How do you organize your images?

**ffking** · 10-10-2019, 07:26 AM

I store my (culled) pictures in their daily folders from the camera in month by month then year by year on external hard drives, but I use Flickr as a sort of referencing system - subject specific albums on Flickr have representative photos from which I can get the date and go back to everything shot on that day. Works OK for me (as long as I keep up the Flickr subs)

**WillWeaverRVA** · 10-10-2019, 07:28 AM

I organize non-sport/event photos by date, which is a bit clunkier than I'd like.

I'm a bit smarter with sports and events since I actually name the folders with the name of the event rather than just use the date.

**sergysergy** · 10-10-2019, 07:34 AM

By 'season':
Fall+Winter (YEAR)
Spring+Summer (YEAR)
and then subfolders within those if necessary

I convert all RAWs to JPGS after processing them and keep the RAWs of the best images. The rest I delete.

**gump** · 10-10-2019, 07:47 AM

Year and month is the master file, within is a place or other ID and a numeral if there are multiple visits in the month with a "tag" such as "fog" or "16mm" if appropriate. Of course there are pitfalls but I am going to make a written catalog someday, really I am.

brewmaster15 · 10-10-2019, 08:00 AM

Originally posted by gump

Year and month is the master file, within is a place or other ID and a numeral if there are multiple visits in the month with a "tag" such as "fog" or "16mm" if appropriate. Of course there are pitfalls but I am going to make a written catalog someday, really I am.

lol.. yes so I am .. I tell myself thats the project for those cold winter days when I cant take pictures.

**jatrax** · 10-10-2019, 08:12 AM

I use Lightroom, but if I decided to abandon Lightroom for any reason I think my system would remain essentially the same. I set it up before buying Lightroom and though Lightroom makes it easier to use, the framework can be used with other programs or just by searching the folder structure in the operating system. I started this with a Sony Mavica in 2000.

- As images are copied to the computer they are renamed to YYYY.MM.DD@HH.MM.SS.####. The #### is the camera image number which sometimes help distinguish rapidly shot images.
- Images are copied into a folder for each day. The folders are named YYYY-MM-DD. Lightroom does this automatically on import but other programs will as well. I used for many years before Lightroom a simple program called 'Renamer' or somthing like that which essentially did the same renaming and copying functions that Lightroom now performs.
- After import to Lightroom I add keywords or tags as they are now called. It takes great discipline to maintain a logical keyword structure but Lightroom makes it easier.
- Keywords are structured meaning that adding 'Gala' as a keyword also adds everything higher in the structure: "Food>Fruit>Apple>Gala"
- Images have color markers added during the process. On import Lightroom marks everything with "red", when I have completed my first sort and delete I mark the keepers as 'yellow', once developed they are marked "green" and when titles and keywording is complete they are marked "blue", and once uploaded to a sales site or moved to the proper collection the color tag is removed.

- I also use a mix of both regular and smart collections to sort things into logical groups. For example I have a collection "Amazon" which includes all images for sale in my Amazon shop. I also have smart collections for things like "5 stars", "stock image", "portfolio" and "no keywords" to help me stay organized.
- Keywords and star ratings are written out to the files themselves so that information is available from the operating system if Lightroom goes away or my catalog suffers a catastrophic failure.

So essentially I have four separate systems of organization that operate independently. First is the folder structure so that if I know the date or approximate date of an image I can get quite close. Second is a structured keyword system that works both within Lightroom and through the operating system. Searching for 'Apple' will return all images with that keyword. And third is organization by purpose or status using collections. So I can quickly see all images that have no keywords or all images that are for sale on stock sites or in my current portfolio. And fourth the progress of the develop process is marked by color tags so that I can come back a week or month later and know for certain the develop status of any image or batch or images.

**gump** · 10-10-2019, 08:18 AM

Originally posted by brewmaster15

lol.. yes so I am .. I tell myself thats the project for those cold winter days when I cant take pictures.

Lucky you. We "snowbird" to the south so I cannot use the cold winter day excuse!

MikeyBugs95 · 10-10-2019, 08:22 AM

I'm simple, I just move all of the files from the SD card over to an external SSD. After I edit whatever I want to edit, I move the corresponding JPEGs, PNGs or TIFFs over to a folder named "Finished Pictures" or "Edited Pictures (JPG PNG TIFF)." Speaking of, I need to go through my first SSD and delete some pictures...

**Sir Nameless** · 10-10-2019, 08:27 AM

Originally posted by jatrax

On import Lightroom marks everything with "red", when I have completed my first sort and delete I mark the keepers as 'yellow', once developed they are marked "green" and when titles and keywording is complete they are marked "blue", and once uploaded to a sales site or moved to the proper collection the color tag is removed.

I do something like this with color labels as well--here's my scheme in case anybody is looking for ideas.
- Red: camera original
- Orange: composite (e.g. merged HDR, merged focus stack, etc)
- Yellow: intermediate (e.g. tiff exported from RawTherapee as input for pixel editing in Affinity)
- Green: Final version (all edits done)
- Purple: Alternate final (maybe a color version of a B&W or something)

This allows me to spot the purpose of a file at a glance. This generally gets set once and doesn't change afterward (except maybe green/purple).

**Robin** · 10-10-2019, 08:41 AM

I download images into a transfer folder, from where I move them to subject folders and delete the rubbish. The problem is if I don't do the sorting straight away, they tend to pile up in the transfer folder. I regularly back up to an external drive in case of hard drive crashes. I also have Lightroom 6, which is a wonderful tool for managing images. You can search all your images by name, file type, size, date, camera, lens, f stop, shutter speed etc.

**csa** · 10-10-2019, 08:43 AM

Mine also are organized by date; month & year. I find this pretty easy to find a specific image.

K1N8 · 10-10-2019, 09:06 AM

Camera/yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd/IMGPxxxx.DNG Original
Camera/yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd/IMGPxxxx.thumb.jpg From RAW extracted full size JPEG "thumbnail"
Camera/yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd/IMGPxxxx.edit*.jpg Edited JPEG
Camera/yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd/IMGPxxxx.DNG.xmp XMP Sidecare file for digiKam / darktable shared tagging

I have photos from >4 different digital cameras sorted that way, going back to 2003. Last year i collected all my photos and used exiftool to sort them into this folder structure.

Analog scans are sorted by Camera/yyyy/date-film/xx.tiff

PaysonAZTim · 10-10-2019, 09:22 AM - **1 Like**

Folders by date, starting with the year in front. The raw images go in a separate folder inside the date taken, though I typically cull those a little bit more because of size. I use ACDSee Photo Studio and tag the pictures in there.

Great topic btw - we can all gain ideas from how others do things.

ben.p · 10-10-2019, 09:36 AM

Originally posted by ben.p

One folder for the events, one for miscellaneous.
Each folder organized per year
Only one catalog in lightroom

I forgot the Lightroom collections.
You can synchronize them to lightroom cc, so you can easily show your photos with your phone.

R.Miller · 10-10-2019, 10:41 AM

We use a network attached hard drive so that all computers on the network can access the files.

It is organized by Subject and then by Subject-Year-Month if needed.

So the structure is something like:

Pictures > Family Get Together 2014
Pictures > Family Get Together 2015
etc...

Pictures > Nature > Winter 2018... Winter 2019 etc...
Pictures > Nature > Birds...
Pictures > Nature > Landscape...

You get the idea.

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10-10-2019, 07:26 AM	#16
ffking Site Supporter Join Date: Nov 2015 Location: Old South Wales Posts: 6,038	I store my (culled) pictures in their daily folders from the camera in month by month then year by year on external hard drives, but I use Flickr as a sort of referencing system - subject specific albums on Flickr have representative photos from which I can get the date and go back to everything shot on that day. Works OK for me (as long as I keep up the Flickr subs)

10-10-2019, 07:28 AM	#17
WillWeaverRVA Site Supporter Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Richmond, VA Photos: Gallery Posts: 1,071	I organize non-sport/event photos by date, which is a bit clunkier than I'd like. I'm a bit smarter with sports and events since I actually name the folders with the name of the event rather than just use the date.

10-10-2019, 07:34 AM	#18
sergysergy Site Supporter Join Date: Jan 2011 Photos: Gallery Posts: 5,170	By 'season': Fall+Winter (YEAR) Spring+Summer (YEAR) and then subfolders within those if necessary I convert all RAWs to JPGS after processing them and keep the RAWs of the best images. The rest I delete.

10-10-2019, 07:47 AM	#19
gump Site Supporter Join Date: Apr 2018 Location: Canton, Ohio Posts: 1,016	Year and month is the master file, within is a place or other ID and a numeral if there are multiple visits in the month with a "tag" such as "fog" or "16mm" if appropriate. Of course there are pitfalls but I am going to make a written catalog someday, really I am.

10-10-2019, 08:00 AM	#20
brewmaster15 Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2015 Location: CT Posts: 1,860 Original Poster	Originally posted by gump Year and month is the master file, within is a place or other ID and a numeral if there are multiple visits in the month with a "tag" such as "fog" or "16mm" if appropriate. Of course there are pitfalls but I am going to make a written catalog someday, really I am. lol.. yes so I am .. I tell myself thats the project for those cold winter days when I cant take pictures.

10-10-2019, 08:12 AM	#21
jatrax Site Supporter Join Date: May 2010 Location: Washington Cascades Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 12,991	I use Lightroom, but if I decided to abandon Lightroom for any reason I think my system would remain essentially the same. I set it up before buying Lightroom and though Lightroom makes it easier to use, the framework can be used with other programs or just by searching the folder structure in the operating system. I started this with a Sony Mavica in 2000. - As images are copied to the computer they are renamed to YYYY.MM.DD@HH.MM.SS.####. The #### is the camera image number which sometimes help distinguish rapidly shot images. - Images are copied into a folder for each day. The folders are named YYYY-MM-DD. Lightroom does this automatically on import but other programs will as well. I used for many years before Lightroom a simple program called 'Renamer' or somthing like that which essentially did the same renaming and copying functions that Lightroom now performs. - After import to Lightroom I add keywords or tags as they are now called. It takes great discipline to maintain a logical keyword structure but Lightroom makes it easier. - Keywords are structured meaning that adding 'Gala' as a keyword also adds everything higher in the structure: "Food>Fruit>Apple>Gala" - Images have color markers added during the process. On import Lightroom marks everything with "red", when I have completed my first sort and delete I mark the keepers as 'yellow', once developed they are marked "green" and when titles and keywording is complete they are marked "blue", and once uploaded to a sales site or moved to the proper collection the color tag is removed. - I also use a mix of both regular and smart collections to sort things into logical groups. For example I have a collection "Amazon" which includes all images for sale in my Amazon shop. I also have smart collections for things like "5 stars", "stock image", "portfolio" and "no keywords" to help me stay organized. - Keywords and star ratings are written out to the files themselves so that information is available from the operating system if Lightroom goes away or my catalog suffers a catastrophic failure. So essentially I have four separate systems of organization that operate independently. First is the folder structure so that if I know the date or approximate date of an image I can get quite close. Second is a structured keyword system that works both within Lightroom and through the operating system. Searching for 'Apple' will return all images with that keyword. And third is organization by purpose or status using collections. So I can quickly see all images that have no keywords or all images that are for sale on stock sites or in my current portfolio. And fourth the progress of the develop process is marked by color tags so that I can come back a week or month later and know for certain the develop status of any image or batch or images.

10-10-2019, 08:18 AM	#22
gump Site Supporter Join Date: Apr 2018 Location: Canton, Ohio Posts: 1,016	Originally posted by brewmaster15 lol.. yes so I am .. I tell myself thats the project for those cold winter days when I cant take pictures. Lucky you. We "snowbird" to the south so I cannot use the cold winter day excuse!

10-10-2019, 08:22 AM	#23
MikeyBugs95 Pentaxian Join Date: Sep 2017 Location: New York Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 1,206	I'm simple, I just move all of the files from the SD card over to an external SSD. After I edit whatever I want to edit, I move the corresponding JPEGs, PNGs or TIFFs over to a folder named "Finished Pictures" or "Edited Pictures (JPG PNG TIFF)." Speaking of, I need to go through my first SSD and delete some pictures...

10-10-2019, 08:27 AM	#24
Sir Nameless Site Supporter Join Date: Jul 2015 Location: Mass a chew sits Photos: Gallery Posts: 574	Originally posted by jatrax On import Lightroom marks everything with "red", when I have completed my first sort and delete I mark the keepers as 'yellow', once developed they are marked "green" and when titles and keywording is complete they are marked "blue", and once uploaded to a sales site or moved to the proper collection the color tag is removed. I do something like this with color labels as well--here's my scheme in case anybody is looking for ideas. - Red: camera original - Orange: composite (e.g. merged HDR, merged focus stack, etc) - Yellow: intermediate (e.g. tiff exported from RawTherapee as input for pixel editing in Affinity) - Green: Final version (all edits done) - Purple: Alternate final (maybe a color version of a B&W or something) This allows me to spot the purpose of a file at a glance. This generally gets set once and doesn't change afterward (except maybe green/purple).

10-10-2019, 08:41 AM	#25
Robin Site Supporter Join Date: Mar 2016 Location: Pietermaritzburg Photos: Gallery Posts: 432	I download images into a transfer folder, from where I move them to subject folders and delete the rubbish. The problem is if I don't do the sorting straight away, they tend to pile up in the transfer folder. I regularly back up to an external drive in case of hard drive crashes. I also have Lightroom 6, which is a wonderful tool for managing images. You can search all your images by name, file type, size, date, camera, lens, f stop, shutter speed etc.

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10-10-2019, 08:43 AM	#26
csa Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Aug 2014 Location: Montana mountains Posts: 10,133	Mine also are organized by date; month & year. I find this pretty easy to find a specific image.

10-10-2019, 09:06 AM	#27
K1N8 Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2018 Posts: 242	Camera/yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd/IMGPxxxx.DNG Original Camera/yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd/IMGPxxxx.thumb.jpg From RAW extracted full size JPEG "thumbnail" Camera/yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd/IMGPxxxx.edit*.jpg Edited JPEG Camera/yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd/IMGPxxxx.DNG.xmp XMP Sidecare file for digiKam / darktable shared tagging I have photos from >4 different digital cameras sorted that way, going back to 2003. Last year i collected all my photos and used exiftool to sort them into this folder structure. Analog scans are sorted by Camera/yyyy/date-film/xx.tiff

10-10-2019, 09:22 AM - 1 Like	#28
PaysonAZTim Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2018 Location: near Payson, Arizona Posts: 160	Folders by date, starting with the year in front. The raw images go in a separate folder inside the date taken, though I typically cull those a little bit more because of size. I use ACDSee Photo Studio and tag the pictures in there. Great topic btw - we can all gain ideas from how others do things.

10-10-2019, 09:36 AM	#29
ben.p Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2019 Posts: 145	Originally posted by ben.p One folder for the events, one for miscellaneous. Each folder organized per year Only one catalog in lightroom I forgot the Lightroom collections. You can synchronize them to lightroom cc, so you can easily show your photos with your phone.

10-10-2019, 10:41 AM	#30
R.Miller Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Midwest Coastal Region USA Photos: Gallery Posts: 426	We use a network attached hard drive so that all computers on the network can access the files. It is organized by Subject and then by Subject-Year-Month if needed. So the structure is something like: Pictures > Family Get Together 2014 Pictures > Family Get Together 2015 etc... Pictures > Nature > Winter 2018... Winter 2019 etc... Pictures > Nature > Birds... Pictures > Nature > Landscape... You get the idea.