Hip Coyote

Smugmug is not a photo organizer. I may organize online photos, but I think you need a more robust organization system on your computer / drive.

As some suggested, in LR, I use year>subject>raw and year>subject>processed. If the subject was a long trip, I may do different days and number them from 1 to X to keep the order of the photos taken so I can easily put them into a book. Such as 2021>Africa>1 Capetown>raw. I then have other subjects such as 2021>Africa>2 Namibia Dunes>raw. The reason for the 1 and 2 is that LR puts the subfolders in numerical order and it makes it easy to work chronologically when doing a photo book by uploading a few photos at a time. I try to cull out the bad photos and select the photos I want to use. I may do facial recognition after that as well. Do key words if you want. Then, when I finally select the photos I want to export for printing (after editing) or books, I do a second subfolder such as 2021>Africa>1 Capetown>processed. It sounds complicated, but is quite easy to do if you do it every time. The hard part, for me, is to cull the bad pics...I get a bit ahead of myself and find a photo I really want to process and get sidetracked...but culling and re-culling is really a good thing to do.

The reason for the raw vs. processed folders is that you easily export the entire processed subfolder should someone want it (usually a fellow vacationer). I know you can select the photos by type raw or jpg in one folder using LR, but this works for me. Any small files that I may send to someone for use on a screen is usually a copy and I delete it right afterwards.

Works for me.

BigOldArt Loc: Seminole, FL

Even older than DOS. RT-11, DEC-10.

11bravo

For all my renaming tasks, I use ReNamer

https://www.den4b.com/products/renamer

https://www.den4b.com/screenshots/renamer

though I use a much older release (5.71) that is not as crippled as the current freeware. But the nice thing about GUI renamers (and there are a bunch) is the preview function.

k2edm Loc: FN32AD

Hmmm.... naming them by date is probably the best way to go. BTW Paul Clifford (WA2AXO) passed away last november kinda shutting down data from "All Indepentent Labs" & no one seems to be able to locate Pauls email list...I am still in contact with xK2ovs (Jay) & Paul smiles, but that is about it.. RIW also went to the happy hunting ground last year. de k2edm

ikaush Loc: Medford, MA

I use Faststone Viewer in batch mode to add date/time from exif data to file names. Works well.

PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

I should have worded it better, I have my "keepers" in Smugmug and I organized it there in a better fashion then how it is in my computer, there are no virtual copies in the computer, so they are only in 1 location there.

linda lagace

This reminds me of a problem I had with flicker when I was bringing a bunch of new photos into the program after not having used if for many years. Flicker replaced some of my old pictures with the newer ones with apparently the same names. Imagine my surprise when I found birds in my flower picture files or flowers in my bird files. What a mess. Thank goodness I looked through my albums before I did too much damage. I have never had that happen before or since with any other software I have used. Most of the programs I use recognize some of the data embedded in a photo and use that if they recognize what may or may not be a duplicate just based on name alone. The programs ask to auto resolve the problem. The auto resolve has never made a mistake. At least so far.
But I went ahead any way and am giving my newer photos a different naming designation so they are not confused with my older ones.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I have never had a problem with flickr replacing an image with an unrelated image, but I started early to give photos meaningful names. Meaningful names help eliminate the possibility of duplicate file names if they are well designed. Dates or date/times are a simple way to avoid duplicates. Any time you are working with software someone else designs you need to be sure you are not confusing them.

Hip Coyote

Got it. That danged LR has confounded me but I am pretty comfortable with it now and recommend it to my buds who are getting into photography. Happy shooting.

R

User ID

Another simple idea is to not rename your old files, but “pre-rename” all your new ones. Just change it one time in your set up(?) menu and all names going forward will carry the new change to their file name. It’s like a genetic change to a dominant trait.

User ID

IIRC you as a “/s” to include sub folders.

Anywho, it’s doable even if it’s a different slash command. In modern PC the help screen for the command window is simply a one page list of all the commands that still work.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

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