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Archive 2015 · Suggestions on organizing photos

bvphotos
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Suggestions on organizing photos

This problem has been a few years in the making. It's finally getting to a point where I can't keep track of what photos are where. If I were to summarize, the reasons for the mess are as follows:

1. I'm not a particularly organized person.
2. Tried out many post processing apps before finally spending the time to learn LR. I think I'm here to stay.
3. Different cameras & download programs over the years, each having its own organization scheme

The scheme I'm trying to achieve would look like:
- F:\photos is the root directory
- all photos downloaded from the camera, but not looked at would be in sub-folders with the shooting date as the name
- processed photos would be sub-folders like: family, travels, events, wildlife, etc., each with appropriate sub-folders.
- RAW files converted to JPG would be in a temporary "exports" folder that gets purged every now and then since the RAW files are the important files.

So, my questions are as follows:

1. How do you organize your photos? Or do you have a better scheme to suggest?
2. Do you download/import photos using LR or the camera's native utility?
3. If the latter, isn't it a mess when LR creates its own copies when you import these RAW files into LR? How do you deal with that?
4. What program do you use to backup all your photo files onto another drive (local, NAS or cloud)? I have not come across any on which it's easy to set up incremental backups. In my case, the master files are in F:\photos. Any changes (additions, deletions, updates) to these files must be reflected in another local drive and a NAS.
5. If you backup into the cloud, what service do you use?
6. Are there programs that read JPGs & RAW files and auto-classify them based on meta-data and create multiple ontologies? Yes, Picasa seems to do something like this, but I find it very confusing.

In short, help! I'm drowning in files.

Jul 05, 2015 at 11:23 PM

Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Suggestions on organizing photos

OK here goes . Im the worst unorganised person but I find I can organise in LR very well .

All my images are held on a single drive under a main folder called ' LR master' . I only run with ONE catalogue by the way

each year is a sub folder in the master catalogue.

each month is a sub folder of the year folder .

event folders are sub folders of the month folder . (if an even spanned 2 months then it goes in the first month )

so my folder structure looks like :

LR Master > 2014 > 08 Aug > Moto GP . Now i may have sub folders to the events . i.e. each moto gp sesson and class . that depends on the amount of images etc . also the month folder is numbered (01 , 02 , 03 etc) as they then sit in order .

thats my folder structure . I typically DONT rename the images but my rethink this in the future . still undecided on that .

Now for me COLLECTIONS is a big thing in LR . I can have collections for family with sub collections for each person . I can have collections for events etc . this allows the same image (i.e. my daughters at sponsored walk ) in many collections (each daughter in the image plus the event) but any editing only needs to be carried out on the single image .
I also use SMART COLLECTIONS that can collect images with certain keywords or other paramaters . I create and delete collections as needed .

as for your questions:
1: as above

2: I do all downloading / importing in LR .

3: NO you can have LR MOVE images from the source . so if the file already exists on you PC it doesn't have to duplicate it .

4: Im a mac user . I use time machine . but Ive actually taken my archive out of the time machine backup . all my previous years stuff has been copied onto 3 disks . 2 hard drives and 1 set of DVD's one of the hard drives is at work in my locker the other is in a box in my loft . the DVD's at my parents house . I just didn't see the point in TM making endless copies of the same raw files . I have 2 TM drives (TM does backup the current year) and these are rotated out on a regular basis . the drive thats on in use is taken off site (work or parents house) . I also have a JPEG archive saved to smug mug in a private area that is a very last resort . if all else fails I still have a good sized jpeg at least

5: see the part above . in general speed up and down is still the big issue as far as cloud goes . but I did start trying to backup my RAW files to amazon cloud when they allowed unlimited images to prime members . gave up as while its not too slow (it takes a while but was pretty solid at doing it) it became apparent that getting more than a handful of images back down from the backup would be a whole world of hurt . it seemed that you could get the WHOLE lot back down in one go or just a few images . the whole lot would not be a viable option when you have multiple TB of files . it just seemed that trying to recover a year or an event folder was not possible .

6: not sure what you mean

Jul 06, 2015 at 01:52 AM

Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Suggestions on organizing photos

also , as far as 'drowning in files ' goes .

i was pretty much the same . before I started using LR I seemed to have gathered multiple duplicates (i think an early elements was big culprit here trying to do backups ) as well as tons of files I just never deleted . I delete very little .

I forced myself to sit in front of the screen for a 10-20mins at a time (no longer than 30) picking and rejecting images . I wasn't too hard so stuff that wasn't really a real pick could still get thru . but stuff that was out of focus or was obviously a duplicate (usually had suffixes to the filename ) was set as a reject . I found the easiest way was to set the LR to show only non flagged and the set the image to full screen (f) . then I could just hit the P (pick) or X (reject) and the next image would automatically show up .

at the end of each session I filtered to just show the rejects and they were all selected and sent to a separate REJECTS folder . I actually used a spare hard drive I had for those as it then released space on my images hard drive .
the rejects are not deleted until I've had a quick scan thru them just to make sure I've not rejected anything I shouldnt have (a couple of files have been rescued from here) .

once I had done that I had culled my catalogue from north of 150k to below 70k (I'm back upto 85k) . and in truth there are still a heck of a lot of files that don't need to be there . but I really don't like deleting family etc even if the image is rubbish

Jul 06, 2015 at 02:06 AM

Frogfish
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Suggestions on organizing photos

I never trust LR with originals. I import them manually to a file structure located on specific HDs dedicated to specific subjects (birds, landscapes, events etc.) and then give LR access to them. I back up everything to Time Machine disks which automatically accounts for changes in files, folders etc.

Jul 06, 2015 at 03:28 AM

Milan Hutera
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Suggestions on organizing photos

I use Ian's approach, but instead of "event" subfolder, I just create a subfolder with date. With LR it's "super easy" (I hate these *super* stuff words used by super cool photographers, but it's really super easy) to tag the files with keywords.

For example - there was a "Moto GP" event on July 5th, 2015 in "Some city". So you can tag your "keepers", finished files or even all files in that directory with "Moto GP", "Some city" and "2015". Lets say next year, the same event will be held in the same city. So you put the files into respective subfolders and tag the files "Moto GP", "Some City" and "2016".

Some time later, when you want to revisit your photos, just search your LR catalogue for "Moto GP", "Some city" and it's easy to do further filtering by the year.

Jul 06, 2015 at 04:44 AM

Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Suggestions on organizing photos

Frogfish wrote:
I never trust LR with originals. I import them manually to a file structure located on specific HDs dedicated to specific subjects (birds, landscapes, events etc.) and then give LR access to them. I back up everything to Time Machine disks which automatically accounts for changes in files, folders etc.

Why ? I don't get that (although seeing your other thread about LR it seems like its not a fav app

Jul 06, 2015 at 04:45 AM

Frogfish
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Suggestions on organizing photos

Ian.Dobinson wrote:
Why ? I don't get that (although seeing your other thread about LR it seems like its not a fav app

)
each to their own i guess but if you let LR import images from the card/camera you can tell it not to do anything with the files on the card (i.e. not delete) . once you've verified the files and they have been backed up its safe to delete /format the card .

also the reason I tend toward the yearly file structure rather than subject folders is I don't have to have TM constantly backup the same...Show more →

TM backing up the same files/folders doesn't matter actually, once the HD is full it will automatically delete the older versions so it doesn't impact the HD's capacity.

If you import everything into LR then you are dependent on the software to take care of your files with the same TLC you would - there have been instances of lost catalogues (this is where your back-up comes in of course) but I don't like to 'lock-in' my files to Adobe. Also if you prefer to sell or use an original with another piece of software then it's far easier to just load the the file from it's storage folder. I guess it all depends on how you use your files.

I do like LR - it's great at many things, though specific detailed editing of parts of a photograph is not one of them

Jul 06, 2015 at 05:02 AM

Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Suggestions on organizing photos

@ Milan . yep keywording is the thing . its one thing I was late to and was very lazy about doing it . but lesson learned (still paying the price on old stuff) .
All imports have a global keyword(s) . when I goto the moto gp this year they will be something like MOTO GP , SILVERSTONE , 2015

each session will have its own keyword (easy to work out the sessions from the time in exif) as will the class . i.e.
MOTO 3 , FP1

then once I've culled the images down to a manageable number (last few years I've taken around 4-5000 images over the 3 days) i'll 2nd cull to get the keepers . there will still be quite few (i hope

) in this group .
the past years I've keyword these with the bike numbers that are in the frame . the popular riders I will name as well (do this by just searching the rider number) .

with that done I can quite easily find shots of #46 (Rossi) riding a Ducati in moto GP qualifying . or whatever I want to find . filter for a 2nd number and I can get #46 (rossi) with #99 (lorenzo) .

the same goes for images of my kids . I can (now) easily find pics of 1 - 2 or 3 of them at an event .

like I said its each to their own . but for me the folder structure can stay pretty rigid so I don't have to have a folder for Birds and another for Insects etc .
I can have smart collections that pick up on certain keywords for those .

the good thing about collections is they can (as I'm a CC member) be synced with LR mobile which although not brilliant is now quite usable when I just want to have my iPad with mean sit and look or even do minor edits.
the silly thing about that is you can't SYNC SMART COLLECTIONS which seems rediculous .

Jul 06, 2015 at 05:08 AM

Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Suggestions on organizing photos

Frogfish wrote:
TM backing up the same files/folders doesn't matter actually, once the HD is full it will automatically delete the older versions so it doesn't impact the HD's capacity.

If you import everything into LR then you are dependent on the software to take care of your files with the same TLC you would - there have been instances of lost catalogues (this is where your back-up comes in of course) but I don't like to 'lock-in' my files to Adobe. Also if you prefer to sell or use an original with another piece of software then it's far easier to...Show more →

indeed TM will delete the old stuff . its good practice to have at least twice capacity on you TM drive than is on your source drives . . Hard drives maybe cheap but they are still a significant cost . I'm by no means a heavy user but my data still goes over 4TB . if I was to TM all of that id be wanting drives of over 8tb . I'm not happy TM'ing to simple multi disk setups and I'm not in a position at the moment to splash out on the pretty expensive RAID setups that I see some people have .

as for LR catalogue issues . Ive used LR since version 1 and have had 1 catalogue issue . that was because I took a catalogue and smart previews with me on holiday and the memory stick it was on couldn't be read properly by my surface pro . I had formatted it on my mac (exfat) and the surface didn't like it . yep I should have verified it first but i was in a rush . I taught me that 1: form stuff like that on the surface (I've had no issues that way round) and 2: take a 2nd copy .
but in the end it was no biggie .
I've never had an issue with LR on my main machine . I backup after each session (as long as some editing has been done) . I keep the backups going back a couple weeks with monthly ones for 6 months previous .
Now that LR6 compresses the backup I cloud the last couple to dropbox
the whole backup folder is on a separate portable hard drive which is TM'ed with the other TM data .

if I ever leave the Adobe eco system I will be able to do a complete export before i leave .

Jul 06, 2015 at 05:27 AM

schlotz
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Suggestions on organizing photos

Couple of things going on there bv... there is a storage structure which can go beyond a simple \yyyy\mm\dd if one chooses. Then there is a database method. Remember LR is a database.

Example: because I do a lot of soccer soccer shooting I have two main folders, one for soccer and everything else. Therefore the two mains are \yyyy and \soccer\yyyy. Then for each its \mm\dd\xxx(when ever I need to differentiate). BUT, that is as far as I go from a storage structure. The rest is done inside LR. All photos are imported with the COPY selected and placed into the structure just mentioned. Below is a collection of screen shots to give an idea.

Matt

Jul 06, 2015 at 09:10 AM

bvphotos
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Suggestions on organizing photos

Thanks much to all of you for your responses. This is very useful. I agree that using keywords can solve a lot of my problems. I just need to get diligent with that. I also agree that thinking of the physical storage layout and the logical organization of photos as 2 different orthogonal structures is a good thing.

A couple of additional questions: Do you keep your converted JPGs around and throw them away after they've been uploaded/shared with friends or after a while? If you do keep them around, how do you organize them? In the same folder as the original RAWs?

Jul 06, 2015 at 09:56 AM

Frogfish
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Suggestions on organizing photos

bvphotos wroteA couple of additional questions: Do you keep your converted JPGs around and throw them away after they've been uploaded/shared with friends or after a while? If you do keep them around, how do you organize them? In the same folder as the original RAWs?

I upload them to SmugMug then delete the jpgs on my HD. If I ever need a copy I can either just give out the link or download it to myself.

Jul 06, 2015 at 10:02 AM

Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Suggestions on organizing photos

bvphotos wrote:
A couple of additional questions: Do you keep your converted JPGs around and throw them away after they've been uploaded/shared with friends or after a while? If you do keep them around, how do you organize them? In the same folder as the original RAWs?

again this is something i let LR take care of . smug mug uploader or flickr uploader (depends on the choice of destination)
each uploader has its own section in the library mode . in effect its another collections section . I create the albums / folders in there and then put the images I want to upload .
when you sync LR does the conversion to jpeg (or tiff) for you and uploads it to the service .
that way I never have those jpegs on my system . If i delete them from that collection then they will get deleted from the service (you can select to leave them on) . if I choose to re edit something the image will get updated on smug

Jul 06, 2015 at 10:43 AM

bvphotos
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Suggestions on organizing photos

^^^ good to know. Sounds very clean.

Jul 06, 2015 at 11:13 AM

schlotz
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Suggestions on organizing photos

bvphotos wrote:
Thanks much to all of you for your responses. This is very useful. I agree that using keywords can solve a lot of my problems. I just need to get diligent with that. I also agree that thinking of the physical storage layout and the logical organization of photos as 2 different orthogonal structures is a good thing.

A couple of additional questions: Do you keep your converted JPGs around and throw them away after they've been uploaded/shared with friends or after a while? If you do keep them around, how do you organize them? In the same folder as...Show more →

Nope I do not keep them, IMO there really is no need. BTW: say if you took 50 sunset shots one evening. Just select all of them in the library module, then go check sunset in the keyword lists and they all are updated with that keyword. You can drag and drop keywords to make a hierarchy if you wish. This can be seen in my examples above.

Jul 06, 2015 at 01:49 PM

nolaguy
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Suggestions on organizing photos

bvphotos wrote:
1. I'm not a particularly organized person.

Evidence to the contrary.

You may not implement but your mind is thorough.

Jul 07, 2015 at 04:53 AM

OntheRez
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Suggestions on organizing photos

Here's another way to approach the problem.

1) I create topical folders with associated subfolders. Example: Animals then a choice of: Beasts, birds, hummers, insects. I rather rigidly force my photos into a category though I also put copies in multiple folders. An example would be a landscape photo that has extraordinary light. I'd likely put it in Landscape but also place a copy in the Light folder.
2) Dates don't do anything for me. I have no clue when I took a picture. Besides, the exif of every photo already has the date in it and can be searched on. (BTW the lamented Aperture had a superb date searching system.)
So,
3) I name every photo upon import, even if I have to do different imports if there are different "topics" on the same card. Admittedly the names might not be overly creative, but I'm always looking for earlier photos ABOUT something, not when they were taken.
4) At each download I do the first cull by flagging those that are obviously not keepers. If I'm doing multiple downloads from a single card I don't delete them until after all topics have been downloaded. Since Lr provides a "recent download" smart category, it's easy to deal with them.
5) I keep the catalog (with backups) on the main drive which is backed up with the system wide back up (time capsule). I back up the photo dedicated drive from the fast SSD RAID work drive to a slower platter and then a second back up of the original photo drive to a 3rd platter on a 3x weekly basis. (I also keep a copy of the catalog on the work drive.

Switching to a system like this from a mass of date differentiated pix would be a challenge particularly if the number is large. Again, I don't understand date as the organizing principle. It's the topic/subject that counts.

Robert

Jul 07, 2015 at 09:50 AM

Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Suggestions on organizing photos

^^^^
Robert . The problem I see with point 1 is you are generating copies of the same file
If you had this categories as Collections rather than folders the same file can exist in multiple collections
So let's say you have a landscape that has nice light but also contains a mountain.
1 raw file could be in your landscape collection as well as the light and mountain collections .
So should you want to edit that file you only have to edit once and the same edits are seen in all collections .
However should you wish to edit it differently in each collection you could create a virtual copy and edit as you wish . The file with its Vc's could all be in each collection or just the VC that is edited for a particular collection .

In any way you still only have 1 single raw file . That keeps your hard drive space down and also helps with keeping duplicates out of your filling system .

Jul 07, 2015 at 10:56 AM

alvit
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · Suggestions on organizing photos

I do not understand why put complications in your Pics.
LR is doing all by date and by keyword, plus type of lens, type of camera.......

Jul 07, 2015 at 12:21 PM

OntheRez
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · Suggestions on organizing photos

Ian.Dobinson wrote:
^^^^
Robert . The problem I see with point 1 is you are generating copies of the same file
If you had this categories as Collections rather than folders the same file can exist in multiple collections
So let's say you have a landscape that has nice light but also contains a mountain.
1 raw file could be in your landscape collection as well as the light and mountain collections .
So should you want to edit that file you only have to edit once and the same edits are seen in all collections .
However should you wish to edit...Show more →

Ian,
Thank you so much for your insight. I confess that I've made little use of Collections except for say parents who want pix of their student athletes over the course of a year. I can see how it would be useful. The one thing I don't understand is that I assumed that a copy made of a raw placed in another folder didn't create another raw particularly if the name didn't change. Have I misunderstood Lr.? Wouldn't be the first time

Robert

Jul 07, 2015 at 12:44 PM

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