[DeadJohn]

I make a folder with the format YYYY/MM/DD RANDOM NAME. I usually give it some name that will make me remember what's in it. I have a fairly good memory.

I use a similar folder scheme. I import with Lightroom and the folder name is based on the date photos were taken. I then edit the folder name to describe the location or event. For example, if I took photos in Paris, mostly at the Eiffel Tower, yesterday, the folder name might end up something like "20191010 Eiffel Paris".

I also use Lightroom ratings (1 through 5 stars) and keywords. My usual workflow after loading raw files is:
1) Quickly go through images. Give the photos with potential 1 star.
2) Process the 1 star images. If I find a fatal flaw in a photo, remove the star.
3) After processing, if a photo is worth sharing give it at least 2 stars, and also add keywords.


This offers me several different ways to filter my Lightroom catalog.

Timelapses (astrophotography stacks) go into their own folders. I usually save every frame in case I want to reprocess an older photo.

[Alex645]

So if I may ask..how the heck do you all keep track of the images? A professional photographer I know suggested to set up folders by subject which seems like a good idea.

Excellent question. There are many solutions and the best one for you will depend on how you want to categorize your images.....but I have been using Adobe Bridge for many years as my go-to organizer. It's a free app that comes with Photoshop and is often only used for uploading files from the memory card and converting RAW files to DNG. But it has an excellent sorting and organizing tools.

a) Tools->Batch rename: You can select images and then quickly rename them from DSC_xxxx to anything text you want, include or not the subject, the date shot, sequence number, or include the original file name.

b) If you Select All (command A on a Mac) you can then go into Slide Show mode (command L on a Mac) and then rate/rank your images. "1" on the keyboard will rate it as one star; "5" for five stars; etc, or "6"-"9" gives it a colored rating.

c) On the left column in Bridge you can sort or "filter" your images by date created or date modified, file type, keywords, ISO, exposure time, aperture value, bit depth, focal length, camera model, and the star or color rating you gave it.

I once had an Adobe associate run a workshop at my school for three days. The first two days she spent showing us the often overlooked tool called Adobe Bridge.

[kiwi_jono]

Store in folders:
1. Year
2 Month
3. uploaded folder with finished (pp) images in top (month) level folder. Sometimes a sub folder under month for specific event (Holidays etc)

Then I back up to our shared family network drive which in turn is backed up to Backblaze.

[AggieDad]

If you have a Mac you have some pretty good tools in Photos. Smart albums allow you to group by criteria and will automatically add new photos as they are added and meet the criteria. Photos can be in any number of smart albums and also in regular albums and folders. I use Photos and access On1 and Luminar as plugins. This keeps my photos available on both my iMac desktop and my MacBook Pro laptop. That makes things perfect for when I travel.

[HoutHans]

For me its lightroom and the standard organisation on the basis of the date on which the photographs were taken. I can match that easily to my agenda to identity vacations, family outings etc. Then I'll use keywords and the lens for further identification.

On that note: does anyone know a special trick to assign names to a lens? I have to 50 mm lenses (the M50/1.4 and the M50/1.7) and I now identify these by entering 50 mm for one and 55 mm for the other when entering the focal length in the shake reduction system. This is not ideal.

[BarryE]

... A professional photographer I know suggested to set up folders by subject which seems like a good idea. If I had a folder called "Herons" I could find that image of a great blue heron I took a few years ago but have since forgotten when.

Al

I make sure my cameras record a unique number, that's key eg K1xyznnn, K3xyznnn etc.
Copy to PC with date prefix on folder, to which I append location, subject etc. Maybe I'll add a .txt file to include shoot details.
Then I get rid of the junk I've captured. Semi-junk goes into a holding folder to decide later.
The remaining better shots get backed up.
So now I know the camera & it's details, location, date etc. of reasonable to good shots and all's backed up.

I then format my SD cards ready for next shoot.

At some time later I will move these named and dated folders into subjects eg personal or work. Then sub-folders for personal->holiday, personal->xmas etc etc. and backup the folder structure.

That's the easy bit, sadly. The next level is what to do with the processed files. If you embed as much details in the processed files as possible, with clear naming of layers etc, this helps a lot in remembering details. I then tend to leave the processed files in the same folders as the originals, but name the processed file for their purpose, eg "location"+"print or screen"+size".psd. So the folder then has the RAW, the various prepared psd files and the TIFF or JPEGs for each image.

Bridge is my absolute hero for managing all my images. It is so easy with a named and dated folder to select, label, rate and sort images to see the wood from the trees.

I've never got on with tagging, mostly as I don't end up doing it over time. If I take a hundred plus shots on a date at a location, this info is generally enough for me to recall the basics of the shoot. True I might be better served by adding a tag that says #sheep, or #squirrel, or #red shoes, but life's too short.

Just my quirky way of working ...

[brewmaster15]

I'm really getting alot of this thread. Sitting right now playing around in Darktable to try and duplicate some of the things you all do and see what I come up that works for me. I use Darktable and Gimp on a linux box so I have to get a handle on what it can do. Its interesting how little of Darktable I have actually put to use outside of PP.


It looks like most of you using Raw ( as I do) and then export as Jpeg. Is anyone going from raw to Tiff? Before digital I would scan my slides as Tiff (no raw then) but I don't now. I figured I can always export a tiff if I need one from Raw, and most of what I do winds up on the net as Jpeg. Just curious if anyone works tiff and why?, possibly professional photographers here?

al

[BarryE]

I'm really getting alot of this thread. Sitting right now playing around in Darktable to try and duplicate some of the things you all do and see what I come up that works for me. I use Darktable and Gimp on a linux box so I have to get a handle on what it can do. Its interesting how little of Darktable I have actually put to use outside of PP.


It looks like most of you using Raw ( as I do) and then export as Jpeg. Is anyone going from raw to Tiff? Before digital I would scan my slides as Tiff (no raw then) but I don't now. I figured I can always export a tiff if I need one from Raw, and most of what I do winds up on the net as Jpeg. Just curious if anyone works tiff and why?, possibly professional photographers here?

al

DNG->PSD->JPEG most of the time. I'd guess this is by far the most common path amongst us RAW shooters.
DNG->TIFF (from pixel shift)->PSD->JPEG
Occasionally, when there is a need to supply a TIFF file for print (normally JPEG is fine), then the TIFF file follows the PSD rather than JPEG.

(I also use Smart Objects, so in reality the first option will go DNG->PSD->re-processing in ACR->PSD->JPEG)

[brewmaster15]

DNG->PSD->JPEG most of the time. I'd guess this is by far the most common path amongst us RAW shooters.
DNG->TIFF (from pixel shift)->PSD->JPEG
Occasionally, when there is a need to supply a TIFF file for print (normally JPEG is fine), then the TIFF file follows the PSD rather than JPEG.

(I also use Smart Objects, so in reality the first option will go DNG->PSD->re-processing in ACR->PSD->JPEG)

Thank you!

al

[robgski]

For day to day shooting, all downloads go into that month's folder (YYYY-Month). Tag photos related either by subject, location , theme. Those that survive the culling review might get a few more tags. Images I've spent time readying for display get titles.

After an event, or a trip, The downloads go into a folder labelled for the occasion, tagged and treated as above

[Sir Nameless]

Is anyone going from raw to Tiff?

I just started doing this. The DAM app I now use has an export function, and you can define export profiles. Right now I have one that downsizes and converts to JPG and strips some metadata that I use to export for Flickr. I will probably make one for printing (when I start doing that) and one for email, who knows what else. You can define profiles to add a frame, watermark, shooting parameters, apply effects, whatever. So now my final version is saved as an 8-bit tiff so that when I export, I'm not running a lossy compression a second time. Does it matter that much? I don't know....

For pictures in my "family" tree, I still just export to JPG.

[EricBT]

I like tokeep it simple and place photos into folders based on either Year, Holiday orevent and special interest.

I putJPGs in the top folder and the related RAW file in a sub-folder, such as:

Pictures--->2019--->RAW
Pictures--->NewZealand 2016--->RAW
Pictures--->ProductPhotos--->RAW

I useACDSee Photo Ultimate as it has an excellent DAM function as well as being avery capable RAW developer and JPG editor.

WithACDSee I can assign keywords and place the photos into categories. ACDSee alsoallows you to embed the tagging metadata into the image file itself which makesit easy to upgrade versions and databases without losing any information.

[tokyoscape]

I made 3 main directories:
1. Keeper (with many sub-directory in there named with place name for each)
2. Delete me
3. Park (with 1 sub directory named Good)

I am using 4 computers and around 7 external hard drive, but there are only 2 with all 3 directly structure as above. The others have only #2 and #3 which I pretty much has no rule what hard drive to be used. I use whatever closed to my hands at the time.

After each shooting:
I move new files to the root of directory 3, Park.

Next, I let Adobe bridge batch change all file name to reflect the location name but keep sequence number as is.

I try to minimize time spent here, so in Park directory, I set to view by details, so I can just pull whatever data I want to see at that time. Most of them are already recorded in the raw file. Date created, date modified, size, dymention, etc they are there already. The one not recorded is the actual location name which I already batch rename it in the first step.

I try to edit photo and time-laps sequence every weekend to get 3-4 good one to post on my Instagram for that week. After each edit I have keepers go to the sub directory, Good.
Bad ones go to directory 2, Delete me.

When I need more space, I go to directory Good and move every file to the Keeper hard drive, #1. And delete things in Delete me, #2.

While edit photo, I also upload file to cloud storage just for back up. no structure in there, Just throw everything new in there and never look back!

[bwgv001]

folders by date.eventually folders by description.

[leekil]

I save them in folders with the date and description, like "20181017 swamp blue heron", but also plan to pull them all into some sort of photo organizing program, but I haven't done that so far.