Thursday, August 2, 2012

Organizing Photos





Another day Teenager decided to clean our computer and then upgrade it. He gave me a task I though would be easy to accomplish in an hour or two. All I had to do is to transfer my photos to an external hard drive. Well, easier said than done: it took me tree days to organize all my files before I could let him erase all data (he said computer would work better if he did so). 
I was postponing this project for quite some time, and I am glad teenager insist to do it now.  Before, I had my photos stores under the name of the post, which wasn't convenient when you need to find and eggplant under who knows what name.  Now I have all photos in folders, named by a subject on the photo. I am putting this to a test and I hope to find a photo of an apple in Apples folder. 


What is your photo organizing system? 
Do you keep your posted photos or you delete it from your computer?


See you,
Marina

32 comments:

  1. Oh that's a difficult issue and so far I haven't found and ideal solution. I wish I had a minimalistic approach but somehow it doesn't work for me, yet. Usually I do hundreds of photos per one post to choose only few photos that I like and that I publish on the blog. But since on my blog I publish small versions of the photos I always keep the original, big size photos stored, because sometimes they come pretty handy. But I only store the best ones, the rest is discarded. And then they are burned on a CD or DVD.

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    1. That's actually is a good system, Joanna. I keep everything in folder which is named by the month I take it, and then I categorize by subject the good ones. I should discard bad photos or soon I'll be overloaded... :)
      Thanks for your comment!

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  2. This is a very good question. I am fairly disorganized. I do keep my original photos but I am going to start saving them into a USB stick soon. They take too much room otherwise.
    Have a nice weekend X

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    1. Thanks Alida! My son complained, that my photos take too much room on his computer, the whole 60GB... :)

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  3. You have just reminded me that I have been meaning to delete a few photos - I become a bit of a hoarder! I keep my photos in folders too but usually under categorised names and not as specific as yours. All my blog photos go into one folder.
    :-) Mandy

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    1. Thanks Mandy! I became more specific after I "hoarded" about 60 GB of photos and needed a better system to find what I was looking for. It was a labor intensive project, but I am glad I did it, it makes my life and searching for a photo much easier... :)

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  4. I do have several things to move to my external hard drive, but my photos are already there. I pop my sd card into my computer, and upload my pics straight to the external hard drive. It makes life, and blogging so much easier.

    Have a great weekend Marina!

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  5. have a nice weekend

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  6. I keep all (almost) the photos in my computer and original copy in an external hard drive.

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  7. I keep mine on the hard drive in a pictures folder with descriptive picture names. My pictures are not as nice as yours. I need to practice taking pictures.

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  8. I put each edited version on photos in a folder that's same name as recipe. My title of the post is usually the name of recipe so it's quite easy for me to find. If I forget exact name, but the ingredient should be in the title...so far this works for me, so basically folder name is matches with my title of the blog (like Chicken Teriyaki, shrimp Tempura etc), and inside there is document (recipe) and all the edited pictures (sizes are smaller). All the raw files are in external folder since I shouldn't be needing it unless I have to re-edit photos etc. Hope this system will work since I only have just 150 recipes in it and still easier to find things... Good luck organizing Marina!

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    1. Thanks Nami! I haven't gotten to raw files yer, as I prefer a natural photo, without any editing, just the way I see it, the way it exists in reality with all shades, etsc... :)

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  9. Oh my! I would hate to have to organize my pictures!!!!!! Honnestly, I keep all of them even they have been publish but I should start putting some in the trash!

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  10. Hmm ... Where I once had envelopes filled with photos, often duplicates too, stashed all about my home, now I have photos stored willy-nilly on my Mac. I tell myself this is better.

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    1. I know, I love those envelops. I actually opened my box filled with envelopes another day to look through old photos. It's quite a feeling, can't compare to a digital folder. :)

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  11. I keep all my pictures, and organize them by date. Once a month I try to move them to CD, and just keep smaller versions of the pictures on my computer ... but I get lazy sometimes :) I thought about doing the keyword thing, but haven't gotten around to it. Sounds like you have a good system!

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    1. Thanks Jane. My next step should be copying my photos to CDs, but I need to choose only the good ones as copying 60GB on CDs would be a waste of time and CDs project... :)

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  12. I found your post through my "photo organizing" google alert and how excited I was to hear you are originally from Seattle where I now reside! The blue angels are in town for Seafair and we're expecting highs in the 80s, wish you were here! My business is Seattle Photo Organizing so feel free to send questions anytime about digital or paper photo organizing. I enjoyed your blog and will keep reading!

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    1. Oh Molly, I miss Seattle so much... And I am very glad you came here, and brought to me a feeling of home... I visited your website, it quite interesting. Thanks for visiting my blog and your kind comment... :)

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  13. Your teenager son is absolutely right. When you free up your computer of all those photos you no longer use, or might use, your computer will run faster. I've been deleting quite a few photos, lately, I have some in the USB stick, but never use them to look for photos. I also save my filled memory card; in case I need to use them to look for some photos...otherwise I just try to limit the number of photos in my file, on the computer! I'm quite organized...can't stand confusion, because I have no one, but myself to blame on my own computer!

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    1. Thanks Elisabeth. :) You know, I am a bit insecure about the new technology. Before when we had photos in print, it was safe. Now, I don't know for how long my photos on hard drive would be safe? I guess I am still going to print some of my best shoots. :)

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  14. I keep everything. I have finished photos in a file with everything related to that post. Then I have a separate file with all the photos I took for that particular post (including the ones I didn't use - and since I usually take at least 100 photos for each post and typically many more, that's a lot of photos). Then everything gets backed up daily to an external hard drive. The organization isn't the best, but I can find anything I need, which is the point I guess.

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    1. Thanks John. I know the dilemma: I take over 100 photos for a post sometimes too, and many of them I like so I keep everything...
      I have everything on external hard drive now too, but I am a little concerned how safe is it? I am still thinking of printing some of my best photos... :)

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  15. Ha, organising photos... my nemesis. My blog photos I organise... or try to. I have a folder called "FiveEuroFood Food", with many, many sub-folders named by date with the photos in there. I have another folder called "FiveEuroFood Adventures", with the adventure photos in there.

    As for photos in general... well, the file structure itself is a mess, but if I can make a recommendation - I use a program from google called Picasa - it's very effective at organising your photos into folders and albums. You can add keywords, it has face recognition so it will detect all photos with faces which you can then tag (like, tag one and it will detect others with the same person). You can edit the photos in it as well as create collages and the like and even sync to the web albums if you have a Google account. Not really suitable for "pro" photo editing, but for the general user it's very, very useful :)

    With the tags especially, it's easy to be able to tag a photo with all the items in a photo and quickly find all photos tagged with "Apple" for example... hope it helps :)

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    1. Wow, Charles, you have quite sophisticated system! Thanks for sharing, I will read more about it and see if I can apply some tips. I shell learn more about Picasa too. :)

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  16. I am very computer challenged and also disorganized so my files are a big mess. My kids are the opposite of me so they organize for me.

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    1. Lol, Norma. I know how you feel. I wish my teenager can do this work for me too, but then I won't be able to find anything... :)

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Your warm comments put a smile on my heart.