How I Organise My Image Files

Hi there,

Yes I am still alive just busy. I have been on a recent photo shoot so I will post some of those images soon. I also have a couple of pieces in an art show right now and have my first full exhibit in October. In addition to that, I am still selling each Saturday at the market and working as a biologist on various contracts. So yes busy and have been very lazy with the blog. Apologies

Anyway, my thoughts on organising files. This is how I do it.

First I use Adobe Bridge as the organiser. I like it and it makes viewing files and finding stuff a cinch. However, Tim Grey of Digital Darkroom Quarterly suggests Adobe Lightroom or Downloader Pro (www.breezesys.com) as better software for managing and renaming files.

OK, here we go:

MyPictures - where I keep all of my original RAW images. The originals are kept in a folder structure that starts with the YEAR. Inside this folder there are numerous folders named according to the LOCATION. So if I shot images in Halifax during 2006 they would be in the folder MyPictures/2006/Halifax

In MyPictures I have another folder called
Processing - In here are images that have been processed and saved as PSD files for sale at the local Farmers' Market where I sell unlimited editions of my work. Note - The original RAW file is not moved to this folder; it stays in the original YEAR/LOCATION folder.

In Processing I have four other folders
To Market - In here are images that are currently being sold at the Farmers' Market. They are organised in folders named according to LOCATION, e.g. Halifax.

In To Market is another folder called
JPEGS which as the name suggests holds all of the jpeg files for printing organised according to the size of the image, e.g. 5 by 7, 8 by 12.

ToBeEdited and On Hold are as they suggest in the title. I tend not to use these folders anymore but if I was working on an image I would keep it in ToBeEdited. In these two folders images are organised according to LOCATION.

EndOfLine holds images that have been on the market but are now no longer sold due to poor sales or due to new work coming in. Again the images are organised according to LOCATION.

In a separate folder outside of MyPictures I have another folder called
LidgardPhotography - this folder holds all images related to the business but that are not for sale at the Farmers' Market. So, I have a folder for CLIENTS, EXHIBITIONS, CALENDAR, etc These folders contain the edited PSD files.

So that is my organisation. I may clean that up someday but for now, it seems to work reasonably well.

When an image is to be used for sale, either as a limited or unlimited piece it is given a unique number. The number and the title of the image are stored in an Access database. Once the image has been processed it is named according to the number. All other information, including the original file name, keywords, location info, date taken, etc is stored in the IPTC which is accessible under File Info in Bridge.

Tim Grey suggests renaming files once downloaded and the initial sort/edit has been done. He suggests a naming convention that includes 1. the core subject of the image, e.g. the location of the image or in the case of nature photography, the species, 2. a date format such as the year or year and month, and 3. a serial number that includes upto 4 digits. Files can easily be renamed in Bridge.

Both of the main folders, MyPictures and LidgardPhotography, are backed up automatically each day on two external hard drives, a 1TB, USB drive and a 250MB, USB drive. A third external drive (500MB, USB) is backed up less often and is stored in my partner's (Sue) office. I use Genie Backup Manager Pro to do the automatic backups. This is a relatively cheap but very functional, easy to use software.

So, there you go. Comments welcome.

Damian