How do you organise your files?

mrbez

mrbez

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Hi Guys,

How do you organise the pictures that you have taken on your computers?

Thanks.
 
Folders and sub folders all organised by year, month, then date. Takes seconds to find a certain day, this works the best for me.
 
andrewc said:
by folders with date-month-year-shoot description

eg:

2010-08-05 location shoot with Clooney and Diaz
Click to expand...


:agree: roughly the same
 
type (holidays/family/animals/etc)
location (USA/WHF/etc)
date

So finding a photo of a leopard from WHF taken earlier this year is easy. I am more concerned with what a photo is than the date it was taken. Afterall, I do not remember the date when I was doing a hillclimb day at Prescott, but I do remember the venue - so it is better to file by subject/venue....

Just my $0.02
 
year/event - don't do enough photography to use more specific dates than that but I sometimes appand -month to event.
 
I do similar but I just name the directory first

I.E. Chester zoo TP meet

Then copy all my raw files to that directory.

I Then create a subdirectory call processed Chester Zoo TP meet.

Before I process anything I use Faststone image viewer to cull the out of focus and crappy shot.
I then use it to batch rename all my raw images to include the title so they become Chester Zoo TP Meet 01.cr2

Because Faststonee allows you to batch rename and renumber I do both.

That way none of my photos get overwritten.

I mistakenly overwrote a huge number of my 350D files with 40D one due to haveing the same naming convention.,

I then back up my drive.

Long winded but I do it every time so I don't lose anything else, and can identify any single shot as to where it came from.
 
RAWS:

Year - Month - Shoot + Date

JPGS:

Full Size JPG - Type of Image (landscapes, portraits, weddings, etc) - Month - Shoot + Date

Web sized JPG - Shoot + Date

I don't tend to keep web based stuff once I've uploaded it, so there's never much in that folder to try and sift through when I'm trying to find it :)
 
what it is -> location -> date -> /raw files/large jpegs/small web sized jpegs
 
By year then occasion/event.
 
I have the main pictures folders, in that I have 2 folders Titled "Completed" and "Work to Be Done"

In "Completed" there are separated by 'Type' and then each folder has it's own unique filling system (So for Football I have separate folders for matches, if it's landscape then there separated by location etc etc) then by date.

"Work To be Done" is a bit more basic, as in it I have only a few folders at any one time, and they are just a general description with details attached. When I download my photos from the camera they go straight to there. I can then work on the photo's, save the worked ones in the completed folder under its correct folder and once done I delete them all.

Now I have a funny feeling I should really be keeping the originals but to me that seems as if it takes up unnecessary space.

Thens its back up twice on 2 seperate external hard drives eevery 2 weeks alternating between hard drives. (becuase I've never had a hard drive faliure I',m parnoid enough to worry)
 
For me its YYYY-MM-DD_Description

That way the entire directory is auto sorted without having to click Date Modified sort etc.
 
whack em all on a portable hard drive with whatever title i think seems appropriate then whenever i need them i know its only going to take me two or three days to find what i want
 
Import the stuff into Lightroom, let Lightroom sort it out :D
 
Mines kind of a mess at the moment. Need to get around to sorting it out..
 
A nice easy:

D:\2009\05 May\17 May\010.jpg

and if something of interest that I need to find later:

D:\2010\01 January\09 January - Wedding\001.jpg
 
chris954 said:
whack em all on a portable hard drive with whatever title i think seems appropriate then whenever i need them i know its only going to take me two or three days to find what i want
Click to expand...

haha, same here, tried to be organised using the likes of picasa, just doesnt last that long, worst case scenario, I confuse myself once in a while :)
 
Stick them in a folder labelled "unedited" and leave them to rot. ;)
 
My system, for what it's worth......

Import the folder from the CF card to the PC's photos drive, using a card reader.

Rename folder eg. Borthwick Wedding RAW, July 2010.

Delete all the crap stuff.

Save folder to about another 4 hard drives and DVDs.

Import entire folder into my Lightroom folder for 2010, with any appropriate keywords.

Then process the ones I want, save to another folder as JPEGs and back those up as before.
 
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