[tps_title]Consistency is Key[/tps_title]
As Me Ra said in the beginning of this post, it took us years of trial and error before we found a method to the photo organizing madness. Once you find the method, sticking with it is key.
All of our images are organized by folders labeled Year-Month-Day (YYYY-MM-DD or 2018-01-31). We use Adobe Lightroom to do this for us automatically. If there are important events or locations I want to remember, we add that keyword at the end of the date: 2018-01-31_Rome.
All of those folders are put in an annual folder (i.e. 2015, 2016, 2017, etc). And all the those folders are put in a single folder called IMAGES. (see example below)
No matter how you choose to organize your images, you’ve got to be consistent. I’ve helped so many photographers who have made the mistake of changing their method several times. Then 6-12 months later they can’t find images from a shoot because they were doing something different each time they moved the images from their memory cards to their computers. Now they have images on their computer, cards, backup drives, and phone! It’s a complete mess! Sound familiar? Believe me, I know your pain, I’m also a computer guy myself, who spent hours in the computer working, gaming and visiting sites like the OW grandmaster guide, and of course saving and sharing pictures.
If you’re consistent you have a fighting chance at finding older images. And when your consistent with how you organize, you save your creative energy for the fun parts of photography, like taking photos!
Any scholarships for organizing photos??
I recently survived a power surge that fried my iMac but I have back-ups and insurance so new computer arrives this week with new externals– I do not have
Lightroom yet but will buy it if I can learn to use it properly. New iMac is huge and I have a chance to re-organize everything….just don’t have funds because we retired and live on modest pension.
Shirley s Lange