Organization

DanLoc78 · 08-14-2009, 06:47 AM

seems like a very valuable tool for when i start doing this. Thanks Jim!

**savcom** · 08-22-2009, 01:43 AM

This has been a very valuable thread. I am in exactly the same position as DanLoc78 having now wrapped round the counter on my K100d! I also have images from my P&S cameras and indeed am starting to scan in the slides/prints from my old ME.

I've been looking at several cataloging systems and databases. Many systems do not understand RAW so they are automatically rejected (I shoot everything in RAW - it keeps the highest quality image on disk). I tried Photoshop Elements, gave up because it has no easy way to view/access photos outside of Elements and no easy way to put photos on a server and view from client computers. I tried Picasa, but despite its useability, it seemed tedious to do the tagging and again, access the photo database outside of Picasa.

Best I've found (and it's still far from perfect) is F-Spot Photo Manager (linux) which uses an SQL-type database to store the tags etc. This is good, as you can access the database outside of F-Spot, but is linux only.

Having tried these I am now thinking through the strategy, as I think - as others do on this thread - that this is the critical point to start from. Everybody will have different criteria, so it is unlikely that one tool will satisfy everyone. nevertheless, it is worth sharing these - and tools - so we can all benefit.

Photo management tool review database anyone?

pawzitiv · 08-23-2009, 02:40 PM

I struggled with the same problems .. multiple cameras, various subject matter, colour images, b&w images, etc.. I used PSE's Organizer when my total number of images was under 10,000 but I have since moved on to a dedicated Digital Asset Manager. Now that I have over 45,000 images (I never delete anything), I'm currently using IDimager and, being a true database, I find it suits my needs very well. IDimager also works across a network; important if you use multiple computers and/or a network storage solution.

idimager.com | IDimager - Digital Photo and Image Management

As previously mentioned, filing by subject is inefficient .. that's what categories and/or keywords are for. I batch upload my images (through IDimager) by date taken; a folder is created for each date and the individual filenames are appended with date and camera "codes" while uploading. A typical folder and filenames will look something like this:

Folder: 2009-08-16
Filename: 2009-08-16_K7_IMGP2357.PEF
Filename: 2009-08-16_M8_L1004416.DNG

I then add all relevant categories/ keywords to each image using a Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalog (CVKC). The CVKC will help standardize categories/keywords .. this is important for database searches.

Ratmagiclady · 08-24-2009, 08:38 PM

Originally posted by Jim Royal

Not quite as tedious as you might think. If you use a program call EXIFTOOL, you can -- with a single command -- scan an entire folder hierarchy full of images and have the program reorganize them for you based on any EXIF data.

Find EXIFTOOL here.

Hrm, That looks outstandingly-useful. I'm hoping to have some kind of organization in place, mostly for when I finally upgrade my computing... I'm wondering if in the meanwhile that can serve as an EXIF viewer in general at least. Is it very resource-demanding for an old machine? (or anyone have any suggestions for that?

)

flockofbirds · 08-25-2009, 01:02 AM

Since my laptop has a built in card reader, I just drag the created folder for the specified days on the card, into my Photography Folder.

Marc Sabatella · 08-25-2009, 12:02 PM

ExifTool is not resource hungry at all - it's a very simple little application. It doesn't even have a graphical UI. There are, however, a couple of different GUI's made for use with ExifTool. It's all freeware just google around to find it.

Jim Royal · 08-25-2009, 12:09 PM

Originally posted by Ratmagiclady

Hrm, That looks outstandingly-useful. I'm hoping to have some kind of organization in place, mostly for when I finally upgrade my computing... I'm wondering if in the meanwhile that can serve as an EXIF viewer in general at least. Is it very resource-demanding for an old machine? (or anyone have any suggestions for that?

)

The exiftool is not resource-intensive at all -- it is command-line (or terminal for Mac/Linux folk) only. It is probably more hard disk-dependent than anything. It's not a viewer -- it is for manipulating metadata only.

I used exiftool only once -- when I was revising my Lightroom organizing scheme.

I would strongly suggest Lightroom as a tool for organizing photo libraries. If you shoot raw, there's really no other way to be efficient but to used Lightroom or Aperture. I used it for about a year on my old Power Mac G4, which was 1 GHz, and found it usable. A 1 GHz G4 is about the equivalent of a 1.5 GHz Pentium IV, so depending on your machine sspecs, you may find Lightroom sufficiently usable. You won't regret it.

Last edited by Jim Royal; 08-25-2009 at 12:49 PM.

Marc Sabatella · 08-25-2009, 03:04 PM

Originally posted by Jim Royal

I would strongly suggest Lightroom as a tool for organizing photo libraries. If you shoot raw, there's really no other way to be efficient but to used Lightroom or Aperture.

Well, others may be happy with the workflow they have going using other types of programs, but I do agree that the most efficient workflow for most people is going to be the kind supported best by applications like Lightroom that provide integrated browsing, cataloging, and RAW processing facilities. Aperture is not the only other alternative, though - although it might be on the Mac? There is also ACDSee Pro on the PC. Actually, even Photoshop Elements can provide some semblance of this type of workflow.

johnmflores · 08-25-2009, 03:17 PM

One of the important things about Lightroom is that the folder structure you see in Lightroom is the same exact folder structure on your hard drive - names, nesting, etc... This is important, because sometime in the future (5 years, 10 years, etc...) there will probably be a new and improved program - better than Lightroom - and you'll want to move everything over.

Before I moved to Lightroom, I was using iPhoto/Photoshop for my workflow. iPhoto has some easy to use tools, but the folder structure is a nightmare - the folders on the hard drive don't match the folders you see in iPhoto, when you edit a copy is moved to an Originals folder, etc...

With that experience, I was determined to pick a new tool that kept a logical folder structure. Lightroom did it.

**rm2** · 08-26-2009, 06:17 AM

I also ave my photos organized by date, but with a slight difference. I have a folder for RAW and unprocessed JPEGs and a folder for "Processed" images.

Photography>
>>RAW>
>>Processed>
>>>>2008>
>>>>2009>
>>>>...

The reason I like that way of organizing them is that I can then use 7Squeeze to compress/decompress the RAW images very easily. 7Squeeze saves me dozens of Gigabites of hard drive space. There is no point in compressing the JPEG images since they are already compressed. With 7Squeeze I can compress/decompress the whole RAW tree (it skips the folders already compressed automatically), only a particular year, or only a particular day. It only compresses folder contents, not the actual folders, so your organizational tree remains untouched for quick and easy access. It uses either the ZIP or the (better) 7z format. It is available for Windows (GUI) and Linux (command line). I am the author of 7Squeeze so if you have any questions or comments please let me know. You can get it from here:

Windows:
http://rmcorrespond.googlepages.com/7Squeeze_1_0b1_exe.zip

Linux (it is broken up into two programs):
http://rmcorrespond.googlepages.com/7sqz
http://rmcorrespond.googlepages.com/7usqz

Here is a writeup I did about the Linux version:
PCLinuxOS Magazine - HTML

philbaum · 08-26-2009, 12:34 PM

Great thread, I've only been doing serious photography for the last 2 years with Pentax DSLRs. But its awful easy to get overwhelmed by the images.

Lightroom has enabled me to keep things under control

Some comments about the subject:

1. Broad meaningful folders i think are useful. But what kind. There is a wedding photographer in our club that uses date. She uses a calendar to keep track of her business events. The calendar combined with the date oriented folders allows her to find customer data. But for me, a guy who sells framed pictures he likes at a local tourist shop, i find primarily location oriented folders to be useful. When Lightroom loads a folder, having some breakdown in folders by location, helps me to limit the amount of pictures that Lighroom puts in RAM at any given time. Sure, you could do it all with Keywords, but that takes a lot of time too.

2. I have one folder called "Family" that takes all my family photos that aren't location specific to an excessive degree. But i have names of cities for folders plus particular photo locations and subjects that i do a lot of photos of.

3. Its very necessary, IMHO, to develp a sense of what's important and what's not, e.g. family pictures are important for obvious reasons, even if badly taken, images you know that you will never spend time working on should often be dumped immediately. tons uf unusable images drive up your expense in storing and backing up. But judgement takes time to develop. An audobon guy in our club and his wife went to Yellowstone Park, came back with over 3000 images. Soon after he got it back, it was down to 300 images and he wasn't satisfied with that.

4. I probably should keyword images more than i do, but i think that would take a lot of time as well. I'm still open on this subject.

5. I find rating systems, like Lightrooms 5 stars are surprisingly useful. Example - i use 3 stars for something that is average but may be better if worked. 4 stars for something that i haven't made up my mind on that probably is good enough, 5 stars for anything i intend to print and sell or show on the internet. A niece visits my brother the other day and wanted to see my images on a relative's wedding. I went into the LR catalog, pulled up the Wedding folder and sorted it by 5 star images. All the good ones floated the top of the folder, I exported them all into a folder as JPGs, then wrote them to a CD, very quick to do. I also went to the drive letter of my catalog, sorted up the 5 star images of whatever subject, and pulled out some more images that she might enjoy. Easy with Lighroom.

6. I used to keep both RAW and jpeg images for all photos. Lot of wasted space, since i now import only to Lighroom, there is no reason to keep jpegs, so i went through and deleted out all jpeg files, other than previews.

We don't all have to do it the same way. Find a way that works for you and the amount of files you have.

**Lowell Goudge** · 08-26-2009, 12:51 PM

in terms of orginization I do 2 special things

All photos are loaded in directories by year and month, and subdirectories for event name if it applies, (usually done on vacation where I visit many sites)

as part of my download process, my files are put into a transfer directory for each body I have, i.e. istD adn K10D. I re-name images and prefix them with the camera body, and with PSPX2 batch rename, I can redefine the number sequence and add a leading 1 to the number because the cameras have both gone beyond 9999. As opposed to getting two images _img0001, i get istD-0001 and istD-10001

the K7 allows custom prefixeswhich should solve this

DanLoc78 · 08-28-2009, 12:12 PM

Originally posted by Marc Sabatella

Well, others may be happy with the workflow they have going using other types of programs, but I do agree that the most efficient workflow for most people is going to be the kind supported best by applications like Lightroom that provide integrated browsing, cataloging, and RAW processing facilities. Aperture is not the only other alternative, though - although it might be on the Mac? There is also ACDSee Pro on the PC. Actually, even Photoshop Elements can provide some semblance of this type of workflow.

The other night I began cataloging some images using PS Elements 6.0. Question...before I go any further...if one day I buy Lightroom, will i be able to import this catalog into Lightroom along with all the metadata?

emalvick · 08-28-2009, 12:22 PM

Somebody can probably give a better answer, but if the metadata is actually being written to the image, then Lightroom should have no problem seeing it.

Marc Sabatella · 08-28-2009, 05:15 PM

I'd ask a slightly different question: not whether LR as it exists today can read the work you do with PSE, but whether you are takng steps to ensure that the metadata you create ca be made accessible to *any* program you might decide to use int eh future. if you write to industry standard IPTC fields, you shouldbe good to go with pretty much any cataloging program. If you're writing only to some PSE-specific catalog that someone tells you LR version 2.4 can currently read, well, that's great if you make the switch today, but no guarantee of anything if you want for LR 3.0 to make the switch, or if you end up deciding on a different application entirely.

08-23-2009, 02:40 PM	#18
pawzitiv Forum Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Calgary, Alberta, Canada Posts: 91	Digital Asset Manager (DAM) is the way to go I struggled with the same problems .. multiple cameras, various subject matter, colour images, b&w images, etc.. I used PSE's Organizer when my total number of images was under 10,000 but I have since moved on to a dedicated Digital Asset Manager. Now that I have over 45,000 images (I never delete anything), I'm currently using IDimager and, being a true database, I find it suits my needs very well. IDimager also works across a network; important if you use multiple computers and/or a network storage solution. idimager.com \| IDimager - Digital Photo and Image Management As previously mentioned, filing by subject is inefficient .. that's what categories and/or keywords are for. I batch upload my images (through IDimager) by date taken; a folder is created for each date and the individual filenames are appended with date and camera "codes" while uploading. A typical folder and filenames will look something like this: Folder: 2009-08-16 Filename: 2009-08-16_K7_IMGP2357.PEF Filename: 2009-08-16_M8_L1004416.DNG I then add all relevant categories/ keywords to each image using a Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalog (CVKC). The CVKC will help standardize categories/keywords .. this is important for database searches.

08-25-2009, 12:02 PM	#21
Marc Sabatella Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Denver, CO Photos: Gallery Posts: 10,685	ExifTool is not resource hungry at all - it's a very simple little application. It doesn't even have a graphical UI. There are, however, a couple of different GUI's made for use with ExifTool. It's all freeware just google around to find it. Last edited by Marc Sabatella; 08-25-2009 at 02:57 PM.

08-25-2009, 03:17 PM	#24
johnmflores Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Somerville, NJ Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 5,361	Another vote for Lightroom One of the important things about Lightroom is that the folder structure you see in Lightroom is the same exact folder structure on your hard drive - names, nesting, etc... This is important, because sometime in the future (5 years, 10 years, etc...) there will probably be a new and improved program - better than Lightroom - and you'll want to move everything over. Before I moved to Lightroom, I was using iPhoto/Photoshop for my workflow. iPhoto has some easy to use tools, but the folder structure is a nightmare - the folders on the hard drive don't match the folders you see in iPhoto, when you edit a copy is moved to an Originals folder, etc... With that experience, I was determined to pick a new tool that kept a logical folder structure. Lightroom did it.

08-26-2009, 06:17 AM	#25
rm2 Site Supporter Join Date: May 2007 Location: Hudson Valley - NY Posts: 778	I also ave my photos organized by date, but with a slight difference. I have a folder for RAW and unprocessed JPEGs and a folder for "Processed" images. Photography> >>RAW> >>Processed> >>>>2008> >>>>2009> >>>>... The reason I like that way of organizing them is that I can then use 7Squeeze to compress/decompress the RAW images very easily. 7Squeeze saves me dozens of Gigabites of hard drive space. There is no point in compressing the JPEG images since they are already compressed. With 7Squeeze I can compress/decompress the whole RAW tree (it skips the folders already compressed automatically), only a particular year, or only a particular day. It only compresses folder contents, not the actual folders, so your organizational tree remains untouched for quick and easy access. It uses either the ZIP or the (better) 7z format. It is available for Windows (GUI) and Linux (command line). I am the author of 7Squeeze so if you have any questions or comments please let me know. You can get it from here: Windows: http://rmcorrespond.googlepages.com/7Squeeze_1_0b1_exe.zip Linux (it is broken up into two programs): http://rmcorrespond.googlepages.com/7sqz http://rmcorrespond.googlepages.com/7usqz Here is a writeup I did about the Linux version: PCLinuxOS Magazine - HTML Last edited by rm2; 08-26-2009 at 12:47 PM.

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08-14-2009, 06:47 AM	#16
DanLoc78 Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Philadelphia Photos: Gallery Posts: 915 Original Poster	seems like a very valuable tool for when i start doing this. Thanks Jim!

08-22-2009, 01:43 AM	#17
savcom Site Supporter Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Wiltshire, UK Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 55	This has been a very valuable thread. I am in exactly the same position as DanLoc78 having now wrapped round the counter on my K100d! I also have images from my P&S cameras and indeed am starting to scan in the slides/prints from my old ME. I've been looking at several cataloging systems and databases. Many systems do not understand RAW so they are automatically rejected (I shoot everything in RAW - it keeps the highest quality image on disk). I tried Photoshop Elements, gave up because it has no easy way to view/access photos outside of Elements and no easy way to put photos on a server and view from client computers. I tried Picasa, but despite its useability, it seemed tedious to do the tagging and again, access the photo database outside of Picasa. Best I've found (and it's still far from perfect) is F-Spot Photo Manager (linux) which uses an SQL-type database to store the tags etc. This is good, as you can access the database outside of F-Spot, but is linux only. Having tried these I am now thinking through the strategy, as I think - as others do on this thread - that this is the critical point to start from. Everybody will have different criteria, so it is unlikely that one tool will satisfy everyone. nevertheless, it is worth sharing these - and tools - so we can all benefit. Photo management tool review database anyone?

08-24-2009, 08:38 PM	#19
Ratmagiclady Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: GA Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 13,563	Originally posted by Jim Royal Not quite as tedious as you might think. If you use a program call EXIFTOOL, you can -- with a single command -- scan an entire folder hierarchy full of images and have the program reorganize them for you based on any EXIF data. Find EXIFTOOL here. Hrm, That looks outstandingly-useful. I'm hoping to have some kind of organization in place, mostly for when I finally upgrade my computing... I'm wondering if in the meanwhile that can serve as an EXIF viewer in general at least. Is it very resource-demanding for an old machine? (or anyone have any suggestions for that? )

08-25-2009, 01:02 AM	#20
flockofbirds Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Oregon, USA Photos: Gallery Posts: 178	Since my laptop has a built in card reader, I just drag the created folder for the specified days on the card, into my Photography Folder.

08-25-2009, 12:09 PM	#22
Jim Royal Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Montreal Photos: Gallery Posts: 179	Originally posted by Ratmagiclady Hrm, That looks outstandingly-useful. I'm hoping to have some kind of organization in place, mostly for when I finally upgrade my computing... I'm wondering if in the meanwhile that can serve as an EXIF viewer in general at least. Is it very resource-demanding for an old machine? (or anyone have any suggestions for that? ) The exiftool is not resource-intensive at all -- it is command-line (or terminal for Mac/Linux folk) only. It is probably more hard disk-dependent than anything. It's not a viewer -- it is for manipulating metadata only. I used exiftool only once -- when I was revising my Lightroom organizing scheme. I would strongly suggest Lightroom as a tool for organizing photo libraries. If you shoot raw, there's really no other way to be efficient but to used Lightroom or Aperture. I used it for about a year on my old Power Mac G4, which was 1 GHz, and found it usable. A 1 GHz G4 is about the equivalent of a 1.5 GHz Pentium IV, so depending on your machine sspecs, you may find Lightroom sufficiently usable. You won't regret it. Last edited by Jim Royal; 08-25-2009 at 12:49 PM.

08-25-2009, 03:04 PM	#23
Marc Sabatella Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Denver, CO Photos: Gallery Posts: 10,685	Originally posted by Jim Royal I would strongly suggest Lightroom as a tool for organizing photo libraries. If you shoot raw, there's really no other way to be efficient but to used Lightroom or Aperture. Well, others may be happy with the workflow they have going using other types of programs, but I do agree that the most efficient workflow for most people is going to be the kind supported best by applications like Lightroom that provide integrated browsing, cataloging, and RAW processing facilities. Aperture is not the only other alternative, though - although it might be on the Mac? There is also ACDSee Pro on the PC. Actually, even Photoshop Elements can provide some semblance of this type of workflow.

08-26-2009, 12:34 PM	#26
philbaum Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Port Townsend, Washington State, USA Posts: 3,659	Great thread, I've only been doing serious photography for the last 2 years with Pentax DSLRs. But its awful easy to get overwhelmed by the images. Lightroom has enabled me to keep things under control Some comments about the subject: 1. Broad meaningful folders i think are useful. But what kind. There is a wedding photographer in our club that uses date. She uses a calendar to keep track of her business events. The calendar combined with the date oriented folders allows her to find customer data. But for me, a guy who sells framed pictures he likes at a local tourist shop, i find primarily location oriented folders to be useful. When Lightroom loads a folder, having some breakdown in folders by location, helps me to limit the amount of pictures that Lighroom puts in RAM at any given time. Sure, you could do it all with Keywords, but that takes a lot of time too. 2. I have one folder called "Family" that takes all my family photos that aren't location specific to an excessive degree. But i have names of cities for folders plus particular photo locations and subjects that i do a lot of photos of. 3. Its very necessary, IMHO, to develp a sense of what's important and what's not, e.g. family pictures are important for obvious reasons, even if badly taken, images you know that you will never spend time working on should often be dumped immediately. tons uf unusable images drive up your expense in storing and backing up. But judgement takes time to develop. An audobon guy in our club and his wife went to Yellowstone Park, came back with over 3000 images. Soon after he got it back, it was down to 300 images and he wasn't satisfied with that. 4. I probably should keyword images more than i do, but i think that would take a lot of time as well. I'm still open on this subject. 5. I find rating systems, like Lightrooms 5 stars are surprisingly useful. Example - i use 3 stars for something that is average but may be better if worked. 4 stars for something that i haven't made up my mind on that probably is good enough, 5 stars for anything i intend to print and sell or show on the internet. A niece visits my brother the other day and wanted to see my images on a relative's wedding. I went into the LR catalog, pulled up the Wedding folder and sorted it by 5 star images. All the good ones floated the top of the folder, I exported them all into a folder as JPGs, then wrote them to a CD, very quick to do. I also went to the drive letter of my catalog, sorted up the 5 star images of whatever subject, and pulled out some more images that she might enjoy. Easy with Lighroom. 6. I used to keep both RAW and jpeg images for all photos. Lot of wasted space, since i now import only to Lighroom, there is no reason to keep jpegs, so i went through and deleted out all jpeg files, other than previews. We don't all have to do it the same way. Find a way that works for you and the amount of files you have.

08-26-2009, 12:51 PM	#27
Lowell Goudge Site Supporter Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Toronto Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 17,886	in terms of orginization I do 2 special things All photos are loaded in directories by year and month, and subdirectories for event name if it applies, (usually done on vacation where I visit many sites) as part of my download process, my files are put into a transfer directory for each body I have, i.e. istD adn K10D. I re-name images and prefix them with the camera body, and with PSPX2 batch rename, I can redefine the number sequence and add a leading 1 to the number because the cameras have both gone beyond 9999. As opposed to getting two images _img0001, i get istD-0001 and istD-10001 the K7 allows custom prefixeswhich should solve this

08-28-2009, 12:12 PM	#28
DanLoc78 Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Philadelphia Photos: Gallery Posts: 915 Original Poster	Originally posted by Marc Sabatella Well, others may be happy with the workflow they have going using other types of programs, but I do agree that the most efficient workflow for most people is going to be the kind supported best by applications like Lightroom that provide integrated browsing, cataloging, and RAW processing facilities. Aperture is not the only other alternative, though - although it might be on the Mac? There is also ACDSee Pro on the PC. Actually, even Photoshop Elements can provide some semblance of this type of workflow. The other night I began cataloging some images using PS Elements 6.0. Question...before I go any further...if one day I buy Lightroom, will i be able to import this catalog into Lightroom along with all the metadata?

08-28-2009, 12:22 PM	#29
emalvick Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Davis, CA Photos: Gallery Posts: 1,642	Somebody can probably give a better answer, but if the metadata is actually being written to the image, then Lightroom should have no problem seeing it.

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08-28-2009, 05:15 PM	#30
Marc Sabatella Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Denver, CO Photos: Gallery Posts: 10,685	I'd ask a slightly different question: not whether LR as it exists today can read the work you do with PSE, but whether you are takng steps to ensure that the metadata you create ca be made accessible to any program you might decide to use int eh future. if you write to industry standard IPTC fields, you shouldbe good to go with pretty much any cataloging program. If you're writing only to some PSE-specific catalog that someone tells you LR version 2.4 can currently read, well, that's great if you make the switch today, but no guarantee of anything if you want for LR 3.0 to make the switch, or if you end up deciding on a different application entirely.