That I am in need of some serious organizational skills. I need to stop saving *every file* I shoot and maybe save just half.
My mother just got her house re-painted and re-carpeted, so of course everything on the walls came down. She was putting one of my prints into another frame and put a nice big scratch/tear like 3-inches into it. She wants the same one again (I offered another because I don't know where that one is lol) -- but I guess I'm going to have to dig it up.
Maybe I should just put all the keepers into one folder...and just keep backing up as normal.
I am with you I keep everything I take. On the computer that is. Probably should delete some stuff or get a better organization program going. It is getting bad.
Picasa2 (free!) is handy for getting rid of photos. You can do a slideshow of your folder, mark the ones to delete with stars, select all stars, delete. Easy peasy!
I try to put everything into a series of descending folders that provides me with some kind of structure, but even that is going to be overwhelmed eventually...
Right now things are stored in folders as follows:
Year -> Month -> Event -> RAW Exports
Print
Web-Sized
In time, I will have so many images saved that I will be lost in a sea of images. The only thing that might save me is a large database that can support the storage of binary files... That way, I could at least start labeling images, describe them and make an indexable, searchable system to easily locate and relocate images.
Any of the photo ortanization tools can help but they all take discipline in tagging and forethought in how you will tag and search. I played with several and ended up using the organizer that comes with Photoshop Elements 3.0 since that is the editing tool that I use. Photoshop Album is very similar in functionality to the organizer in Elements.
put the picture number or name on the back of the photograph... that way hopefully that will remain intact
Originally posted by deapee:
That I am in need of some serious organizational skills. I need to stop saving *every file* I shoot and maybe save just half.
My mother just got her house re-painted and re-carpeted, so of course everything on the walls came down. She was putting one of my prints into another frame and put a nice big scratch/tear like 3-inches into it. She wants the same one again (I offered another because I don't know where that one is lol) -- but I guess I'm going to have to dig it up.
Maybe I should just put all the keepers into one folder...and just keep backing up as normal.
For regular (non DPChallenge) photos I have folders set up by year.
Top Level is just the year, i.e. '2005'
Daily Level is year, month, day, i.e. '2005 (04) April 18
Sometimes for a daily level name I may append some extra text if that day is something special.
All originals that come off my cameras memory card go directly into the daily level folder (unless they are for a Challenge).
At the end of the year I move all of the daily level folders into the top level year folder. This keeps the folder structure a bit cleaner (shorter and easier to view).
The reason behind the naming convention for the daily level folders is to have the folders sort in some order that is easy to follow.
For DPChallenges I have a top level folder called DPChallenges, then I sub folder by the challenge name. All originals for challenges that come off my cameras memory card go directly into the challenge named folder. Within the challenge folder I have a 'submitted' folder to keep the original file and the 150k uploaded file, I also have a 'print copies' folder in the challenge folder to keep any files uploaded for prints that relate to the challenge. After the challenge is done voting I make a point to go back and clear out any extras taken and not used for the challenge.
Wow! That turned into quite a ramble. Sorry. Hope it's helpful to somebody. Bottom line is you must have some system in place for organization. Good luck! ;^)
For regular (non DPChallenge) photos I have folders set up by year.
Top Level is just the year, i.e. '2005'
Daily Level is year, month, day, i.e. '2005 (04) April 18
Sometimes for a daily level name I may append some extra text if that day is something special.
All originals that come off my cameras memory card go directly into the daily level folder (unless they are for a Challenge).
At the end of the year I move all of the daily level folders into the top level year folder. This keeps the folder structure a bit cleaner (shorter and easier to view).
The reason behind the naming convention for the daily level folders is to have the folders sort in some order that is easy to follow.
For DPChallenges I have a top level folder called DPChallenges, then I sub folder by the challenge name. All originals for challenges that come off my cameras memory card go directly into the challenge named folder. Within the challenge folder I have a 'submitted' folder to keep the original file and the 150k uploaded file, I also have a 'print copies' folder in the challenge folder to keep any files uploaded for prints that relate to the challenge. After the challenge is done voting I make a point to go back and clear out any extras taken and not used for the challenge.
Wow! That turned into quite a ramble. Sorry. Hope it's helpful to somebody. Bottom line is you must have some system in place for organization. Good luck! ;^)
I do something very similar to this, except I sort all my originals into sequentially-numbered IMG folders (NikonView does this for me) and I open them out of that, then immediately save-as filename_image# in folders organized as described below. Because my working file contains the image number data, I can easily find the original in the IMG folders. Rarely do I go back, but the originals are there, forever. I never throw one away.
I've been saving them with the dates. For example, say I go to like South Park today and shoot... I will name the folder '04182005 South Park' -- and that keeps things pretty organized, but how to find a print that I printed a few months back and isn't even on my hard drive anymore is the tough part. There's 14 CD's full right next to me. I'm going to make a special folder for 'stock' and for 'prints' and just keep everything worthwhile in there with the originals.
I can't see keeping all the files I ever shoot on my hard drive, so I'm just going to have to become selective and start deleting stuff.
This is a good thread for discussion and ideas. I have a atarter folder for digital images, then sorted by year, then by month, then by date desc. Example, if I shot the Schuylkill river.....again, then I would have a folder "04-18schuyl" inside April 2005, so I know by browsing the date and description, I have a rough idea where I was on that day.
Then if I had a print made, I have a seperate folder inside that one with the word print and description of the title of the photo. In the folder is the original photo, any photoshop files, and the final file sent for print. By labeling folders beginning with print, or "pri" I can do a seperate HD search for print folders only, if I couldn't remember where the heck I saved it by date. Hope this helps.
