OddJobber Loc: Portland, OR

With your thousands of images on file, does anyone have an easy/fast/clever way to find that "picture of the cat I took sometime last summer"?

I currently have several thousand images stored in hundreds of folders. I'm in Windows 7 where everything is stored in "My Pictures". From there I go to Nikon Transfer 2 which sequencially labels folders 001, 002, etc., or IB (Olympus software) that creates subfolders by date (20120701103558, etc). Does anyone have a better way to locate a particular image other than renaming all the subfolders?

lorenww Loc: St. Petersburg

It's a pain but when I use Nikon Transfer, I first weed out the bad shots.

I have a separate photo directory which has sub directories. These are named home, plants, reptiles, birds, etc...
The home directory is for my house, in that directory I have yard, interior, gatherings(for parties), and pets.
In plants, there are trees flowers fungus and if I have a lot of one type of flower I will make a directory for them.

Back to the Nikon's directory, I grab the shots that fit within a category and (hold down cntrl while clicking on images lets you select multiple images) move them to their respective directory in photos.

Now when I need a photo of an alligator, I go to photos >> reptiles >> alligators and they are all right there.

I have found that it is best to keep up with things, I will let transfer make 5 to 8 directories sometimes but after that it becomes a job to sort them.

HTH

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Although I haven't done this yet, the best way to find a photo is by using Lightroom to store them. You can mark one or more photos as "Vacation 2012" or "black cat." Doing a search for "black cat" will give you all those images.

There are tutorials online showing how to do that. http://tv.adobe.com/product/lightroom/

snowbear

My photos are arranged by subject. I add keywords to the photos' EXIF so it's relatively easy to search for them. I also browse with Adobe Bridge which allows me to filter on various things (like focal length, aperture, ISO, etc.)

mdorn Loc: Portland, OR

Probably one of the best file searching programs on the planet... File Locator Pro:

http://www.mythicsoft.com

If it exists on your hard drive, this program will find it---anything from a filename to a string of text embedded in your picture's EXIF header.

Warning: it's pretty powerful and has a lot of options, but don't be intimidated. It's a great app.

OddJobber Loc: Portland, OR

Thanks for the suggestions. Much as I hated the idea, looks like I'm going to have to devote an evening (or two) to renaming/tagging/rearranging things. :(

bobmcculloch Loc: NYC, NY

I try to place each days shooting in a separate folder and name it by date and subject, helps, Bob.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Photoshop Elements comes with "Organizer" that I have ignored -- until recently. Once I was convinced it would leave my originals alone, I let it go. For 36 hours it looked for, analyzed and cataloged photos and videos on my computer. It goes so far as to allow you to find "similar" photos, like all the alligator or cat pictures. If you identify a certain face, it will look for that face. I've found pictures of my granddaughters I had forgotten!

Organizer and Photoshop Elements are set up to run independently of each other or they can be set up to run in a way they work closely with each other. You can also add other editing software of your choice to pair with it if you don't like PsE.

I will continue to maintain my manually created file structure, but find that Adobe Organizer enhances my system significantly.

Bill

birdpix Loc: South East Pennsylvania

For most amateurs, a simple file structure consisting of files named by date and venue in conjunction with keywording every photo will work perfectly well.

You don't have to go back and move photos around. Leave them be. But, from this day forward, download them into folders with names like: 10120801 circus. Using the yyyy/mm/dd date order will ensure your files are in correct order. After sorting your photos you can add keywords such as the persons name, location, event, flowers, landscapes, birds etc, etc, etc.

Most post processing programs allow you to add these keywords and to do searches bases on them. My favorite is Lightroom since it memorizes them and auto fills them as you type. You can even apply some of them as you download your pictures or do them in groups as you select them during PP.

I know I will get some feedback from other UHH'rs out there but I don't recommend a strictly file folder name based system. That is one where, for example you set up folders for specific subjects, eg "Grandchildren". What do you do with a photo that shows both your Grandkids and dear Aunt Mabel from Albania? Keywording is the only good way for a photo to be categorized two ( or more) different ways at the same time.


Hope that helps!

eskiles Loc: Palmer Alaska

I use Picasa, it finds all your pictures, You then make albums to classify pics. The album doesn't take up any room it just is a way to locate pics. I use it quite a lot, there are powerful editing tools also. If I need more editing I use PS10.

OddJobber Loc: Portland, OR

We have a winner! Picasa 3 does what I want. Thanks, Eskiles.

Picasa is free from Google, small footprint, lightning fast searches, and easiest way I've found to add tags. Also good for basic processing of RAW images, besides some cool effects. It only saves as JPEG's, but that's what I use most anyway.

And thanks again for all the other suggestions that eventually led me there. :thumbup: :thumbup:

eskiles Loc: Palmer Alaska

Glad to help. Keep on pixilating. ES