Overwelmed with pictures please help.

[iluvmickeytown]

Happy Holidays everyone. I have over 15,000 pictures on my computer. And no i'm not exagerating it's even more then that. Anyway I have "Picture Project", Picassa, and pictures in my Documents. I want to organize them for various reasons, adding them to another hard drive clearing pictures getting some developed. You get the idea. Anyway I have no idea where to start. I know everyone is very busy but can someone please give me some ideas. I would be forever grateful as i'm sure my DH would since he's always telling me to get some pictures off the computer.

Thanks

Oh quick questions ha, If I put pictures in Picture Project are the also in my "my pictures on the computer? I know i'm totaly clueless

 

[handicap18]

I only use Picture Project to convert RAW to JPEG and sometimes to download from the SD card to the computer.

I currently use 2 external hard drives. A 500GB and 200GB. Instead of having your pictures on your hard drive and slowing your computer down, you can keep them on an external HD (not to mention that you also have them backed up on DVD's and or CD's in case the HD fails ). Right now on my 500GB hard drive I have over 16,000 image files taking up around 55GB of space.

You can get USB connected HD's fairly inexpensively. My 500GB drive was a little over $100. It plugs into the USB 2.0 slot and is plug and play (in other words, you plug it in, Window's XP or Vista recognizes it and thats it, its ready to use). It also needs A/C power. There are some newer ones coming out that are powered only by the USB 2.0 slot. They work just like the other hard drives and are found by clicking on My Computer. It shows up as another icon with a different letter (ie: My Hard Drive (C and then External Hard Drive (P )

 

[jann1033]

I Right now on my 500GB hard drive I have over 16,000 image files taking up around 55GB of space.

) )

just a question... kyle,how large a file do you save? i have about 11,000+ and it is taking up over 100gb( i have the external drive 2/3 full already and i just bought it a few months ago.)

i finally got around to deleting my out of focus etc pics but would like to hear some good ideas as well...

 

[mabas9395]

Are you happy with your software management system and are only looking for a harddrive/physical file location solution?

Because for me, I've found that a good photo management software helps a ton in organizing your files. People talk about editors like Photoshop as being so important, but if you can't find your files you can't edit them. If they are all in the same folder with maybe date/subject subfolders, you can find them with Windows explorer or other software if you remember which folder you put things in. But with good photo management software, it doesn't matter where your photos are on your hard drive. You can use keywords or tags to find exactly what you need (assuming you have the time to tag everything).

But thats why I love Adobe Lightroom. I have tagged about half of my 11,000 photos. It takes a while, but its worth it.

 

[My2Girls66]

ilovemickeytown,
Guess I'm not the only one with this problem! I can't find my stuff without an extensive search! I had 30+GB of pictures just on my laptop- happened to notice one day that I had 2GB left of 58! I bought a 160GB external drive an moved much of it. Its off my laptop but still VERY unorganized. I also use Picture Project. Can't wait to hear some ideas. How to label folders? How to store them? Before I learned that PIcture Project could be told to label them with the date- all my folders just had #'s. 001, 002, 003......My backup CD's are just as unorganized- except for vacation pictures. I label them with place and date. ie. Breckenridge '06, Italy '07, X-mas '06....... Its more the daily pictures.

 

[seashoreCM]

Provided you are not running out of disk space, all those pictures will not slow down your computer noticeably if you do a "defrag" if needed. The latter process can take a few hours and can be started in the evening to run overnight and can also be interrupted and restarted later. You should find the "disk defragmentation" program in the startup menu submenu programs->accessories->administrative tools.

Don't worry, film camera buffs with that many pictures have the same problem organizing theirs. All those envelopes of negatives, all those boxes of slides, etc.

Here's a hint, if you can describe in English how you would organize your pictures, going from there to doing the organizing on your computer is easy not counting the legwork (or number of mouse clicks).

Digital camera hints: http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/digicam.htm

(word processing document or text file)
(all the pictures are still in one giant folder)
img0010 5/05 Disney trip, MK castle
img0011 5/05 trip, Jungle cruise snake
img0012 5/05 trip, Splash mountain out front, log coming down big drop
img0013 5/05 trip, Pop century Rubiks cube
img0014 trolley museum car 631
img0014 trolley museum station platform
...
img1243 Boston Duck Tour Prudential and skyline from Charles River
img1244 9/06 Disney trip, MK castle in distance from Summit Plummet
etc.

 

[handicap18]

just a question... kyle,how large a file do you save? i have about 11,000+ and it is taking up over 100gb( i have the external drive 2/3 full already and i just bought it a few months ago.)

i finally got around to deleting my out of focus etc pics but would like to hear some good ideas as well...

The JPEG files from my D50 are on average just under 4MB per file. The RAW files are on average just over 5MB per file. I have about 10,000 JPEGS and a little more than 3000 RAW files. The other 3000 are from my older 3.1MP Canon PnS and scanned photos.

On this particular HD I don't have all the pics from my recent Disney trip. Now that I look again, the 55MB of space and 16,000+ images are on my 200GB HD. On the 500GB HD I have over 24,000 files and 88MB of space taken. This makes sense since I have around 3000 image from the Disney trip and I have both the RAW and JPEG files on that drive. The other 2000 or so files are just duplicates. If I make a CD of pictures for a friend or family member I'll just create another folder and copy the files to that folder. I also have 1500 or so pictures in a seperate Screen Saver folder.


For orginization. My system is pretty simple. I don't change the file names from the camera and I keep them in the order they were taken. My main folders are seperated into years. Then within each of those folder I'll seperate them into quarters (if there are enough pics). Jan-Mar, Apr-Jun, July-Sept, Oct-Dec. I'll also make a few other folders for special occassions. Like this past year I did a wedding for a friend. I took over 400 photos there and put all those in its own folder. I did the same for the 2 different baseball trips I made. 1 for Citizens Bank Park in Phily and 1 for Comerica Park in Detroit. RAW files have their own folder and I also put any pictures that I edit into a seperate folder. I find it much easier to find files this way. So long as you can remember approx when you took a picture.

 

[WillCAD]

My approach to organization is chronological. I have a folder for each year, and under that I have folders called Rolls (which is left over from when I shot film - now each Roll is actually one days worth of pics).

In each year I have a master index file which I make with HTML. Essentially, it's a web page, but it's not on the web, it's on my computer. It's a simple chart detailing what subjects are covered by each Roll, with the date the roll was shot and the number of pics in it.

Each Roll also has an HTML page, which is just for viewing the pics. I don't put any captions on these pages, just the date and the subject description at the top.

The beauty of this system is that when I got a web site with enough space to upload all my pics, I was able to copy the HTML pages along with the pics, and I now have a comprehensive gallery of all my digital or scanned pics online, complete with the indexes and viewing pages.

Here is the index page for 2007:
http://willcad.org/photos/2007/2007.html

And here is the page for one Roll of my WDW trip pics from December 2007:
http://willcad.org/photos/2007/Roll-305/Roll-305.html

One other note: to speed loading of the viewing pages for each Roll, I generate small thumbnail versions of my pics, which I put in a subfolder called thumbs. For example, Frame 6 of Roll-305, on my computer, is D:\Media\My Pictures\2007\Roll-305\305-006.jpg, and the thumbnail is D:\Media\My Pictures\2007\Roll-205\thumbs\th305-006.jpg. The thumbnail is what shows up when you view the page for Roll-305, but if you click on the thumbnail, the full-size pic will open in a new window.

 

[jann1033]

thanks not sure if it will work but i bookmarked this page so when i transfer to my new computer i'll start from scratch and be somewhat organized

 

[DebºoºS]

My approach to organization is chronological. I have a folder for each year, and under that I have folders called Rolls (which is left over from when I shot film - now each Roll is actually one days worth of pics).
.............................

What a great system! I very much enjoyed viewing your pics. A few questions if you don't mind. How did you create the yearly logos for the background? They make the pages even more fun. Do you load the thumbs up to the web seperately or are the original uploaded pics somehow made into thumbs on the page?

 

[WillCAD]

What a great system! I very much enjoyed viewing your pics. A few questions if you don't mind. How did you create the yearly logos for the background? They make the pages even more fun. Do you load the thumbs up to the web seperately or are the original uploaded pics somehow made into thumbs on the page?

The backgrounds in my photo pages are all JPG images themselves, which I created in Photoshop or another photo editor.

The backgrounds that I use for the parts of a page with WDW pics on them are scanned images from... something. Each year I make sure to buy some kind of souvenier that has that year's WDW logo on it, being careful to select something that will fit on my scanner plate and is not too reflective or holographic, and I use that to create a faded background image.

The thumbnail images of my pics are copies of the full-size pics, resized to about 320x240. The thumbnails for each Roll are stored in a sub-folder within the roll; for instance, the pics for Roll-305 are in a folder called Roll-305, while the thumbnails are in a folder called Roll-305/thumbs. I create the thumbnails using a photo editing program (many will do a "batch resize" operation). The most important part is to make sure you understand the process so you don't accidentally resize the original pics!

 

[DebºoºS]

The most important part is to make sure you understand the process so you don't accidentally resize the original pics!

I couldn't agree more! Have never done it but can see how it could happen. The extra effort you put into your site really shows.
It's a quiet day around here so I've been trying to organize lose pics into the folders they belong in. I put them into monthly or trip folders by year. I've always kept my negs in the same kind of order or disorder depending on the time of year.

 

[iluvmickeytown]

Thanks everyone great advice. I went thru some and I got rid of quite a few(out of focus,blah). One question that wasn't addressed. If I put pictures in Picture Project is that the only place they are. Example are they also in "My pictures" on the computer? Sorry for the stupid questions.

And last (yea right) but not least. After you take the pictures what are you steps?

Right now i'm putting them in PP and editing them. Do you guys edit as soon as you put them on the computer or do you come back to them. And do you put them on another hard drive without editing? And when you put them on cd are they edited. I would like to put them on cd after they are edited but at this rate I'm feeling so overwelmed that I don't want to get to detailed. That seems to be one of my problems. I start a project and I want everything so perfict and detailed that I don't finish anything. Anyway thanks for everyones help.

 

[jann1033]

Thanks everyone great advice. I went thru some and I got rid of quite a few(out of focus,blah). One question that wasn't addressed. If I put pictures in Picture Project is that the only place they are. Example are they also in "My pictures" on the computer? Sorry for the stupid questions.

And last (yea right) but not least. After you take the pictures what are you steps?

Right now i'm putting them in PP and editing them. Do you guys edit as soon as you put them on the computer or do you come back to them. And do you put them on another hard drive without editing? And when you put them on cd are they edited. I would like to put them on cd after they are edited but at this rate I'm feeling so overwelmed that I don't want to get to detailed. That seems to be one of my problems. I start a project and I want everything so perfict and detailed that I don't finish anything. Anyway thanks for everyones help.

i edit as soon as i put on the computer...well as soon as i get to it, this time it took me about 6 weeks to finish.then i put on dvd both the original and edited. i keep the original raw on the f drive( external) separate from the edited( which i save to a new folder) but they come up together in my photoshop catalog...i wonder if that is how i use so much room, maybe they are saved a few places and i don't realize it. i only edit the ones i really want to use at the time though, ie if i want a slideshow of something i won't edit all the similar copies of a photo, just the one i want to use so i end up editing probably 1/2 the photos right off the bat then might come back later if i want one i didn't edit in the beginning

after reading will cad's post, i might have misunderstood..i download everthing first then edit a little at a time but as soon as i can...

 

[WillCAD]

I made the mistake - not just once but on two trips - of downloading, then post-processing my pics without making a copy of them first. Big mistake! The processing I did bombed out in the middle and I wound up with 3 or 4 pics that are pretty much ruined.

Now I download my pics from the camera and put them into an untouched folder on my laptop, and do post-processing later.

At teh end of the trip, I backup the whole un-processed bunch on a DVD for the trip home, just in case the laptop gets fragged in transit.

 

[iluvmickeytown]

WillCad------- Please bare with me. Can you please write again what you just said for dummies. My brain hasn't been running smoothly lately. When you say process do you mean edit? And what do you mean by a folder you don't touch? Again thanks for your patients. Oh my god I just came up with a brillant idea. Does anybody do any phote tutoring? I can't afford to call the Geek Squad. Last time it cost me like 300 bucks. lol

 

[handicap18]

Thanks everyone great advice. I went thru some and I got rid of quite a few(out of focus,blah). One question that wasn't addressed. If I put pictures in Picture Project is that the only place they are. Example are they also in "My pictures" on the computer? Sorry for the stupid questions.

And last (yea right) but not least. After you take the pictures what are you steps?

Right now i'm putting them in PP and editing them. Do you guys edit as soon as you put them on the computer or do you come back to them. And do you put them on another hard drive without editing? And when you put them on cd are they edited. I would like to put them on cd after they are edited but at this rate I'm feeling so overwelmed that I don't want to get to detailed. That seems to be one of my problems. I start a project and I want everything so perfict and detailed that I don't finish anything. Anyway thanks for everyones help.

Picture Project isn't a "Storage" place. There maybe a folder that is in the same main PP folder on your hard drive. You can find it by going into My Computer, then click your (C drive, then Program Files, then Nikon, then Picture Project. However, that is not the file that you have to use. Your pictures will only be in "My Pictures" if that is the file that you've told PP to use.

Right now I only use Picture Project to download the pictures from the media card to my hard drive, then to convert from RAW to JPEG. When you use the Transfer feature in PP you can choose what file on your hard drive or external hard drive the picture files will be downloaded to.

If I want to just view the pictures then I'll go to the file I have them in and view them with Window's Picture and Fax Viewer or Microsoft RAW Image View (basically the same as the picture and fax viewer except that it will also view full RAW images). These software programs open quicker and don't take up as much RAM space. You can right click on the image thumbnail then choose Preview or Open With> then choose Picture Viewer.

I don't use PP to edit my pictures. I don't like the limited features it has. IMO it doesn't do a very good job. I'm still deciding on which software to use full time going forward. I'm leaning towards Nikon Capture NX. I've used and still will use Adobe Lightroom and also Photoshop Elements. I don't always edit right way unless I know certain images need it.

 

[WillCAD]

WillCad------- Please bare with me. Can you please write again what you just said for dummies. My brain hasn't been running smoothly lately. When you say process do you mean edit? And what do you mean by a folder you don't touch? Again thanks for your patients. Oh my god I just came up with a brillant idea. Does anybody do any phote tutoring? I can't afford to call the Geek Squad. Last time it cost me like 300 bucks. lol

"Post-processing" or "processing" is a fairly generic term meaning, "stuff I do to all my pics after I move them from the camera to the computer." I do my post-processing automatically to all of my pics. It's kinda like cleaning fresh veggies from your garden - you may have grown the most beautiful organic tomato in North America, but you really should wash it off and core it before you try to eat it.

When you use the word "edit" it sounds to me like you're referring more to cropping and rotating than to color adjustments or noise reduction. I never crop my pics; I keep them as I shot them, and I only rotate the verticals to that they are actually vertical.

My post-processing is done in two steps:

1) I run Noise Ninja, an automated noise-reduction utility, on all of the pics. Noise Ninja is great for getting rid of digital noise from either digital photos or scanned images, but it has an added side-bennefit - it makes JPG files smaller than my camera does. I run Noise Ninja on all of my pics, whether they need noise reduction or not, simply to make the smaller files (mine go from an average of 4mb to an average of 1mb). And of course, if I shoot a pic in low light that really does need noise reduction, NN takes care of it for me, automatically.

2) I use a Photoshop Action (a type of macro that can be run on a whole folder of pics at once if you set it up right) to perform an Auto-Levels and Auto-Color adjustment.

Auto-Levels and Auto-Color... well, frankly, I don't understand these adjustments very well, all I know is that my pics look much better and more natural after I run these two commands on them.

As to the folder question, what I do is set up a folder called Uploads. Under Uploads, I make a folder for each day of my WDW trip. When I copy the pics from my camera to my computer, I put them in these folders, and I do not edit the copies that are in these folders.

After uploading to the computer, I copy the pics into a different folder, and do all of my processing on the copies; that way, if I screw up, I still have the original, unaltered pics in the Uploads folder. I only delete the unaltered pics after I have finished my processing and I'm sure that the processed pics look the way I want them to look.

All of this stuff is not terribly technical, except the actual processing that I do; most of it is basic organizational skill, and precautionary habits. By developing a system for what I do to my pics, how I do it, and in what order, and sticking to this system, I have a much easier time finding my pics later and I'm far less likely to lose any of them. It also makes it much easier for me to back them up, upload them to the net, and share them. It also makes it less likely that I will forget any important steps in the process of getting my pics off the camera and onto the computer.

 

[iluvmickeytown]

Thanks for everyones help. I've begun the process of organizing.