I've been using iPhoto for years and all my digital photos dating back to 2004 are in there...and I have never renamed the files. Half of them have the wrong date. Something went awry the last time I got a new computer and the order of them got all mixed up, so that photos from 2011 were, say, in the middle of 2005.
I have everything backed up. Just got a new computer and my new year's resolution is to organize and archive my photos properly, as well as upload monthly to Shutterfly/mPix so that when I go to make albums at Christmas for all the grandparents and myself, I do not find myself 10 months behind as I did this year!
All that said...where to begin? Do you name your photo files? A friend of mine files hers by month and I will ask her more details, but thought I'd ask here, too.
I am thinking about switching over to Lightroom or Photoshop Elements, as I believe these programs make it easier to access/organize your original files compared to iPhoto.
You might also enjoy...
-
By year and event name and (sometimes)date. So big file called 2014. Subfolders like newborn photos, visit with parents June, 1 mo photos, zoo trip July, etc.
-
Lightroom is so amazingly easy to use, both as a limited editing tool (I do basic editing and cropping with LR and then finish and print from Photoshop), and as a catalogue. When you import, it uses metadata to organize your images by date, but you can also go in afterwards and add keywords (i.e., birthday party, vacation, Christmas) to organize them by category. Then you can choose to only show images by category. Very useful, and it's what I learned to use as part of my workflow at an accredited photo school.
-
I have folders for each year going back to my first digital camera. Within these folders I am subdivided. I was dividing by event for years, but in the last three years since becoming a mom and my photo taking has grown exponentially, I subdivide by numerical month. Sometimes if I take a TON of photos at an individual event, I have a further subfolder within that folder.
I also teach, and I teach my school and blogging pictures the same way, in their own year folders with the same method of subdivision.
For example, Today I opened a folder labeled 2015 and put my first subdivison inside 01january. When We're back to school next week and I take pictures at school, I'll open a folder labeled 2015mws (which are my school initials). -
Also, with Lightroom, it doesn't matter what folders you have them in on the computer, it will catalogue them all for you from their original folders, or even copy them into a new file structure (by date). It's a real time saver, and not all that expensive, compared to other programs. Okay, enough! I swear I have no affiliation with Adobe!!! Just a happy customer!
-
I have major categories such as Birthdays, Holiday, Travel, etc and then subcategories underneath each one with the event and year. Example: Birthdays-Anna's 21st Birthday 2010.
I have it categorized this way on my computer, my external hard drive, and on Shutterfly.
-
Flickr Pro. We have it organized by big events (trips etc) and then just general times of the year. So right now is "winter 2014" and that's where we're posting random pictures but we also had one called South Korea 2014 which was all of our pictures from there.
We bought a domain name -- http://www.ourlastname.com to make it easy for friends and fAmily to access.
-
I use Lightroom and do not rename. I add keywords so that I can search for people and events.
-
I have a folder for each year. 2014 I started doing a subfolder for each month and then a folder for each day. I take way too many photos. lol Folder title is the date and I will sometimes add a description. I don't rename files unless I've edited them in LR and the file name becomes the date. I then have a favorites folder for each month that I copy all my fav photos into. Then I backup the fav folders in dropbox and upload to shutterfly to work on family yearbook. It worked well for 2014 so I will continue it for 2015.
@Astro Bee: I need to figure out this category thing in LR. Sounds useful. I only just figured out that I can delete photos from LR and also delete off computer at the same time. Helps me sort through photos easier.
-
I put all pictures on a mini thumb drive and organize them by month. But I have an iphone and "real" camera folder for each month. I don't even know if it makes sense to organize like that but it's worked so far & and it makes making photo books so easy!
oh and the file name for each picture is just the date that i uploaded them (unless i'm uploading them in a different month from which they were taken, then i just pick a random date from the month they were taken... haha.)
-
I just organize in folders by date and name so every thing is named like '2015-01-01 New Years'
-
@Astro Bee: Thanks! I am starting up with Lightroom...tried to do some stuff last night and got a little overwhelmed when I saw that it imported 18,000 photos! I know compared to others that might not be a lot but all at once it was rather daunting. I think for the old stuff I'm going to settle by creating folders for each year *in case* I need them later. Any tips on resources for getting started with Lightroom? I saw Adobe has a bunch of videos but am wondering if I need a book. Like I said, I just got started last night and actually my brain wasn't up for it after a day of twin toddlers!
Thanks to everyone for the help. I have some ideas and just need to sit down and do it! -
HotChild got me onto Flickr! Works great for my iPhone pics. For my pro stuff, it goes on an external hard drive
- Google Plus
- Stumbleupon
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Pinterest
- Favorite0
12 comments