Well then, 6 years on from getting my first serious DSLR, my D90, I've come to realise my image files are all over the place and it's now an absolute nightmare trying to find anything specific.
I started off shooting just JPEG files, but fairly quickly moved to shooting both RAW and JPEG copies at the same time. As if that isn't bad enough there have been times when I've experimented with HDR which obviously means having several different exposures of the same image thus increasing the number of files I've collected even more.
And more recently still I've began to experiment with panoramas, which means once again taking umpteen different shots of the same scene.
Oh, and then there's my tendency to like to mess around with my images in what I euphemistically call the 'processing room' which creates even more versions of the same base file.
All of which means I now have literally tens of thousands of images, but no sensible system for storing, managing, editing and/or accessing them. I suspect though that others may have had to crack this nut too at some point and so am wondering what you guys out there do?
Any advice or tips would be much appreciated!
Kind regards
PAUL
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7 comments
Pam J said:
I also have precise folders for my graphics and artwork graphics.
Yes.. I have alot of folders.. but they are in order and reasonablyyyyyyyy easy to find. I also dont shoot in raw.
autofantasia replied to Pam J:
Roger Dodger said:
autofantasia said:
Fotoriff said:
File name by subject is the easiest I found.
I don't organize by date, good luck find something specific.
My file names are always the subject of the photo, then a vague location and lastly the date, then .jpg.
I do it by subject to find a specific photo on my search bar when searching my whole photo collection, which is around 8000 images.
It's been working great that way since '01 when I started digitizing my photos.
You have to try different things that will work for you.
Multiple shots of the same thing will have the same subject name, is they way I do it, but then the last part of the file name will end in 01,02, etc.
Good luck,
Mike
autofantasia replied to Fotoriff:
mobycat said:
1. Shoot in NEF only.
2. Transfer files to computer. Rename them based on date and location (and then chronologically). So if I were to take a picture in New York City on December 25th, 2016, the files would be named 161225_newyorkcity_0001.nef and so on. (Y/M/D keeps them in calendar order).
3. Create a Lightroom catalog and import those files.
4. Do exposure adjustments in Lightroom and then export as DNG file (those that I want to post).
5. Open the DNG files in Photoshop and do any fine-tuning that Lightroom can't do and then export as JPG files.
Sounds a bit convoluted, but the Lightroom catalog keeps all the adjustments I made, so I theoretically don't have to keep the DNG files stored away. I can just reopen the Lightroom catalog and re-export if needed.
So everything of mine is cataloged in Lightroom. I have a lot of Lightroom catalogs - for cars, I have a catalog for each make.
Storage - I have an external local drive and then I also back up everything on Amazon (unlimited photo storage for Prime members). However, I can't store lightroom catalog files there, as they are not photos. So I put those on Dropbox. Last backup - local Time Machine.
I can't recommend Adobe's Photography package enough. Lightroom and Photoshop. It does cost US$ 10/month, but for me, it's worth it. There is not contract, so I can cancel anytime if I want and re-join later. And that price includes all updates to the programs.