23 replies to this topic

[Steve M]

Not sure if this the right forum so if needs to be move by all means go ahead.

 

 

I must now have 5000 pictures.  Filing system I thought I had a good system but now with so many photos my system seems to suck.  I keep everything, my bad, my ugly, my good, and my marked ones.  I have sub directories of the copyrighted one and the not copyrighted ones. 

 

My iPad which I usually transfer to first automatically renames them, and if I share to Google Plus Google will rename again.  Google will keep the name if I transfer from my computer.

 

I guess just wondering how everyone else does it.

[etphoto]

I use external hard drives and make sure my images have keywords for easier searching. Each shoot and subject matter are kept in their own folder and the folders are kept in my made up categories.

I also use image management type software that lets me easily do the tasks needed to manage my large collection. I use ACDSee but there are a number of other types of software out there that does the same thing.

I keep my client images on the external hard drive for roughly two years and then burn them to two (for backup) DVDs and then file them away (by last name). Rarely do I need to revisit those DVDs once they get filed.

My personal stuff is kept on the external drives and I try (sometimes fail) to PRINT the images that mean the most to me and store them in a "photo box" that someday I image my kids would want. Sadly, I think photo boxes are rare these days in the digital world.

Twitter: @PhotographyET

[Merco_61]

Manual file management quickly gets difficult. You definitely need a DAM (Digital asset management) solution. The easiest to learn is probably Lightroom. It has it's drawbacks in that it is database driven. This means that you need to update the backup database after every large photography session to not risk losing your metadata. The keywording is easy to use but with that ease comes a need for discipline. If you spell a keyword wrong, it will be added to the keyword list without query and that can make for tedious sessions trying to find all spellings of a word when looking for a file you need.

 

I, personally use Photo Mechanic but this is overkill unless you have to keyword and sort large collections often. As an example, I shot a flash mob dancing in red dresses to Wuthering Heights in July and came home with a little over a thousand photos, 800 of which were technically usable. I had them down to 40 worth spending the time in post to tweak in well under an hour.

PM doesn't use a database, but the keywords integrate in finder or explorer so they are searchable without even opening PM unless you want to.

[TBonz]

I will start by saying that I am moving more towards the full PhotoMechanic solution although it isn't happening nearly as quickly as I would like to.  But again, I also deal in large numbers of images...I usually come home from a game with 500 or more images and there are times when I am shooting multiple games a day and even more frequently multiple games a week...

 

While I have been using LightRoom and PhotoMechanic, I still layout my images in a folder structure that I've been using for many years.  Below the main folder, I have folders for each year, below that I begin the categories...these tend to be fairly generic such as the US State where the images were taken or Sports or .... and below that (using Sports as an example) it gets broken down further to individual sports (football, basketball, baseball, etc.) and then to specific games.  Same goes for the State such as Virginia / Wildlife / Deer or something like that as I extend the folder structure downward.  The specific game folder has all the images for that game.  I actually maintain this same structure across the external drives using a large drive as backup with multiple years and smaller external drives that will each have about 2 years of images before archiving.  So one has 2014 and 2015 while a separate has 2013 and 2014.  Yet another separate external drive has 2015 and 2016 (still building, of course).  

 

The one other difference is that under each year I have other folders for various projects, but I guess the other real key folder per year is the Save folder.  Beneath Save is a similar folder structure to that described above but those folders contain only images that I have exported from LightRoom for publication to web or for other uses.  Is it necessary?  No, I could put the exported JPEGS in a variety of locations, but it works for me and I know where to find what I want when I need it.  I also use the LightRoom keywords and am hoping to expand that use as I move forward to make what is a relatively easy search even easier down the road.  Once images are processed and exported and the original folders / files are backed up to the other drives, they get removed from my internal drive so I always have space for the next sets of images.  Speaking of which, I need to make sure everything is backed up and cleaned up since I have quite a bit of shooting this weekend!

[Ron]

I use Lightroom exclusively. I understand that Photo Mechanic is a wonderful tool but, for me at least, Lightroom does the trick.

 

The problem, of course, is being consistent. It's often hard to sit down and go though dozens (or hundreds) or photos ... renaming, adding keywords, etc.. but if you don't develop that discipline, you'll fall hopelessly behind very fast. 

 

And, btw... collections in Lightroom is the one thing that really makes it an indispensable tool for me. Just set up some criteria ... from a vast array of options, and Lightroom will automagically sort those photos into whatever collections you've set up. Makes finding that one special image much easier. 

 

--Ron

[TBonz]

Yep...you are correct...I should start using collections more...PhotoMechanic is wonderful for going through large #s of images fairly quickly...And I have been mainly using it as a tool to do my first cull before I import into LightRoom.  My biggest problem is getting and then taking the time to plan out and switch over to a more effective process.  I've determined (at least in my head) that I want to get the new process setup and in place no later than 2017, but to me the important part is determining the process and confirming the tools are setup and ready for that process.  I mostly know what I want, but I have to grab a set of images and test that process out on them before trying it on more important images...hoping to grab those tonight and get familiar with the D500 while grabbing the images...nothing critical - my plans for shooting soccer last night and football tonight have been overcome by other things so it doesn't look like I am going to be able to shoot them, but I will have the opportunity to get some photos of a musician who is performing locally tonight.  Luckily I will still be able to make that even though I was really looking forward to trying the D500 at the football game.  

[Ron]

D500? What'd I miss?

 

I hate you! You know that, right? LOL Just kidding of course.... grrrrr....

 

--Ron

[etphoto]

Yep...you are correct...I should start using collections more...PhotoMechanic is wonderful for going through large #s of images fairly quickly...And I have been mainly using it as a tool to do my first cull before I import into LightRoom. My biggest problem is getting and then taking the time to plan out and switch over to a more effective process. I've determined (at least in my head) that I want to get the new process setup and in place no later than 2017, but to me the important part is determining the process and confirming the tools are setup and ready for that process. I mostly know what I want, but I have to grab a set of images and test that process out on them before trying it on more important images...hoping to grab those tonight and get familiar with the D500 while grabbing the images...nothing critical - my plans for shooting soccer last night and football tonight have been overcome by other things so it doesn't look like I am going to be able to shoot them, but I will have the opportunity to get some photos of a musician who is performing locally tonight. Luckily I will still be able to make that even though I was really looking forward to trying the D500 at the football game.

Why do you have to cull before LR? That is what is so nice about LR. Images are loaded (without them being imported), using the arrow keys and the X key I quickly cull useless images before they are even imported. Once they get imported I cull again in the Library module. Using another piece of software to do that seems like an extra step that isn't needed.

Once my images are run through LR I export to a folder with Bride's last name and I use ACDSee to sort (I normally have at least 3 different cards going into that folder) by date/time created and then I do a batch renumbering of the images. It took me a while to get it down to a science but I'm pretty good with getting things right in camera (crop / exposure) so I can run them pretty quickly through LR which helps when it comes down to speed.

Twitter: @PhotographyET

[Wamason]

I guess I'm old fashioned... I use a standard folder structure organized by year, month, then job last name. I place a text file in each job folder with basic details of the job and a few keywords in case I need to search. I don't use LR, just PS for post work.

I do shoot mirrored cards, and import the originals to a synology NAS. With the originals safe, I start pulling the files off the cards with PS camera raw and culling as I go. Once I'm satisfied with my edits, I move them to the NAS and delete the originals a few weeks later.

My NAS automatically replicates to Amazon cloud drive and I verify the replication status each time I make changes.

This goes for whatever I shoot plus family pics dating back 15 years or so. My NAS has roughly 12 terabytes of space among 4 drives with single drive fault tolerance, and I keep a hot spare handy.

Since I don't take a ridiculously high volume of pictures this setup works great for me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[TBonz]

D500? What'd I miss?

 

I hate you! You know that, right? LOL Just kidding of course.... grrrrr....

 

--Ron

 

Rental...took some shots last night of a musician and from the built in LCD, the low light quality looks as good or better than my D4...

 

Why do you have to cull before LR? That is what is so nice about LR. Images are loaded (without them being imported), using the arrow keys and the X key I quickly cull useless images before they are even imported. Once they get imported I cull again in the Library module. Using another piece of software to do that seems like an extra step that isn't needed.

Once my images are run through LR I export to a folder with Bride's last name and I use ACDSee to sort (I normally have at least 3 different cards going into that folder) by date/time created and then I do a batch renumbering of the images. It took me a while to get it down to a science but I'm pretty good with getting things right in camera (crop / exposure) so I can run them pretty quickly through LR which helps when it comes down to speed.

Twitter: @PhotographyET

 

PhotoMechanic is MUCH faster than LR for the initial cull...I don't always use PM if I have a small # of images...and remember I am speaking of primarily sports images...I generally get rid of at least 75% of the images in that initial cull...Some out of focus, some that were a bit early or late, some that just don't tell the story well enough, etc.  I cull more as I give them a more detailed review in LR.  

[dcbear78]

I should really use my D500 some more...

[leighgion]

This is a very personal topic, but I myself jumped ship to image management software as soon as it was available and have never looked back. I always felt like manually filing images in folders was wasting my life. Computers are really good at repetitive tasks and keeping tabs on tons of tedious data, so why not let them do it for you?

 

Being a Mac user, I started out on the earliest version of iPhoto and eventually moved to the (now discontinued) Aperture, which I shall use until it stops working and I'm forced to migrate to Photos. I'm not very tidy about my files and am chronically behind on any kind of culling, tagging or sorting, which actually makes using photo managing software all that much more vital. I can dump all my photos into the Aperture database and depend on the computer allowing me to in some way sift through them and find stuff.

[dcbear78]

I've got to get better at culling the images I will never use. I will do a photo shoot and take a couple hundred photos of which I will really only use maybe 10. Really no reason for me to be keeping more than about 50 photos from the shoot.

[morticiaskeeper]

I need a good cull of RAW images that will never be used.

Just recently, I've modified my routine a little bit.

The cards go into the main PC and all files are copied to the dated directory. I then use Geeqie to have a quick look, noting down file numbers of possible edits. These are then copied to a directory on my server, usually named XXXXedits.

I then have the potential edits available to my iPad, where I edit using Photogenie, saving TIFF files back to the server and sending JPG files to my website, Flickr,Facebook and the customer, if it's a commercial job.

Today I have to take shots of a Raspberry Pi Jam - a get together of computer nerds based around the Raspberry Pi computer!

[Merco_61]

Yep...you are correct...I should start using collections more...PhotoMechanic is wonderful for going through large #s of images fairly quickly...And I have been mainly using it as a tool to do my first cull before I import into LightRoom.  My biggest problem is getting and then taking the time to plan out and switch over to a more effective process.  I've determined (at least in my head) that I want to get the new process setup and in place no later than 2017, but to me the important part is determining the process and confirming the tools are setup and ready for that process.  I mostly know what I want, but I have to grab a set of images and test that process out on them before trying it on more important images...hoping to grab those tonight and get familiar with the D500 while grabbing the images...nothing critical - my plans for shooting soccer last night and football tonight have been overcome by other things so it doesn't look like I am going to be able to shoot them, but I will have the opportunity to get some photos of a musician who is performing locally tonight.  Luckily I will still be able to make that even though I was really looking forward to trying the D500 at the football game.  

 

Tom, try to be ready by a clear date or event so you can quickly remember which system to search in. The timeconsuming part when switching to PM is setting up your structured keywords. A chain such as SPORT# >$Soccer >division# >$list of divisions >$half to set the basics and then adding teams, date and venue as normal keywords can save lots of time, but the structure must make sense and be relevant. A structured list with the team roster for the season can be a huge timesaver if you shoot the same team more than once in a season. Take the time to sit down and analyze, preferably on paper, what your current keyword structure looks like and what words should go into structured lists and which should just be added as singles. This work now will make the transition much more painless than if you don't. 

A thought-through caption list is another huge timesaver when you have recurring captions from each event.

[TBonz]

I agree completely Peter...I am working on getting the contacts at the local high schools right now so that I can get the rosters and such...I plan to set that date once I get a feel for this new job and my available time...sounds like I might have to do a bit of travel for a few weeks so I may just end up spending my evenings playing with that setup since I won't be able to be out shooting!

[Steve M]

Thank you everyone.   This gives me some good ideas and where to start.   I do have the program Light Room App but I think it has expired.   But I should probably just purchase it.  I think it is a monthly fee now but works on both my computer and tablet.  

 

I just transferred 1737 photos from my camera.  Wow never thought I would take that many in less than a month.  Just even going through them and deleting the bad takes time.

[TBonz]

PhotoShop CC is the monthly product which includes the latest versions of both PhotoShop and LightRoom for (I believe) $9.99 per month.  As I recall the tablet version is free, but the monthly product also allows you to share images between computer and tablet versions and edit in either location.

[Wayben]

I've been using external hard drives with a manual filing system, but it is getting pretty burdensome.  I just signed up with Photoshop CC a few weeks ago so I'm looking at using LR from now on.  Hopefully, the learning curve won't be too steep.

[Merco_61]

Peter Krogh's "Organizing your photos with Lightroom 5" is a very nice resource to set up your LR library with the least trouble... The DAM part is unchanged since version 5.

 

Organizing Your Photos with Lightroom 5 - The DAM Book