File Organization for the Photographer

I'm looking for some advice on organizing my files and folders for photography. Right now my hard drive is a mess; I tried relocating all my "images" to a central folder for organization but instead ended up coping application filed and really messed my computer up. Any tips or tricks for organizing the files and folders? I'm also looking to invest in a decent external hard drive in the near future but for now my computer and back up cd's will have to do.

Thanks in advance- any tips or hints are greatly appreciated!

(Macbook ; OS X version 10.5.8/ 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo/ 2 GB ram)

 

simplest solution, get a 1 tb external hard drive configured for mac, i'm currently using 4 of the western digitals running through a powerd d link usb hub, once your mac recognizes it, drag every photo folder over there, every individual photo as you find them etc. i use lightroom for my downloading and conversion, and have it set to load the photos onto the external drives, labeled photo 1, etc, each one has only photos on them, nothing else, photos are filed in folders by date, each photo is named during download by subject area, ie, epcot . this way i know where my photos are, when they were taken, and can also search by file name, lightroom also allows use of keywords, and can search by keywordthe big thing is, once you find a system that works for you, never ever change it, that road just leads to confusion and lost photos

 

Organization is key for anyone, not just photographers!

I keep my files in chronological order, and also name them in chronological order.

I have a folder for each year. Within each yearly folder, I have a folder for each day that I take photos. So, photos taken today would go into this folder: D:\Media\My Pictures\2010\2010-04-22\

Since I don't shoot photos every day, I don't have to worry about having hundreds of folders, but if I shot more, I'd probably add a layer of folders in for each month, and put the daily folders in the monthly folders. Doing it that way, photos taken today would go into this folder: D:\Media\My Pictures\2010\04\2010-04-22\

My photos are named for the day they were shot, with a 3-digit frame number added to the end. Photos taken today would be 2010-04-22_001.jpg, 2010-04-22_002.jpg, etc.

Using this system, it is vital to have some sort of photo viewing/organizing application like ACDSee, which will allow you to enter keywords or create and index of your pics, so you can find what you're looking for by subject or location. I don't have a huge number of photos, so I use a simple index that I create in HTML, but for those with lots of photos, an application that lets you add keywords is a must-have.

Once you have everything organized, your photo viewing and editing applications should bend around YOUR system, rather than you bending around the system foisted upon you by the software.

And, once you're organized, it's easy to backup all your photos in one shot to an external hard drive, DVDs, or any other media.

 

WillCad has got the idea. ; I add an extra level for the year and month so my folders look like this (note I use the prefix STP for Scott Thomas Photography)

/Pictures/STP/STP_2010/STP_2010MM/STP_2010MMDD_XXX.jpg (or .NEF for Nikon RAW)

MM - Months (01-12)
DD - Days (01-31)
XXX - Photo Number Sequence for that day

If you haven't looked at Aperture 3 or Lightroom 2, they are both very good at photo management from bringing the photos into your library, adding captions and metadata and organizing them into subjects (Projects in Aperture, Collections in Lightroom).

I wrote up some blogs about this subject.

What's in a Name

Organizing Your Photos

 

Also note that both Scott and I use numbers to represent the months, and we also both use the year-month-day sequence for dating the files. Doing this allows your photos to be sorted in chronological order when you look at them in My Computer or any other file manager, especially if you want to copy some of your pics into a new folder for a particular project, and mix pics from different years and months.

If you name your Month folders after the month instead of using a number, they will sort in alphabetical order, and April will go to the top. I prefer January to be at the top!

 

I use the native windows folder structure to file my photos. ; Instead of filing by date, I file by location. ; For example pictures from POTC would be found in:

/My Pictures/Walt Disney World/Magic Kingdom/Adventureland/Pirates of the Caribbean

The D700 lets me set the 3 letter file prefix, so I use my first and last initial and a number. ; When I get a new camera, I'll change the number so I know which camera I used to take that particular shot. ; When I import my photos from the camera, I add the date to the end of the file name so I know when it was taken. ; For example: ; MS1XXXX_YYYY_MM_DD.jpg

The most important think is to pick a system that makes sense to you and stick to it. ; I remember things by location, so that's how I file.

 

That's a good point, Michael. ; If you use more than one digital camera to designate it withing the photo name for quick determination.

 

also pay attention to the in camera file numbering, i have lightroom sort by year folder, then month/day. since many of my photos are from same locations i use descriptive names ahead of the number, that allows me to keep the file numbers since i usually turn over the photo counter a few times each year, canon goes 0001 to 9999, then starts over

 

I actually have Aperture re-name the files when I bring them in. ; Each day starts with 001. ; Though if I shoot past midnight, I have to be care to either remember that or put in another memory card at the stroke of 12. ; And, no, it is not made of glass. ; :

 

Thanks for all the great advice- I have been using Aperture but lately I'm not happy with it.

 

For ALL of my file management, not just photo files, I abandoned My Computer/Windows Explorer long ago and use a third-party program called Total Commander.

Here's a list of features from the Total Commander home page:

The features that I think are most powerful are the search, which is WAY better than the built-in Windows search, and the multi-rename tool, which allows you to easily rename a whole folder full of files at once, with search-and-replace, upper-lower case, auto numeric counter, and more. I also like that it's very tightly coded; it makes NO CHANGES to the Windows registry, so it's easy to install it on a USB flash drive and carry it with you, and the whole program, installed, is only 6.5mb. And it is easy to set it up to interface with any external programs you might have, such as a text editor like Notepad++, or graphics view like Irfanview.

This one program replaces Windows Explorer, Winzip, CuteFTP, Windows Search, and whatever batch rename utility you have, all in one convenient, easy-to-use interface. I've been using it for over 15 years, continuously, ever since the Windows 3.1 days, and I still think it blows away any other file management program I've ever seen.


It costs $38, but that includes free updates for life. The creator, Christian Ghisler, releases about 2 new versions per year, and despite having been at it for 15 years, he's still adding great new features to the program with each release.

 

Wow a lot of information! At times I feel like I need to wipe the slate clean and start from scratch-

 

Oy...

Real life...obsessively organized.

Online life..total disaster.

This is one of those administrative things I so need to take care of, but I sure wish I had an assistant who would just do it for me. ; Grin.

 

Trust me, you really need to take the time to organize your photos before you get a bunch of them. ; I didn't decide on an organization system until two years after I started taking photos. ; Now, a year later I'm still trying to get all of the old stuff organized. ; Although, part of the reason its taking so long is because I'm deleting the junk photos that I don't need to keep.

 

An assistant would be nice! ; I need to get a bit more organized also.

 

Need to work on your workflow...with Aperture it's easy to get the minimum done when you ingest the photos. ; Then add the details later. ; When you then upload them to flickr or another online photo site; the keywords (tags), camera info, caption and headline (title) go with it. ; I find if I do the work up front, it saves me oddles of time later.