike]

Between my land shots and my scuba shots I have several thousand images hanging around on my hard drive. I typically have them organized by very general category.
This would be like “Grand Cayman Feb 04” or by what ever function I’m attending.
The problem is that I’ll be looking for that perfect shot of a Blue Tang I know I have. I’ll spend an hour browsing through Bahamas images or the Cayman images looking for that special shot. So I’m due for a reorganization.

How do you keep your images organized so you can locate them quickly?

Dave

iPhoto.... if you have a PC, you can strap it to your BC and use it as weight after you buy a Powerbook...!

 

[Gilligan]

This is what I have done so far without buying any other software programs.

1. I keep a folder on my desktop marked Volume 3 (or whatever number I am up to). I have another folder in that folder marked "Thumbnails".
2. I keep a backup of that folder on my external hard drive.
3. After a dive day I create a folder on the desktop with that day's date, for example 06-01-04 then download my pics to that folder. I download the folder from the camera and a duplicate set then delete the ones from the camera chip. I then go through them and delete the ones I don't want.
4. I re-number the keepers starting at #01 and I ad a prefix in front of the numbers to represent the date such as 060104-01 etc. I use a freeware program called Rename4u by Kelly Software to do the re-numbering and prefix addition automatically.
5. I then make low res thumbnails of the pics with an "Action" in Photoshop that automatically makes the thumbnail, puts it in the "thumbnail" folder in the Volume 3 folder, then closes the pic.
6. I then send a backup to the external hard drive.
7. When the Volume 3 folder reaches close to 700 MB I burn a CD ROM of it and a backup one as well. I also leave another backup on the external hard drive. I found this procedure better than adding folders to a CD ROM day to day.
8. Mark the CD ROM with the Volume number and the "from" and "to" dates.

When you need to loacte a photo you have to look through the thumbnails, which open rapidly as they are low res and smaller files, then locate the corresponding original.

Other than something like the above I think you have to invest in a program that would locate pics from typing in key words. I'm not spending the time on that.

 

[ChrisM]

Here's a sketch of what I do......I dive a lot, like Gilligan (not as much...), so I end up with a lot.

1. Create a new file in XP with the date, i.e. "May 31, 2004"
2. Review files from card in camera on screen, delerte obvious suckies
3. Copy all pics to dated file
4. "Select all", and rename with that date, that gives me "May_31_2004", "May_31_2004(1)," (2), etc.
5. Make two backup Cds. Keep in separate locations. Each CD is labeled by month, i.e. "May 2004" Add pics from other days in May as appropriate

6. In PS, select pics for editing (make sure you sort by dte and not number). Save with identifier, i.e., "May_31_2004(30)_Garibaldi." Save one copy as a TIFF and create one copy for web, resized with copyright info

7. At some point, delete all pics not chosen for editing, including jpegs of those edited.

8. Add TIFFS or PSDs to appropriate CD (I don't add smaller jpegs for the web usually, since they are simple to recreate, plus anything printed is coming from the TIFF/PSD)

8. All my good pics are on my website. If someone sez I wan't a copy of "X" pic, I just pull up the properties, and it tells me the date, number and subject of the pic. Go to tht CD, strip off a copy, and voila!

More or less

Chris

 

[alcina]

Good timing as several of us have just been tossing this around again.

I don't use dates for my filing system for my underwater stuff...I can never remember if that striped crab was on a drift in January or February. I save my originals and the EXIF data is stored with them if I ever need it. What I want to be able to do is find things or have my DH be able to go into the system and find something if I need it and am away - critter names work better for me. This is for my day to day, local shooting. When I go somewhere else or shoot something else (like a birthday or wedding or whatever) those images go in a clearly marked file.

I have just started a new system to try to make more sense for ME. YMMV.

I download into a file "monthyear"

I rename the originals and add details in the Windows box when you right click the image. The "simple" area lets you put in whatever you want AND is searchable. The "advanced" area has all the camera data. These get transferred to my "originals" folder which then has subfolders inside - clownfish, sharks, mantas, eels, nudis etc...

I also save all originals that I keep as psd files using an action in PS. These automatically get saved in the PSD file and I manually drag them to the appropriate file as above...

Any work I do is saved to another folder and titled appropriately.

So I end up with three files of images. I recently burned a DVD of this year's images as a backup and need to do another soon.

Hmmm...seems a lot of work when I write it down and I may have forgotten some things...but so far it seems to work better and I have less clutter from my most recent dives than from my earlier dives...now to get all the earlier images dealt with!

 

[justleesa]

I was just telling a friend how I do it...This is how it goes:
I have a folder for the month/year i.e. 05May-2004
In that folder I have a folder for every day dated as follows so they always stay in the right order 05-12-2004. In each folder I have an original and a processed file.
After processing I go back and customize each folder with a picture, not just any one, but that real special one from that day to help my memory. (see attached photo)
Once the month is over I DL the photos to CD i.e. May 04 disc 1 to how ever many I need to get the thru the month. I note the dates that are stored on the CD (a-duh). Then I use my extensis portfolio program. I make a file for each CD and DL a thumbprint of all the processed photos.
You can refine it and enter a key word or two so that when you run a search it will limit the display i.e. Fish, Cozumel and x number of photos will appear. When you made your selection it will tell you which CD it's on and when you put the right CD in and click the thumbprint the picture will open.

Now for my stock photos, only the really good stuff, for scuba or surface photography I store in topic related folders - Fish, frogfish, Corals, Which ever wreck ....etc. All I need to do is go in there and get what I want....I need them way too often to take them off the computer.

 

[ReyeR]

• Make a folder in the following format: yymmdd_divesite
• Copy all the photos into that folder
• Burn these folders onto 2 CDs
• To catalogue I use a nifty software called 'The Print Shop Photo Organizer'. This software used to come free from a photo printing store I used to use for developing my film rolls. They would digitize the photos and provide this application on a CD. This software allows you to catalogue using albums, keywords and classifications. I haven't been able to find this software on the net.

 

[Winton]

If your looking for a software recommendation, I have had good luck with "Compupic Pro", I don't have the volumes of photos the pros here do, but I like it. It runs about $100, it will create the thumbnails for you and automatically generates a system similar to what "Gilligan" has recommended; his system looks like a thorough method for safely storing pics with easy access. If your not going to buy an application, the thumbnail thing makes sense for quick identification. I do have iphoto as well, an older version and find the compupic a much slicker arrangement. Are you familiar with WWW.CNET.com ?, it offers downloads, trial versions and product comparisons along with user reviews, maybe someplace to start?

Winton

 

[fpoole]

Wheww... let's get organized eh?

I do the following, but will change parts after looking at the details above:
-PS Batch Download, Save As .psd, Rename, into Named Location folder ex:
Edmonds Underwater Park for June 2, 2004 would be:
eupk040602_xx
(1st letter of each word and last letter of last word - date by yymmdd to allowing sorting by years first.

I set up an "Auto batch process" in Photoshop to transfer from camera to hard disk folder. For multiple day's disk, I add a letter to the number sequence like xxxx_axx next _bxx to keep them separate.

I then pic the ones I want to work with, do a Sava As keep the same file name but add an "m" to the end to identify it as "modified". Work the magic, get it ready for final copy. Once ready or done processing, I'll do another Save As in .jpg and replace the "m" (for modified) to an "s" for small - .jpg

I will then create a gallery using PS which generates my thumbnails, pictures all sized in .jpg format and put them in a folder WITHIN the location named "Gallery" I can then just upload the gallery to the web sites as needed. It already has the thumbnails to ID the pic if needed.

The file naming I used allows me to keep them all together and show what's been modified or not.
I now have the
- orginal in .psd format
- Modified copy in .psd format
- Simple/small copy in .jpg format to send out e-mail etc...

Backed up on an external drive and working on the CD back up too... believe I'll keep in "Location" ID for each disk and add to is as I go along, subject to change.

Probably left something out, but that's how it is for now..
I do have the Cumulus Organizer, but have yet to really figure out how to work it...

Till the next batch...

 

[doctormike]

Wow... SO much work... seriously, iPhoto (while it does have some flaws) has been great for this particular application. Makes it EXTREMELY simple to upload, sort through, store and catalog photos. Too bad Apple hasn't released it for Windows (like they did with iTunes).

I have thousands of photos in iPhoto, the new version (4.x) is very fast and makes it easy to sort by date, film roll, any number of keywords, albums, etc... no problem exporting in numerous formats. I have used it to make a nice presentation book (one of the built in features). Another thing that I do is make a small (320x240) quicktime "slide show" of the best few photos from every dive. I then just put this into my Filemaker Pro dive log for the corresponding dive... makes the logbook more memorable..!

Any heavy editing is done in photoshop (iPhoto supports using this as the standard editor), or you can use the built in editor for most common adjustments.

If you are near an Apple store, drop by and have them show it to you (http://www.apple.com/retail/). I recognize that people have a lot of issues with switching platforms, but this is one of the things that just might tip the balance...