Photo Filing
What directory (folder) structure and file naming system do you use to file your photos? What are the pros and cons you've found to your system?
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While the equipment (computers and cameras) mentioned in this powerpoint is no longer valid, I still use the filing system and it works well for the 250,000+ images I have on file:
Add that system to Lightroom or Aperture and I can find an image I'm looking for in just a few seconds.
The file was a presentation I did for the Texas Outdoor Writer's Association a few years ago.
Good luck! -
I do mine by "date-sequence". I always load all my pics in LR and export then to my photo folder. I keep the folders by year, within the year folder I have folders for months and certain events.
For example:
folder-2009
-September
-WWA-V
pic file- 09052009-01
pic file- 09052009-02 and etc.
Yes. OCD is a plus to have in this filing method.
Really keeps everything organized, if I don't have an event for a file to go in then I just put it in the month folder.Comment
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Russell, I watched the powerpoint presentation. Great system you have for what you're doing. It reminds me almost of a taxonomic system. Very logical. Not sure how much of that system I can incorporate into the mostly event-based (birthday parties, vacations, get-togethers, antique shows, etc.) type of photography that I seem to do. It's definitely something to think about, though.
Hillary, your system is very similar to what I have been doing. I feel comfortable with a date-based structure, but I'm afraid that after the number of years increases to a certain point, I'll have a hard time remembering when things took place. Actually, that's already starting to happen.
I know there's no one perfect system. I'm just trying to think this out and get to the best solution for me. One I can live with for a long time. I'm about to start using Lightroom 2 and start shooting in RAW. I'm thinking of making two catelogs; one from this point forward and one for past pictures. I'll probably leave my old structure like it is. I can't see going back and redoing three years of pictures. But I really want to get it right the first time on the catalog going forward.
Anyone else care to share their system?Comment
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I have a folder for each year and then date-named folders within that. I will sometimes name a folder according to the event or subject rather than just the date and put processed copies of jpeg in there. I put these named folders inside the date folders that contain the RAW files. I usually do this for the pics that I figure I will be more likely to go back to. I try to remember to keyword pics as I import them into Lr as well. Then if I want to pic and choose certain pics within a day's pics to add different keywords to, I use the little spraypaint tool. Just set the keywords and hit the pics to "paint" whatever keyword(s) you want. With keywords, it doesn't matter what folder you have the files saved in is. If I want to pull up all photos in my catalog of my son, I just sort for "Zach". Boom! All pics that have Zach in them show up. If you keyword "deer", "cactus", "baseball", or whatever you have, then you have a really good database. Many pics call for multiple keywords, of course.
Then, while you're backing up your picture files (RAW, of course!!!) make sure you also back up your Lr catalog files. This keeps your database and keywords intact.
I upload pics that are worth the effort to my SmugMug site and keep them organized by catagory/topic there. I don't have RAW files there, but I have full-sized and processed jpegs that I can fall back on in a worst-case scenario I guess.Comment
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Thanks, Shane. Good info. I'll have to check into that keywords spraypaint tool. I've barely started to scratch the surface of Lightroom. Last night I hooked up two external 1 TB hard drives and put my default catalog in one of them. The other will be my backup, simply a mirror image of the first. I've been reading a book called "The Photoshop Lightroom Workbook; Workflow Not Workslow in Lightroom 2." I set up all my Lr preferences as the book recommended. I may follow their recommendations on file structure too, but I kind of wanted to see what else was out there. Their method is to use file numbers based on year, month, day, (underscore), jobname, (underscore), sequence number...
2009 (year folder)
20090910_jobname (folder within the above folder)
20090910_jobname_0001 (files within the above folder)
20090910_jobname_0002 (etc.)
Supposedly this gives you sort of a "best of both worlds" structure where both dates and eventnames can be used to find a series of photos. I'll probably just use this unless I find something I think will work better for me.
I guess I'm to that point where I switch my camera to RAW only and just jump in with both feet!Comment
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This filing system has always been somewhat cloudy to me because I the above entries show, there are many, many ways to do it. I have always filed my photos either by date taken, or by subject matter and I have a bunch of each in my hard drive. Add multiple cameras to the equation and it gets even more cloudy.
So, what I recently started doing was the following. I just switched from the D200 to the D700. I also started using LR2 and shooting mostly in RAW. Everything I shoot is in a D700 folder on my laptop hard drive. The subfolders then are named by event. Now, while there may be different types of subjects in one subfolder, such as a mule deer and an antelope in one folder, in LR2 I keyword each photo. If for example I took some wildflower shots as well as some Antelope on the same outing, I will put all of those photos in a "2009 Wyoming Summer Vacation" folder. Then in LR2 I will keyword each photo with from that trip with "Wyoming", "Summer", "Vacation" etc, but then keyword each specific subject with only "Mule Deer", or "Pronghorn Antelope" etc. Not sure if that is the best way for me to go about it but it seems to work for me.
There are some good online tutorials Snakelover for LR2 that have really helped me. If you go to the following link, http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/li...tutorials.html , there are some really good ones, including setting up your file system. But, as you will hear Matt Kloskowski talk about, there are many different ways to do it.
Since I just really started shooting everything in RAW, I don't have thousands of photographs that need to be imported into LR2 and then processed. So, I have not backed up my LR2 Catalogs and keywords as Shane suggested. I would like to do that, just not sure at this point how to do it.
It seems there are a lot of Lightroom users now and after getting into it myself, I can understand why. It would be nice to have a way to trade tips etc. on here related specifically to LR2.Comment
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I create geographical folders for my root directory. This sorts location and then I break out each session following a Day Month Year order.
C:\Photos\
\Kerr\
\PadreIsland\
\Webb\
\Sutton\
Each directory root is named Day Month Year
Lightroom2 and Picasa 3 sort the front end.Comment
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Very interesting to see all the different ways to store files.
I keep waiting for somebody to say, "I just put all my pics in my "My Pictures" folder."
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Just got through testing MS SyncToy. I tested it for file and folder deletions, file and folder additions and file modifications. It worked flawlessly. Looks like it is just the ticket for keeping an exact echo copy of my primary external on my backup external. Very easy after initial setup. Just the click of a button after every Lr session will do the trick. And the best part... it's free!Comment
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I use that app at work and home for scripted backups David. I create the jobs from source to storage in SyncToy. Then I add SyncToy's backup scripts into into Microsoft's SCHEDULED TASKS, scheduling the SyncToy backup to run after hours.Comment
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Sounds really good, Rob. I read about integration with Task Scheduler here. I may combine Task Scheduler and SyncToy for some other backups. But I think for photos I would prefer to manually start SyncToy after each Lr session. Since it only copies new and changed files, I don't expect it to take a long time. That is assuming I keep up with it regularly. As long as I always finish my Lr session and backup before reformatting the CF card, I shouldn't be in danger of losing anything.Originally posted by AtTheWall View PostComment
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I downloaded SyncToy the other day after you mentioned it before, David. I'm loving it.Comment
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Break it on down Brother Shane!
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You must be getting me mixed up with some other really smart dude!Originally posted by Shane View Post
(Maybe Rob?) Seriously, I only found out about SyncToy just this morning. I'm still using JungleDisk, if that's what you're thinking of. But I'm afraid the online storage for RAW will become cost prohibitive at some point. The 1 TB USB hard drives are relatively cheap. I think I paid about $120 each. I may buy another one to just do weekly backups and shuttle off site in case of fire.
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