Sunday, January 25, 2009

Cataloging Photos

I Have Adobe CS3 and Lightroom 2.  I prefer to load my photos through Lightroom, but I could use Bridge.  I just would like to know if anyone out there is good at organizing and cataloging their photos, or even just medicore.    Do you rate your photos or have any other tips to being a more efficient photographer on the backside.

Any tips would be enlightening!!
Thanks!

8 comments:

Carin said...

I wish I could be of more help. I have yet to use the organization that PS offers. I'm interested to see what others do.

All I have done is to break each month down into different folders. Not always the best way to find a particular picture though.

Hope someone has some good advice.

Judy said...

Sorry I'm no help either. Where my pix's are stored reminds me of my closets right now.

Cy said...

I catorize my photos by event. For example I have folders for Christmas 2000, Christmas 2001,... Christmas 2008. I put all the images from that event in those folders. Then, if I get around to it, or have to touch the photos for some reason, I rename them something line this: Carin_SD_Christmas051221.jpg (the 051221 is a date code that tells me the picture was taken on Dec 21, 2005.) If an image is not necessarily from an event, or doesn't make sense in that environment, I place it in a different folder(s): My Pictures/Family/Carin, for example, but still name it the same so I have some idea of the content. You can also put a bit more information in the image name. For example, Carin_SD_Christmas_CarinActingGoofyAtSeaWorld051221.jpg

Then, about once a month to once a quarter, I archive the photos. This is a pretty involved process. What I do is make a dvd of all the unarchived pictures, then I move them onto an external drive (usb drive) into a folder called Archived Pictures, using the same file structure as I already had. What this does is 1)Make more space on my computer's primary drive, and 2)it makes sure I have a hard copy (a DVD) of my pictures. To take this a step further, I really should store the DVD's at someone else's house, in case of fire or other disaster.

There is no magic about how you store your pictures, just a long as you are consistent, you should use what ever you are comfortable with AND makes sense to you. After all, they are your pictures.

Hope that helps. Maybe I'll do a tutorial on this when it's my turn.

Cy

Auntie M said...
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Auntie M said...
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Auntie M said...

I organize my pictures by the memory card. You can also put dates the card began and ended to help. I do not have trouble finding what I want.

Carin said...

Cy, I like your method. I might have to get a little more involved in how I do my pictures. Right now I just break it down by month. But I can't always remember which month something happened.

Salty Incisor said...

Cy thank you. I love this thing and then archiving them and calling them archived. I think I can sit down and come up with a system and make sure to catalogue montly or Q'ly
thakns for the the tips