Photos - good way to organise

[Suelin23]

What's the best way to organise photos? Do people ever bother renaming the file name or just use tags or whatever in a system. I have photos off my camera, but I also have photos on my iPhone, and some of these are input, I find it convenient to take photos of meeting whiteboard notes, things I want to buy, etc. Not sure how to organise these as well as the happy snaps and work photos.
Any ideas?

[mickmel]

Whiteboard notes and "want to buy" pics are almost certainly best saved in Evernote. You can can folder/tag them as you wish, and the software will read any text in the images so you can search on that as well.

For happy snaps, there are certainly a lot more options. I just use folders in Dropbox, but many folks use Picasa or similar tools to help keep them organized.

[Oogiem]

I have a separate folder where the archive/backup of all photos lives. It's organized with a folder for each day.

When I take pictures that are part of a project, or project support or action item I attach them to the actual list item they correspond to via a link. I use Omnifocus and put the link in the notes.

Then the actual pictures files are located in Project Support for that project in my DEVONThink database. Things to buy have a separate folder in DT as well.

For the pictures I take that are happy snaps or other documentation I create scrapbooks that are on paper. So each month I print the pictures I want in the scrapbooks, and then create them. I also have an ongoing Open Office text file that is the index of each of the scrapbooks. I can refer to the particular book and volume if I need to get back to see something. That file can be searched easily. I use my scrapbooks as reference material a lot so it's important to me to be able to find stuff.

I don't particularly like tagging systems in general and find that I can locate stuff better in a strict chronological system but YMMV.

I do not change the filenames unless I create a different version (cropped, different resolution etc.) for some specific purpose, like the web site or to e-mail someone.

[harringg]

If you have a small photo collection, folders may work fine, but for any substantial amount of photo management, I'd recommend a DAM program (Digital Asset Manager) such as Aperture (Mac), Adobe Lightroom (Mac/PC) or ACDPro (PC).

I've used all three extensively and stuck my 18,000+ photos in Lightroom. Import automatically creates folders based on date on my local laptop and then I move them to a network storage drive in folders based on year. With my naming convention (see below) they are easily sorted by date shot.

Because it doesn't matter where the physical images reside it takes the "thinking" out of it when searching for the images. I use Keywords (analogous to Tags) and IPTC data to note where the images was taken for images with no GPS embedded information. For the images that are taken on a camera that embeds GPS information, you can view the location a picture was taken in a Google map in your web browser.

The advantage I find with Keywords is since I have images of my children spanning 18 years, and being consistent with "tagging" the images as I import, if I need to search for any images that contain just that child, the Lightroom Filters quickly pull them up, regardless of date taken or physical location on my hard drive. And it's near instant.

Lightroom has powerful filter tools to quickly find any image and on import there are many useful naming options. I have a pre-set that appends the camera's file name with the date the image was shot as well a description of the event, automagically.

DSCF5799.raf becomes 110814_DSCF5799_BirthdayParty.RAF

You can create both static Collections (analogous to Folders in Explorer or Finder) or Smart Collections where you can customize what content is stored based on many user-defined criteria.

An example for creating a smart Collection to quickly find all photos taken at Birthday Partys:

110814_DSCF5799_BirthdayParty.RAF
100429_DSCF4012_BirthdayParty.RAF
070104_DSCF2900_BirthdayParty.RAF (FYI: .RAF is a RAW image format)

My photo library is ~100 GB and backed up on multiple drives.

Also, Lightroom (and the others) have non-destructive image editing features built-in. Cropping/color correction/etc.. and you can export with many user-defined presets. Take the original image and export as low res for web, and another for hi-res printing. All without moving/duplicating the original image.

Hope this helps

Edit: Forgot to mention you can store the images off-line and retain small images in the library, since my 100 GB library of originals won't fit on my laptop, I can still preview them while on the go (and keyword tag as well). For editing or exporting, I do need the network drive attached.

[Oogiem]

If you have a small photo collection, folders may work fine, but for any substantial amount of photo management, I'd recommend a DAM program (Digital Asset Manager) such as Aperture (Mac), Adobe Lightroom (Mac/PC) or ACDPro (PC).

It may depend a bit on how you think. Currently I average about 6000 pictures a year and I've got over 12 years worth just as a chronological series of folders. Because my scrapbooks are "by project" If I need to say see the sheep flock pictures I just go to the sheep scrapbook index and decide which album to pull out. I remember things by years and dates not by person or location, partly why tagging just doesn't seem to make sense for me.

[harringg]

For my workflow the DAM software works. The OP will have to figure out what best works for them, just providing an option that works for this user. :-)

With your workflow, how would you find all pictures of "Susie" spanned over 12 years for say a slideshow at a wedding?

If you workflow wouldn't require that, clearly there are systems that are going to work better based on the desired output.

I actually just started printing images that were otherwise "locked" on my computer, and no one else ever got to see them when they were there.

I created a Collection called Print For Grandma, put all images that contained my wife's grandmother and cropped and exported then sent to an online photo printing company.

My sister-in-law wanted a copy of those and any other images I had of her kids, so a quick filter for her kids, added to that Collection and I now had them ready to print.

I don't know that I would have known which date I took pictures of the niece and nephew without that tool.

But again, Lightroom is just one more option for the OP.

As a curiosity, do you have a scrapbook for each person, and as a result, if "Susie" and "Steve" were in one picture taken in 2006, do you have that same picture in "Susie's Scrapbook" and "Steve's Scrapbook"?

[mcogilvie]

Whiteboard notes and "want to buy" pics are almost certainly best saved in Evernote. You can can folder/tag them as you wish, and the software will read any text in the images so you can search on that as well.

For happy snaps, there are certainly a lot more options. I just use folders in Dropbox, but many folks use Picasa or similar tools to help keep them organized.

Ditto for Evernote and working photos, but I use iPhoto for vacations and celebrations. I may outgrow it someday, but I hope not too soon. I'm not a photo software power user, but I do have hundreds of shots per year.

[Suelin23]

Adobe Lightroom sounds good. I can never remember dates. I actually use the photos to help me remember dates. Even yesterday my partner and I were arguing about whether last year we saw my family or his on Christmas day last year (usually we alternate years), and I use the photos to help me remember details like that.

I'd also like to organise photos that are given to me or I've copied off websites etc, and record the source, so if I'm doing a presentation I can give credit to the photographer and not breach copyright. I've also been considering getting an external hard drive just for photos so I can take them from home to work, or to other people's houses - particularly with smart TVs you can run photo slideshows via USB connection.
Will Adobe Lightroom work with this?

[harringg]

I'd also like to organise photos that are given to me or I've copied off websites etc, and record the source, so if I'm doing a presentation I can give credit to the photographer and not breach copyright.

Lightroom lets you add a wide variety of Metadata to images and you can do a batch addition as well for easy data entry. You can also "watermark" the Metadata on exported images.


I've also been considering getting an external hard drive just for photos so I can take them from home to work, or to other people's houses - particularly with smart TVs you can run photo slideshows via USB connection.
Will Adobe Lightroom work with this?

Since you are using the TV to run the slideshow from the images on the hard drive, Lightroom wouldn't factor into it. However, if you connect your laptop to a TV, Lightroom does have a slideshow module.

Or you can select your images you want and export them to a folder on your external hard drive, call it "Slides for TV" and when you connect the drive to the television you can navigate to that folder.

But that said, I was offering an option for how to manage images, and there is are dedicated user forums for Lightroom usage should you have further questions on Lightroom that may be better suited for this thread. One I've learned quite a bit from is lightroomforums.net

[Suelin23]

Cool, thanks

[ellobogrande]

I started by designating a folder as the root folder for all of my photos. I then create a folder tree under that folder that resembles this structure:

\My Photos

\Year
\MM-DD - Album Name
\filename.jpg

I also created a designated folder to where I download all of my camera images. I sort and manipulate the images there (I discard and resize some of them), then I cut and paste into the tree that I've developed. It's fast and easy.

[Oogiem]

With your workflow, how would you find all pictures of "Susie" spanned over 12 years for say a slideshow at a wedding?
...
As a curiosity, do you have a scrapbook for each person, and as a result, if "Susie" and "Steve" were in one picture taken in 2006, do you have that same picture in "Susie's Scrapbook" and "Steve's Scrapbook"?

I would search in my index files for references to Susie. Because of how I write the index I would then have the year, month and day I took the pictures and I could go to the original files to select the pictures I wanted to pull for a slideshow.

I don't have separate books for individual people. I have a series of on-going family books, a set of sheep scrapbooks (currently at my 11th volume) and ones for our poultry, all by years in chronological order. So for example our personal scrapbook for 209 is actually 4 volumes with all the pictures and family things that we did that year and all general farm stuff. I also have separate sets of books for special items, major trips (3 sets of trips to the UK for example for each of the 3 years I have gone), main house remodel (currently at 3 scrapbooks), Little house remodel (that one is 4 big scrapbooks), Barn remodel etc.

[harringg]

I haven't been to these boards for a while, is the spam always this bad? Anyway, if someone has a followup Lightroom question, please send me a PM, I’m going to unsubscribe to this thread to eliminate inbox spam.

Thanks

[Myriam]

I haven't been to these boards for a while, is the spam always this bad? Anyway, if someone has a followup Lightroom question, please send me a PM, I’m going to unsubscribe to this thread to eliminate inbox spam.

Thanks

actually, I think the amount of spam and advertising on these boards is really low. Weeks can go by without any at all. But of course once a spammer visits the board, he/she usually doesn't stop after one message, so when they come, they come in groups.

Myriam

[kelstarrising]

actually, I think the amount of spam and advertising on these boards is really low. Weeks can go by without any at all. But of course once a spammer visits the board, he/she usually doesn't stop after one message, so when they come, they come in groups.

We do delete spam and ban the spammer as soon as it's reported by Forum members (http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?5228-You-Can-Help-Fight-Spam-In-This-Forum) or we see it. Much of it is deleted before most members even see it. Unfortunately, it's the price we pay for having somewhat loose controls on who can post (an email address is all that's required), in our efforts to make the Forums easy to use. Our staff is in the Forums every business day. And spammers do tend to post in groups of posts. Fortunately, spam is limited to our Public forums. They never come into the GTD Connect forums.

[TesTeq]

We do delete spam and ban the spammer as soon as it's reported by Forum members (http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?5228-You-Can-Help-Fight-Spam-In-This-Forum) or we see it.

But you make it difficult to report a "group spam". There's a 60-second delay between each report. So to report 3 spam posts I must wait at least 2 minutes or multitask. There's no delay for posting spam so spammers have advantage over spam hunters.

[kelstarrising]

Hi TesTeq,

We so appreciate your due diligence in fighting spam crime for us.

I think I found the setting to change that, in the abyss of settings in our Forum software. Please let me know if you are still getting that delay though, next time you report multiple posts.

Thanks!

Kelly

[TesTeq]

I think I found the setting to change that, in the abyss of settings in our Forum software. Please let me know if you are still getting that delay though, next time you report multiple posts.

There was less spam recently but today I had to report multiple messages and had to wait 60 seconds between each report. :-(

[kelstarrising]

Thanks for letting us know. We may need to move to "hold for moderation" of posts before they get published in the Public forums. We're looking into that now.

[Cpu_Modern]

@kels:
Other countermeasures against forum spam I've seen successfully implemented in other communities I engage in regularly and long-term:


A X days period between registering and beeing able to post. That makes it too cumbersome for a certain type of spammer.
Posts with hyperlinks in them can only be sent by members with X amount of posts.

[kelstarrising]

Exactly. LinkedIn allows that. We're snorting through the Forum software settings to see if there is something similar.

Thanks!

[John Forrister]

I appreciate when you all report spam. I process those email notifications I get about spam reports first thing in the morning. Those reports have links directly to the spam posts so I can take action on them. After that, when I go to 'new posts' in the forums, much of the spam clearing has already been done.

We'll look for forum software settings that discourage spammers but still make it as easy as possible for all of you to participate in the forums.

Best,
John

[TesTeq]

We'll look for forum software settings that discourage spammers but still make it as easy as possible for all of you to participate in the forums.

What about slowing down the posting process? Spammers are in a hurry and often cut and paste text with links while forum users write their own thoughts.

I cannot report spam more often than one post per minute but I can post spam like a machine gun. It is not fair.

[elbow]

Coming back to the original subject matter, does anyone have any views on iPhoto vs Aperture vs Lightroom as photo organising tools? I'm about to upgrade my aging MacBook to a nice shiny MBP and I'm thinking about moving beyond iPhoto. I have around 6,000 photos at the moment, growing by about 1,000 a year. I feel like I'm starting to outgrow iPhoto but I'm concerned that moving to something else will take a huge amount of time to climb a new learning curve. Aperture looks like something quite close to iPhoto (as you'd expect I guess) but I've heard reports that it runs extremely slowly under OS X Lion. Lightroom also looks like a good solution but takes me away from the setup I'm used to. So if anyone has any thoughts on the best way forward, I'd be really interested to hear from you!

Thanks

Nathan

[kelstarrising]

I cannot report spam more often than one post per minute but I can post spam like a machine gun. It is not fair.

We're doing our best TesTeq. So sorry you are so upset about this situation.

[Oogiem]

Coming back to the original subject matter, does anyone have any views on iPhoto vs Aperture vs Lightroom as photo organising tools?

I haven't used either but when I asked my photography friend he pointed me to this article:

http://www.twin-pixels.com/raw-processors-review-aperture-bibble-capture-one-dxo-lightroom/

And said he prefers Lightroom for features but the Aperture interface is easier to use. FWIW he uses both, different cameras have their pictures in one or the other system.

[TesTeq]

We're doing our best TesTeq. So sorry you are so upset about this situation.

Kelly, I've never wanted to make it sound like a complaint. It is really a minor issue.

My remarks have rather philosophical nature - in our world spammers, cheaters and thieves can walk the easier path because they do not have to obey the rules - we, good people must obey them...

[elbow]

I haven't used either but when I asked my photography friend he pointed me to this article:

http://www.twin-pixels.com/raw-processors-review-aperture-bibble-capture-one-dxo-lightroom/



Thanks Oogie, that was a fantastic article! I'm edging towards Aperture on the basis that it's a lot closer to iPhoto which I'm used to, and also on the Mac App Store it's about 1/4 the price of Lightroom - but as both of them offer 30-day trials I think I will download both of them and try them out