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Archive 2015 · I suck at "photo organization" on my cpu....

  
 
Michaelparris
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · I suck at "photo organization" on my cpu....


Any advice, tips or tricks would be greatly appreciated.


Jan 19, 2015 at 12:47 AM
EB-1
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · I suck at "photo organization" on my cpu....


Firstly, I'd organize photos using the file system and let the CPU do the processing.

Seriously though, what exactly are you having difficulty with? There are numerous workflows and one that works well for some people are anathema to others and vice versa.

EBH



Jan 19, 2015 at 12:54 AM
15Bit
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · I suck at "photo organization" on my cpu....


Photo organisation is like every other form of personal organisation - it requires work: Your clothes don't organise themselves into wardrobes and drawers, your bills don't pay themselves, and your photos won't cull and sort themselves. For sure there are databasing tools that make things a bit easier - LR, Media Pro and such - but you still need to put in the time and effort to use them.

And as with your clothes, your photo organisation is personal and will reflect how you think. So the only advice i would give is to keep things as simple as possible, but at the same time not throw all your images into the same directory and rely overly on the database to keep them sorted. A simple folder structure combined with some thing like LR works well for most.



Jan 19, 2015 at 01:06 AM
cwebster
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · I suck at "photo organization" on my cpu....


I suggest reading Peter Keough's book "The DAM Book - Digital Asset Management for Photographers" for some ideas on how to get started



Jan 19, 2015 at 04:58 AM
butchM
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · I suck at "photo organization" on my cpu....


cwebster wrote:
I suggest reading Peter Keough's book "The DAM Book - Digital Asset Management for Photographers" for some ideas on how to get started


+++++1

Peter not only lays out a sound concept in how DAM should work for you ... but also why it is important. You don't have to follow his methods exactly, you can ... and likely should ... adjust, augment and otherwise season to taste ... but the foundation is solid and will stand the test of time, regardless of the software/OS utilized.

Make sure you get the most recent edition of the book ...



Jan 19, 2015 at 08:27 AM
schlotz
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · I suck at "photo organization" on my cpu....


Like many things, there is no "silver bullet" solution here. However, once you gain an understanding of the variables ( Chas' suggestion of The DAM Book is a good place to start) you should be able to decide just how far you want to take it. It does require some thought regarding how you shoot, how much, long term importance of saving some or all of your work, accessibility etc... Do your homework, start with a sound basic process that can be built upon as your needs change.

Matt



Jan 19, 2015 at 09:25 AM
Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · I suck at "photo organization" on my cpu....


15Bit wrote:
Photo organisation is like every other form of personal organisation - it requires work: Your clothes don't organise themselves into wardrobes and drawers, your bills don't pay themselves, and your photos won't cull and sort themselves. For sure there are databasing tools that make things a bit easier - LR, Media Pro and such - but you still need to put in the time and effort to use them.





for Life I have a WIFE to keep me organised and for my photos I have LIGHTROOM



Jan 19, 2015 at 10:04 AM
GCasey
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · I suck at "photo organization" on my cpu....


I use Explorer to organize my photo files. I'm a hobbyest, not a pro. Under the "My Documents" tab in Explorer, there is a tab, "My Pictures." Under "My Pictures" I set up a sub-directory, 2013, 2014, 2015, etc. Under each year, "2015" for example, I set up a sub-sub-directory for each event. church, family, neighborhood, household, etc.

Under "family" a sub-sub-directory: husband, wife, family reunion, etc. Depending on needs/desires, I set up another level; family/family reunion/selected and put just the best in the 'selected' sub-sub-sub directory.



Jan 19, 2015 at 10:45 AM
MLK-FM
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · I suck at "photo organization" on my cpu....


This website has some free tutorials that might help you get started:
http://www.organizepictures.com/organize-photos-tutorials



Jan 19, 2015 at 01:46 PM
DougVaughn
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · I suck at "photo organization" on my cpu....


Ian.Dobinson wrote:
for Life I have a WIFE to keep me organised and for my photos I have LIGHTROOM


My wife would agree... without her, I'd never find anything in the house. One of the many good reasons I've hung onto her for 28 years.

As for Lightroom, I use that also but still need to get better at keywords for better organization.



Jan 19, 2015 at 01:51 PM
Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · I suck at "photo organization" on my cpu....


GCasey wrote:
I use Explorer to organize my photo files. I'm a hobbyest, not a pro. Under the "My Documents" tab in Explorer, there is a tab, "My Pictures." Under "My Pictures" I set up a sub-directory, 2013, 2014, 2015, etc. Under each year, "2015" for example, I set up a sub-sub-directory for each event. church, family, neighborhood, household, etc.

Under "family" a sub-sub-directory: husband, wife, family reunion, etc. Depending on needs/desires, I set up another level; family/family reunion/selected and put just the best in the 'selected' sub-sub-sub directory.


thats pretty much what I have Lightroom do on import . only my 'My Pictures' folder is called Lightroom images and resides on an external hard drive . but on import I let tell LR to put the files in the main year folder (2015 now obviously) and from there into a subfolder (month ) and then into a another subfolder called by the shoot name .


if i want to collect types of images by subject I use collections and smart collections for that .
ie i have smart collections that will each collect every image keyworded by each of my daughters names while others collect 'flowers' 'bikes' 'cars' etc .



Jan 19, 2015 at 01:53 PM
Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · I suck at "photo organization" on my cpu....


DougVaughn wrote:
My wife would agree... without her, I'd never find anything in the house. One of the many good reasons I've hung onto her for 28 years.
yeah my one does that also . at first I didn't think I would get to like the subscription model of Wife 1.0 (never felt the need to upgrade to wife 2.0 ) the subscription cost of WIFE 1.0 is quite a bit more than Adobe charge for CC but hey what the hell Im used to it now . It seems to have a twice yearly large outlay that coincide with Xmas and B-Day with smaller costs at other times thru the year

As for Lightroom, I use that also but still need to get better at keywords for better organization.


Yeah Ive suffered the 'bad /no keywording' thing . Its cost me a good few hours/days over the last few weeks to try and get my act together and make sure all images (of family at least) are individually keyworded .
getting thru it now and it has been really worth it .

I've promised myself I will keyword at point of import and first cull from now on



Jan 19, 2015 at 02:01 PM
Access
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · I suck at "photo organization" on my cpu....


Depends on the actual problem you are trying to solve. Most good process is based around 1) necessity, and 2) efficiency.

Remember that people are horrible at multitasking, and trying to multitask lowers the quality of your process, so try to keep your processes serial and focus on one task at a time.

For instance, for an event, I will dump all the photos from the day in a folder, date it, and then import to lightroom. In lightroom I will quickly go through that folder, flag any "candidates", and then add those to the quick collection. Then I open up that quick collection, try developing each photo in it, and make a decision, it either gets a 5-star rating and kept, or no rating and tossed. Once I've gone through every photo in the quick collection this way, another quick pass to check the photos, then render and post them.

If it's not an event, the general process is the same, but I'm going to be much more picky about my candidates by ultimate goal is just to find the best 3-5 photos for that day to send off.

Nothing ever gets deleted, space is increasingly cheap these days.



Jan 19, 2015 at 02:25 PM
Paul Mo
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · I suck at "photo organization" on my cpu....


DougVaughn wrote:
My wife would agree... without her, I'd never find anything in the house.


Interesting, considering they are the ones who move (hide) things in the first place. I'm sure it's a ploy to fool us into needing them.



Jan 19, 2015 at 08:31 PM
Michaelparris
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · I suck at "photo organization" on my cpu....


Thanks guys. ..


Jan 20, 2015 at 12:37 AM





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