JerrysPhotos Loc: Arkansas

I use windows and elements 6. I download from my SD cards to my computer: Jerry, photographs, year-month-date. At the same time, they go into my catalog in elements, in the catalog i set up Categories, sub-categories, and keywords. You can have as many of each of these as you want. So as an example, if i take a photo of an elk standing in a river in boxely valley near ponca, arkansas, it will look something like this Category: Place Sub-category: arkansas Keyword: ponca Keyword: boxley valley. Also put it in Categories under wildlife and scenic and keywords elk and river. the good thing is that there is no limit and when you click on one of them it shows only the photos in that category or keyword. I also back up my photos on 2 external hard drives so that if my computer hard drive goes belly up, i still have 2 other copies...

debbiesweds

That sounds like a great plan - what is the name of the site that backs up photos etc for under $4 a month? That would be so helpful because I end up copying them both at work and home on external hard drive to insure never lost.
Thanks!

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

Country's Mama and JimH are very similar to my chosen methodology. I have folders for Family, Friends, Work, Events, etc. Under those folders, I make sub-folders such as JimH, "20111122-The Kids Came For a Visit", then drop all those photos in there.

But this is only half the story. I spend time, using Photo Mechanic, to adequately insert keywords, color classes and ratings. Then, I use Media Pro for my cataloging mechanism. (Actually, I'm using Microsoft's Expression Media, the same program that was sold by Microsoft.) It will list all keywords in a way that when I click on that keyword(s), it will display thumbnails of all photos that have that keyword. So, needless to say, I include in the keywords the names of the people in the photo.

dupe4050 Loc: Seattle, WA

Picasa is a good starting point. Stores by date, but if looking up under Windows Explorer, My Pictures on on external HD I try to put into a year folder first, ie, 2011. Now trying to work with Lightroom, but just started.

K2KImages

The thing to remember is choose a system that works for you, being able to find a single photo from years past is imparitive. What I use is a fairly simple method. Catagories are:
The word Fauna are animals.
The word Flora are plants, flowers, trees.
So a hiarchi of file names are this:
Photos
---Fauna
------Ducks
--------Mallard
---Fauna
-----Geese
-------Whitefront
-------Canada
I do not use events or dates, can't remember the date when the photos were taken of the rodeo two years ago, the dates are already imbedded in the metadata. So, in the case of a rodeo
----photos
------rodeo
In the case of Flora
----photos
------flora
--------trees
--------flower (you could have specific flower names)
Anyway this works for me. A side note I also have a Data Base to keep track of my shots, and which editor they went to and returned (in the case of slides, or CD). The digital shots go in the DB as well.

Dave K

I don't know if this will help or not, but here's how I catalog my photos. First, I try to keep it as simple as I can, so I just use the MyPhotos section of my trusty computer. I make a folder for each shoot and identify it with a unique ID number, which is simply the day's date (for instance, 20111123). Since I also shoot RAW as well as jpg, I make a subfolder to this one and name it thus: 20111123RAW).

Then I download that day's images from my camera into the appropriate folders (jpg to jpg, RAW to RAW). Now, I then do an initial edit and yank out the ones that I have no use for, making sure I yank both the jpg and the corresponding RAW. Once that's done, I simply renumber each image with the ID number I've assigned and a separate number for each image (20111123-001, 20111123-002, etc.). Again, I make sure I put the same number on both the jpg and its RAW image.

And that's that part. I use a three digit suffix to ensure that my photos stay in numerical order, thus making any individual shot easy to find. If any day's shoot is over 999 photos, I'll probably faint, then simply add a leading zero to all the images.

I also made a database in Access in which I catalog these images, or at least their "Job numbers" (the number by which I identified the folder). I record the job number, date shot, location, camera used, whether handheld or otherwise, lighting, any filters, brief description of the weather, and any comments I care to make. I don't bother with the individual shot data (aperture, shutter speed, and on and on) because this database is intended only as a job list; besides, the shot data are already firmly affixed to both the jpg and RAW.

I'm working on either adding a keyword field to my existing database or perhaps one for just this data, containing the photo's ID number and any keywords I care to come up with.

Naturally, I've developed a few reports so that I can look up something if I need to.

As I said, I hope this helps a bit.

Dave K

JerrysPhotos Loc: Arkansas

Debbie, i can't remember the name of the site, i see it on TV often but have never wrote it down.....

Country's Mama Loc: Michigan

Would you mind sharing what online backup that is?

chuckbiddinger Loc: Birmingham, AL

It is backing up your data to a central computer at another location. Many folks call it cloud computing.

I use and like:

http://www.carbonite.com

No matter where I go, if I need a file or photo, I can use any computer and download it. This is about as fool proof as you can get for backups.

iPhotographer Loc: San Diego

Get the DAM Book !!! Digital Asset Management for Photographers.

http://www.thedambook.com/

Cheryl Gaibler

I use Creative Memories Memory Manager program for an organizational tool. It is very user friendly and is rather inexpensive compared to other software. You can put the pic in many different categories but it is only on the harddrive once. They sell other photo products that are also less costly. Website is www.creativememories.com

Fstop12 Loc: Kentucky

I've been married 40 years. When I want to know where a photo is I ask my wife she never forgets a thing. LOL!!!

Country's Mama Loc: Michigan

Thank you. I am checking it out now.

Ugly Jake Loc: Sub-Rural Vermont

Mine, neither - but she won't tell me where the ones of HER are!!!


Ha - fooled her - I put them under . . . .. umm, they're right . . . .. . AAAAAARGH! Honey ??!??!

TheBirdMan Loc: Southeast Missouri, USA

I have over 32000 digital images. I have set up individual files in my computer using names that fit the different types of photography that I do, quite a few of them to be honest.
When I look at the images I have shot, after deleting the rejects I do a select all and the using the first image I rename them with the date they were taken ~ ie. 11 22 11 (the computer will not accept / - or other symbols so I simply use a space). Each date is unique and will never reoccur so images shot today and stored in the birds file will be placed under the images shot on 11 20 10 ect.
This system works well for me, the only thing I have to remember is whether I saved an image taken of a landscape on a road as a landscape image or a road image. If I can't remember then I just look in both ☺