I recently purchased an external hard drive and I have been pondering the best way to categorize and store my photos before starting the task of saving them to the drive. I haven't been able to come up with a solution that I'm 100% happy with. Sooo, my question to you photographers is 'How do you store and categorize all your images'? Do you keep just your favorite shots? Do you keep shots that are OK but could have some potential with some editing? Do you categorize them by dates or events or categories?
I use Photoshop Elements 9 Organizer but I have to be honest, I don't really know how to use it that well for organizing or categorizing my shots yet. If anyone has any great, easy tips, I'd love to hear about them as well!
Inquiring minds wanna' know!
Till next time,
4 comments:
I just backed up my files yesterday and the only way I can remember what the photos are is by filing them by date.
i've got an external drive to store mine as well. initially when i load them to my laptop, my photo software puts them in albums according to date. that's fine for sorting thru and processing before using for blog posts, printing, etc. but i hate the date method.
my hard drive has folders of subject and subfolders under them. Birds (surprise!) is a main one, then under that is a litany of most popular types i catch around here (chickadees, blue jays, bluebirds, ducks, etc.) Ducks is a subfolder that then has Whistlers, wood ducks, mallards, etc. under it. i drill down as specific as i need to get to keep a bazillion bird subjects sorted. figure the dates are stored with the files so i know approx. when they were taken.
for family photos, i do have a few 'trip' folders or 'visit' ones to put a whole shebang into one grouping. same thing with certain house improvement projects, etc.
that's it. nothing wise or scientific, but it works for me...
I keep mine on flash drives, which is probably not a great idea, but I do like to categorize them in subject folders.....tends to work best for me:)
I also have an external hard drive, which has really helped my laptop's performance. I used to keep mine in categories such as: Birds, Nature & Flowers, Kids, Christmas, ect. But, I have since found a better system for me personally. Since I take photos almost daily, I simply have a folder for each month "July 2011" with subfolders inside for each day or days "July 1st-4th". If there is a special day of photos, I will give them their own subfolder in that month "Jake Birthday-April 2011". Not sure I made much sense explaining it! LOL
I seem to do well with this system (so far)
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