How far do you go...

N.Stocks · 06-03-2009, 09:22 AM

With Organizing your Photo's ?

I have over 1100 Photo's in my Lightroom (2.0) library that are all in a 'Raw to be Archived' folder. So basically all my photo's are in the same folder. I have started to organize them into folders but I'm not sure how vague I'm been when it comes to the types of Photo's I have...

98% of my Library is macro, 90% of that are of flowers. Should I have a folder like this :
Macro
>Flowers
>Bugs
.... and so on.

Or because my library is mainly Macro, just employ folders based on what will they will contain i.e just have Flowers, Macro, Black & White all in their own main folder ? Also, say if I have a macro shot of a flower that also has water on it to add an extra depth to the Photo, should that Photo go in Flowers, or Water as I already have a water folder with water droplets etc.

Am I going to far into folder structure or not far enough ? I don't need advice on how to organize, just how detailed to do so.

Thank you for your opinions.

N.stocks

Jim Royal · 06-03-2009, 09:53 AM

I used to organize photos according to topic and sub-topics, but I found that too limiting. This is what I do now:

All my personal photography goes in one library. Special projects that include hundreds of shots get their own libraries, and those libraries are archived once the project is completed.

My personal library is organized by dated sub-folders in this fashion:

-- Year
---- Month
-------- Day

Every photo is tagged with descriptive keywords. The name of every person in a photo is a keyword. Special events (like a birthday) are keywords. Inanimate objects that are subject matter (like a statue) are keywords. Place names and time of day can be keywords if they are important elements of the image.

This way, I can rapidly find images by keyword or by combining keywords with dates. I have smart folders for frequently-accessed topics.

I believe that this system permits growth better than subject-based folder naming.

Venturi · 06-03-2009, 10:17 AM

Same as Jim here. LR2's collections and keywording makes subject based cataloging a bit redundant

N.Stocks · 06-03-2009, 10:24 AM

But with just organizing them according to date, means that you will always need to search using the search tool, as you won't be able to remember that a particular photo was taken on March 25th 2006...

I always keyword my Photo's with at least 2 keywords, but now I'm thinking of adding more i.e. the color of the Photo etc as like I said most of my Photo's are Macro ( and I only wish I had good landscapes and architecture where I live... )

Venturi · 06-03-2009, 10:48 AM

Originally Posted by N.Stocks

But with just organizing them according to date, means that you will always need to search using the search tool, as you won't be able to remember that a particular photo was taken on March 25th 2006...

Well, the by date is just for filing purposes - the physical location on disk (e.g. D:\Catalog\2009\06\03). I then keyword each photo on import (e.g. Flora, Weed, Dandelion, Roundup, Dead). And if the photo(s) are part of a group or a shoot I then put them into a collection (e.g. "Weeds I Killed").

Jim Royal · 06-03-2009, 11:58 AM

Originally Posted by N.Stocks

But with just organizing them according to date, means that you will always need to search using the search tool...

This is what smart folders are for. Your search criteria can be very selective, and you don't have to re-execute the same search over and over. If also allow you to perform an impromptu search over a date range really quickly.

Doing this way reduces the amount of thinking over the long run because the thinking (keyword assignment) was done only once, right at the beginning.

If you think about it, a deep folder hierarchy is a lot like a keywording scheme with the exception that a photo can be in only one folder. What if the photo is of a bug on a flower? In which folder does it go? And once you decide that it goes in either "bug" or "flower," how do you remember which one when you go looking?

junyo · 06-03-2009, 12:28 PM

Originally Posted by Jim Royal

If you think about it, a deep folder hierarchy is a lot like a keywording scheme with the exception that a photo can be in only one folder. What if the photo is of a bug on a flower? In which folder does it go? And once you decide that it goes in either "bug" or "flower," how do you remember which one when you go looking?

That's what a lot of people miss. If you take the time to keyword, it's essentially placing that same file in multiple folders simultaneously, without needing to manage multiple files/folders on disk, and new "folders" can be created dynamically by adding new keywords.

**Marc Sabatella** · 06-03-2009, 02:17 PM

Originally Posted by N.Stocks

But with just organizing them according to date, means that you will always need to search using the search tool, as you won't be able to remember that a particular photo was taken on March 25th 2006...

True enough. Is there a problem with using a search tool? That seems similar to saying "if the only way you can start your car is with a key, you will always need a key to start the car". OK, but so what? Is there a problem with using a key?

BTW, the gold standard reference for organization of digital images is "The DAM Book" by Peter Krogh, now in a second edition that I just heard about last week and plan to pick up today or tomorrow. He recommends archiving by date to make backup simple (once a fodler is backed up, is is never changed), but making heavy use of keywords, ratings, and other metadata facilities to make it easy to find your images. I typically spend maybe 10 minutes per cardful of image adding keywords and so forth, and I consider that time well spent.