bdk Loc: Sanibel Fl.

Yup we've discussed it many times in the past . but I have a specific question that I'll get to in a second.
I have two WD My Book drives, one is 4 Tb the other, I dont remember. I also have a 1 tb seagate drive that fits in your pocket.
I back my pictures to both of the WD drives. Nothing fancy, at the end of the day of shooting , I just copy the whole new directory from my computer to both drives.

The seagate is used if Im on a trip, I take that for storage of if I want to take a lot of pics with me for what ever reason.
I also use Amazon photo cloud as an off site back up.... Its slow but it works. I feel comfortable that my pics are safe ....

When saving my pics, I save them in directories, an example of how I save a directory is.

16 3 11 Cape may historical home shoot. Year month day and a description of the shoot. or
Jones wedding 16 4 22 sometimes its easier to save with a last name first to help find the pics.

works pretty good I can most times find what Im looking for with this format.

Heres my question, a few months ago I took a pic of a dog , cute dog and very friendly. I was in a park, not sure what park, and not sure of the exact
date. Recently saw the owner walking down the street and they asked for a copy of the pic. where is that pic how do you find it? It took me hours to find it.

How do you find your pics under these circumstances?


Next up, ( in a few days) why G.A.S. can be very important to your photography.
why RAW is the only way to go or NOT the best way for you to go.
and last, why , what lens should I buy and what camera should I buy , though seen many times is still important to the readers.

Leitz Loc: Solms

I file by category. The descriptions are in a word processor file. A simple keyword search is usually sufficient.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

It depends where you stored it. Not having a date range to search in Windows Explorer, or having the location will make it time consuming.
If it was primarily a picture of a dog, an incidental with no primary subject group, I would probably have placed it in my "Things\Animals\Dogs" directory. I probably would not have stored it under a location (like Valley Forge) because the subject matter is not Valley Forge.

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

I use Lightroom exclusively, so I add keywords to an image after it's imported. Makes it super simple to find. You could searh for "dog" or "cute dog" for instance.

f8lee Loc: New Mexico

@bdk, it seems you are doing the barest minimum when it comes to organizing your images, if all you do is create folders with dates and short descriptions and then just dump the files from the camera into them. If that's the case, would it be correct to say that you have thousands of images with names like DSC_7593 etc.?

Like @rgrenaderphoto, I too use LR (I moved from Aperture when Apple left us in the lurch) and his point of keywords making it easier to find things is absolutely correct. The only downside is the time it takes to apply keywords to all your images - as your files grow, though, it is generally quite worthwhile.

Meanwhile, I take an additional measure - when I move image and raw files from my camera's card to the computer, I first rename them. I use a separate utility for this, though LR has this function built in. No matter, the point is I rename my files with the date the photo was taken + a word or phrase that denotes what it is + a sequential suffix. The program will apply the date automatically (based on the metadata in the image file) and add the suffix as well; all I need to do is alter the text portion. Of course, I also have a nested set of folders and sub-folders into which I store these files - but you're already doing that.

This way, if I'm looking for images taken at the local botanical garden that I took in 2014, I can find the files named 2014-06-01-Descanso-NNN and just start flipping through those.

Sure, I can use LR for the same thing, and with the help of keywords (when i take the time to put them in) I can get more fine-tuned in my searches, but now I don't have tens of thousands of image files all names something nondescript... it just makes them easier to sort through.

PhotoshooterNJ Loc: NJ

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

A while back I started using LR keywords on imported images. I also went back and started putting keywords on older pictures. It can be tricky and tedious, but I could (theoretically) look under Animals > Dogs to find that picture. If you decide to to this, take some time - a lot of time - researching how to set up and organize keywords. Otherwise, you can wind up with thousands. One system starts with Who, What, When, Where. Then you make subcategories under each of them. Yes, it is easier said than done.

https://www.google.com/search?q=using%20keywords%20in%20lightroom&oq=using%20keywords%20in%20lightroom&ie=UTF-8&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l4.5663j0j4&sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.&bvm=bv.127984354,d.cWw&biw=1680&bih=925&dpr=1&ech=1&psi=J-6VV7PUK8qv-QH5sr2wBg.1469443781780.3&ei=J-6VV7PUK8qv-QH5sr2wBg&emsg=NCSR&noj=1

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Making use of keywords in Lightroom, Bridge, On1 or whatever you use to view your images would pretty much eliminate what you are experiencing.

I use a simple folder system.

Top level folder = Pictures
Sub folders = one for each year
Sub sub folders = one for each time I shoot with my camera - and each is serialized and dated so I can find things in Explorer - a typical folder name will look like this:

07.02 - Garden Flowers - 7-5-16
Where:
07.02 is the second shoot event in July
Garden Flowers is the subject matter
7-5-16 is the date.

All of my raw files for the date go into this folder. If the event is a vacation trip spanning several days, LR will place each date in it's own subfolder by date in the parent folder eg "07.02 - Garden Flowers - 7-5-16 "

When I import the images into Lightroom, I batch tag each image with keywords - location, season, event (X and Y's wedding, Westport Equine Gran Prix Competition, etc). If I have specific shots that I want to tag, I can go back and attach a name or other descriptor that will let me find it in a second or two with a simple search term in Lightroom. I no longer use Bridge, but it pretty much works the same way as far as browing and viewing, but Lightroom's catalog is much faster.

My workflow is to do a preliminary review, cull the bad shots, use LR's parametric tools to get the remaining "up to snuff" and then I rate them using stars and/or colors, picks etc in LR. When I find an image that I want to print or post, I will do the final editing on the image - the "photo finishing" step - in any combination of software that will give me what I am looking for - Photoshop, ON1, DXO Optics Pro, Photomatix Pro, Helicon Focus, etc etc etc. All of these applications are launched directly from Lightroom, which I have set to create a PSD or TIFF, 16 bit, ProPhoto color space. Launching from LR automatically adds this file to the catalog. I do all of my edits on the psd/tiff working file. When I share to social media, send out for printing, print in house, send by email, etc - I have about a dozen presets that handle the conversion of the psd/tiff file to the appropriately sized jpeg, with the appropriate quality setting. This way, for most of my images I have 1 to 2 versions of the image - the edited raw file and the finished PSD/TIFF file.

When I go to look for something, I open Library module, navigate to the folder view, and if I know the year, I click on it in the folder view. I press Ctrl F to open a quick search field - type in part of the search criteria, and in a couple of seconds it will find images that match. I can then navigate to the folder and see the other images taken in that moment.

I have experimented with renaming files on the incoming side to avoid conflicts when there are two files by the same name, but LR looks at the metadata as well as the name to determine if the files with the same name are indeed duplicates.

This folder structure has been in place since 2000, when I started shooting digital, and I continue to use it today with Lightroom. Also used it with Capture One, Bridge, and other applications. All changes to my raw files are written to xmp, so if one day Adobe goes belly up or I decide to stop my subscription, I have all of my data and file edits. Either way, when you stop using Lightroom, the catalog is still active and viewable. Pretty much all the other functionality is removed, though.

The backup I do is not a true incremental backup in the strict sense. Each night I have a scheduled sync that examines the folders on my computer with the folders in my external drive, and using the computer's version updates the changes to the backup drive. That drive is in turn sync'd with another external drive once a week and kept in a fireproof safe with my other important papers.

That is how I save things.

I shoot raw out of convenience and to have a consistent workflow. I adopted this approach in 2006 when I got my first DSLR. I've shot weddings with other shooters, and being able to make close to 2000 images from multiple cameras look like they were shot with one camera is one of the benefits, along with super fast batch processing for broad stroke changes like white and color balance, sharpening, contrast, exposure etc. It would take me days to do that if all I had was a jpeg to work with. I don't do work anymore that relies on immediate transfer of images from my card to a client, and even in that case I would try to dissuade the client from this and convince them that they will get a better product if I am allowed to process the images myself, rather than accept the camera's presets. I shoot 100% raw.

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

I use the lightroom catalog along with keywords to find a photo Go to dog in the keywords right click on the right side of the word and all photos keyworded with dog comes up

RWR Loc: La Mesa, CA

Pretty much the same here. In Windows Explorer I have a separate folder for each category, with an alpha-numerical file name for each picture. Descriptions for all are in one word processor file, so a keyword search reveals the folder, file name and description of anything I'm looking for. And I can plug in a backup drive of my images to any Windows computer and access everything. Fuss-free and reliable.

Ralloh Loc: Ohio

First thing I do, only to the photos I will keep, is to change the file name. I use a simple date, so today's photos would be 072416-1, -2, -3, etc. Your metadata will tell you the date if you forgot. Using Nikon View NX2, I would then put keywords like dog, park, cute, etc. To find it later, I simply do a search in Windows Explorer using any or all the keywords which will bring up thumbs of any that match. Maybe dog/cute would be enough. This photo would have been put in a folder called Animals with sub folders for year and month. So looking at the file names, I would know that photo is in the folders, Animals/2016/07. Quick, easy, uncomplicated, and yes, this works with RAW.

lsimpkins Loc: SE Pennsylvania

I agree. I find LR keywording simple to use. On import all photos get keywords common to all (such as date or location). Once imported, I get more specific as to subjects, people, etc. There are other ways to do this, but I find this quick and easy, since I also use LR for most of my post processing needs.

Morning Star Loc: West coast, North of the 49th N.

My photo "storage" is simple: One folder for each year, under each year a folder for each month, and for events like birthdays, weddings, vacations, etc, a folder under the month in which the event started.
I recently started tagging some photos that don't belong to a specific group and can therefore be more difficult to find; to do that, I simply used Windows Explorer on Win7, File Explorer now on Win10.
Here's the scoop:
Open File Explorer.
Navigate to a photo you want to add (a) tag(s) to.
Highlight the photo file by single-clicking on it.
At the top of the Explorer window are four tabs: File, Home, Share, View.
Click on View.
Far left is "Navigation Pane", beside that are Preview Pane and Details
Pane.
With the photo still highlighted, click on Details pane.
A list of different items will show on the right.
The second item in that list is Tags.
Click on it and the words "Add a tag" will pop up there, as well as a
Save and Cancel button on the bottom.
Type in your tags, separated by ;
You can also put information in Title, Authors, Comments, Camera maker,
Camera model and Subject boxes.
Finally, click the Save button on the bottom of the list.

Next, right-click on the any one of the headers in the main part of the Explorer screen.
A box listing the column-names will pop-up, with the ones used, checked.
Click on "More" at the bottom, scroll down to "Tags" and check-mark it.

Now you will be able to see your tags in the Tags column in File Explorer, and for the selected photo, also in the details pane on the far right (as long as the photo is highlighted).

You can find the photo back, by scrolling down and glancing at the Tags column, or by typing the Tag name in the "Search Download" window in the top right of the Explorer screen.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

It's easy: I use Lightroom and key word and can find any photo in literally seconds.

davidcaley Loc: Utah

Thanks, very helpful