Organizing photos

[Master Mason]

Is anybody aware of any software that will help me organize all of my digital pictures? I have pictures from 3 different cameras and I need to get them is some kind of order. I take a look at them, get overwhelmed, then get a headache! I'm open to any suggestions. Thanks!

You can use light room for doing that, you tag them etc. I hope you have them all backed up as well.

 

[WeLoveNemo]

I have to agree -- Lightroom. I actually bought a laptop and Lightroom at the same time so I had a clean slate. I moved all the photos from all the sources on my desktop over on discs. Scott Kelby's LR book had some great suggestions for organizing the photos.

 

[princess.chell]

I've gotten to the point where I've begun to have issues with organizing my photos. I just have too many, not that that is ever a problem, and can't come up with a way to organize them all so I'm searching for what I want forever. I hardly ever save over the original because I like to go back a few months later and play with it some more. Maybe that's weird but I dunno, it keeps me entertained at 1am when I can't sleep. =) So I was wondering how you guys keep yourselves organized? Any tips on keeping an ever growing library organized?

 

[IndyShutterbug]

I use Adobe Lightroom 2, and it helps me stay on top of things. My workflow is as follows:

-via card reader import into external drive and label folder as event

-import the above folder into lightroom and leave the location the same(option to import and move to lightroom maintained folder is another option). If all photos from the import were from a common setting, I can import with WB/Tone/Crop presets and really save time.

-Then I make all my necessary changes and export keepers to a sub folder in the original folder. I label this folder "Keepers".

-If a few of the keepers are good enough, I will keep them in Lightroom. Otherwise, I remove all of the above photos from Lightroom to keep it snappy.

Once a month, I do a backup to a external hd that I store at work. I prefer Lightroom, but there are other options out there as well. I really like the integration that LR allows with popular software titles like onone software and topaz adjust.

Hope this helps....

Jason

 

[ssanders79]

This is why I got lightroom. Then I started to shoot RAW.

 

[wenrob]

I use Light Room but I don't use it to organize, lol, it messes up my system. I'm sure had I started out with LR it would be another story. I do use it to import to the system I created.

It goes something like this:
Jan-Dec 2009>
Jan 2009>
Jan 1, 2009

So in each yearly folder there are monthly folders and in those there are folders by day for that month. I have two sets of these folders "Jan-Dec 2009 unedited" and then just "Jan-Dec 2009" (and so on) that I transfer my completed, converted photos into the appropriate folder. I never, ever save over the originals and it's a good thing to as things aren't always as pretty as I thought they were a year ago. This takes a lot of space so I keep these folders on two EHDs and burn them to DVD as well. Some people prefer to give their folders titles like "Christmas 07" or "So and so bday 08" but for me that just muddies things up. While I can't remember someone's name most of the time for whatever reason I can go right to the date of the pics I'm looking for 90% of the time.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I use Lightroom. It works well for me. I used to use I-Match. It's much more powerful than Lightroom, but I like the integrated workflow I get with Lightroom.

If you want to get serious about managing your pictures, you might want to get the tutorial video "The Luminous Landscape Guide to Asset Management - Where The #%*! Are My Pictures?"

 

[handicap18]

I use Light Room but I don't use it to organize, lol, it messes up my system. I'm sure had I started out with LR it would be another story. I do use it to import to the system I created.

It goes something like this:
Jan-Dec 2009>
Jan 2009>
Jan 1, 2009

So in each yearly folder there are monthly folders and in those there are folders by day for that month. I have two sets of these folders "Jan-Dec 2009 unedited" and then just "Jan-Dec 2009" (and so on) that I transfer my completed, converted photos into the appropriate folder. I never, ever save over the originals and it's a good thing to as things aren't always as pretty as I thought they were a year ago. This takes a lot of space so I keep these folders on two EHDs and burn them to DVD as well. Some people prefer to give their folders titles like "Christmas 07" or "So and so bday 08" but for me that just muddies things up. While I can't remember someone's name most of the time for whatever reason I can go right to the date of the pics I'm looking for 90% of the time.

This is pretty much what I do, except I don't break it down as far as days within each month.

I also break mine down between RAW and JPEG, each kepted in order that they were taken (I never change the file name). I kept my photos in my photo albums this way when I was shooting film.

I also don't like the "Christmas 07" or "So and so bday 08" either. It too screws things up for me. At least when stored on my computer. I do categorize the folders on my online gallery this way, but I find that is much different as many other people are also viewing the photos it makes it easier to break it down like that on-line.

 

[mrodgers]

I use lightroom.

I organize by folder structure first. I just use year and quarter as I am not a professional so don't need to organize each individual event. Nor do I have enough to organize that much. Year and quarter is all I need.

My folder structure:

/Photos to sort
/Photos/year/quarter

I move from the camera to /Photos to sort. I then quickly sort through them and toss the scraps. I then use a batch renamer and tag the beginning of the file names with the date. I then move the keepers over to the main /Photos/year/quarter folder.

Move into Lightroom, I import the new files. I will then give them all keywords so I can search later if I want to find something.

 

[princess.chell]

Thanks for the advice everyone!
I didn't even know I could use Lightroom to do so. I've been using it for color correcting and the like. Now I've just got to figure out how to use Lightroom for this too. =)

 

[disneyboy2003]

Thanks for the advice everyone!
I didn't even know I could use Lightroom to do so. I've been using it for color correcting and the like. Now I've just got to figure out how to use Lightroom for this too. =)

Yes, Lightroom's "Library" module is where you organize all your photos. If all you're doing is color corrections in Lightroom, then it sounds like you're going straight to the "Develop" module once you open up Lightroom, and completely bypassing the "Library" module.

Lightroom gives you several different ways of organizing your photos, and you don't have to choose just 1 way of organizing. You can actually use a combination of ways to organize your photos.

Physically, all my photos are organized into different folders and different hard drives. Lightroom shows these different folders and different hard drives on the left panel. For each photo, you also can do 1 or more of the following:

• flag as "pick" or "reject"
• give a rating, from 1 to 5 stars
• assign a color label (red, yellow, green, blue, purple, etc)
• add the photo into a "collection" (ex. "favorite photos of cars")

The power of doing all this is that later on, you can find photos very easily that meet certain criteria. When you press the "\" key, the "Library Filter" bar appears at the top. Let's say you want to find all your "4- or 5-star" photos that also had a "blue" color label (perhaps you assigned "blue" to all photos of your children, for example). That's where you use enter these criteria in the "Library Filter" bar, and all photos that meet those criteria pop up almost instantly...regardless of what folders they came from! That's the power of Lightroom.

There are 2 particular books about Lightroom that I really liked. One is by Martin Evening, and the other is by Scott Kelby. Both give lots of color pictures and examples. I think Scott Kelby's book is a bit easier to read, but Martin Evening's book can be very handy as a reference. Both books go into detail about how to use Lightroom's "Library" module for organizing your photos.

Hope that helps! Let us know if it works out for you.

 

[jann1033]

http://www.mulita.com/blog/?p=42
this might help...i find the lightroom help to have a wealth of info. if you have the time to look at it all

 

[princess.chell]

Thank you soooo much for the advice! After some trial and error and playing around and thinking through it, I've figured out how to use Lightroom for organizing my photos. I have fallen in love with importing and how to rename it. For me, putting event titles in helps me remember what everything is because I can't ever remember what happened on what day when hahah.
Anyway, another question, do you guys keep your photos in Lightroom or do you export them out? I can't figure out which would be better...

 

[disneyboy2003]

Thank you soooo much for the advice! After some trial and error and playing around and thinking through it, I've figured out how to use Lightroom for organizing my photos. I have fallen in love with importing and how to rename it. For me, putting event titles in helps me remember what everything is because I can't ever remember what happened on what day when hahah.

For me, all my photos on my hard drive are organized into different folders that have both the name of event, city, and date. For example, "Christmas Tree Lighting, San Jose CA, 12-1-2009".

For a week-long Disney trip, I might create a parent folder entitled "Orlando FL, 12-2009". And then for each day of our trip, I'd have a separate sub-folder like "Magic Kingdom, 12-14-2009", and all our Magic Kingdom photos from that day would be in that folder. So at the end of a 7-day trip, I'll have 7 folders within the "Orlando FL" parent folder.

For me, it helps me organize all my photos on the hard drive itself, regardless of whether I use Lightroom, Aperture, or whatever program. In Lightroom, my crazy folder structure is reflected in the Folders tab in the Lightroom panel on the left.

Some people would also suggest that you rename all your photos when you import them, too. Who know what "IMG_2369.JPG" contains? Lightroom allows you to very easily rename your photos at the time of import, so that you can name your photos "20091214-Magic Kingdom 001.jpg", for example. If you're going to rename your photos like this to include the date, I think it's better to format the date as "yyyymmdd" (ie. 4-digit year, 2-digit month, 2-digit day) so that all your photos can easily be sorted by date.

Anyway, another question, do you guys keep your photos in Lightroom or do you export them out? I can't figure out which would be better...

Your photos are never physically in Lightroom. Lightroom is only a database / catalog of your photos. It only stores the information about your photos...not the photos themselves. If you wanted to share a photo with someone, you wouldn't be showing them your photo in Lightroom.

After you do all your post-processing / color correcting / developing in Lightroom, you will need to export your photo. Lightroom then creates a brand new JPEG image based on all the post-processing steps you've applied. It is this brand new JPEG image that you can then upload to Flickr, e-mail to friends & family, send to a photo place to make prints, etc.

Hope that helps! Glad you found the Library module AND found it useful!

 

[disneyboy2003]

Anyway, another question, do you guys keep your photos in Lightroom or do you export them out? I can't figure out which would be better...

Sorry, 1 more thing...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but nothing actually gets done to your photo while you're in Lightroom. You can do all the developing / post-processing / corrections you want in Lightroom, but if you don't export your photo AND you go back outside of Lightroom to look at your photo, it should still look exactly the same, like nothing was done to it. You're just looking at the original, unretouched photo.

That's why you have to export your photo so that you'll get a brand new JPEG image shows off all your post-processing efforts.

Hope that helps!

 

[scoot241]

Here's what I do...

Import RAW files from the XSi to my RAW folder using the Canon utility. The folder structure looks like this:

RAW
- year
- date

Then I open up Lightroom and synchronize the RAW folder.

When I have a finished product, I export from LR to my Digital Camera Pictures folder which is organized similarly.

Digital Camera Pictures
- year
- date or period of time (November 21 - December 1, these are mostly from the point and shoot)

 

[scoot241]

Sorry, 1 more thing...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but nothing actually gets done to your photo while you're in Lightroom. You can do all the developing / post-processing / corrections you want in Lightroom, but if you don't export your photo AND you go back outside of Lightroom to look at your photo, it should still look exactly the same, like nothing was done to it. You're just looking at the original, unretouched photo.

That's why you have to export your photo so that you'll get a brand new JPEG image shows off all your post-processing efforts.

Hope that helps!

This is correct; it's called non-destructive editing. The Lightroom catalog keeps all your edits, but they won't show up in the original file.

 

[Groucho]

The thing you have to get used to with Lightroom is to not worry about organizing your photos, in terms of folders on your hard drive and such, until after they've gone through the LR process. Keep your originals in one big nameless lump, and leave the disappointing photos there and only output the ones you want. You can then put those in whatever folders you like.

I have mine organized 1,000 at a time - I have a folder for each of my cameras then under there there are folders called "00001-01000", "01001-02000", etc.

Because I am usually way behind in processing the photos, I first put photos in a "process1", "process2", etc folder in the camera's folder. Once I'm done, I put them into the proper numbered folders and do a "show in Explorer" in Lightroom which will then update its database to the new location. It all works very well for me, organizationally-speaking.

 

[princess.chell]

Ahhhh...okay I get it now. Hahah wow thanks so much everyone!
Good thing I've got winter break next week so I can go through and completely reorganize!
You guys are awesome!

 

[mabas9395]

I've been a happy user of Lightroom since it came out. One of the things I really like about it is the way it helps me organize my photo files.

But now I'm starting to accumulate a bunch of video files from our various digital cameras and now that I have a beefier computer I'd like to digitize our camcorder tapes.

But even with the few files I already have, I've noticed that it's not nearly as easy find the clips I want and my video files are a big jumbled mess.

With as popular as in-camera video is (even more so now with video in dSLR's) you would assume that there are organizational programs like Lightroom but for video files. Maybe there are but I just haven't found them yet.

I'm not looking for a video editing program, I already have one of those that works fine for me (until I go high-def).

But I was wondering how other people on this board manage the growing problem of unorganized video files.

Thanks.