Nothing is more important when dealing with photographs than developing an easy system for cataloging your photos. It’s very frustrating, not to mention time consuming, trying to find a photo you want to share or have printed when you have a haphazard filing system. Worse yet, with no system at all. And, it is a very simple thing to set up.
By default, when you download photos from your camera or memory card, they are inevitably and automatically put into a folder with a date. To me, this is the worst kind of catalog. I have no idea what I was doing on say, September 29, 2011, let alone what photos are in the folder.
If this is your filing system, you’ve got to open every folder from around the time you think the photographs were taken to find what you’re looking for. What a pain.
No matter what software you are using to catalog your images or how you are storing them on your computer, it is an easy matter to import your photos into a folder with a name that is associated with your subject as you download them.
For example, all my pictures go into one main folder, My Pictures, and no where else. Within My Pictures, I have a folder called Friends. These are friends we’ve visited or have visited us and all the photos I’ve taken of friends go into this folder. But it doesn’t stop there. I have sub-folders of the Friends folder to hold the photos of each set of friends. You can also make sub-folders of these that relate to specific events, places visits or even dates or years.
If I’m looking for a photo of say, Jim and Ginny Jinks that I shot while visiting them in Florida, it takes a couple of clicks and there it is.
The same method works great with our families. First, I have a folder named Family. Underneath that are sub-folders named for the families and family members. Events like Christmas and Thanksgiving are in their sub-folders listed by the year.
Yolanda’s grand-daughters have been in several plays, so in the sub-folder of Family named Skylar and Sage, I have sub-folders for each play.
It’s so easy. But you have to be consistent.
We travel a lot. So, I have a Travel folder. (Not to mention my travel blog, Light Traveler, www.dreamcatcherimaging.com/blog.) In my Travel folder are sub-folders of the countries. Under that, sub-folders of the cities or regions. If I’ve been somewhere more than once, there’s a folder for the year and then the city.
Of course, if you’re like me, you’ll have several different places or things on your CF or SD card that don’t fit neatly into one category. Plus, after I download them, I have to edit through them and delete the photos I don’t want. For that, I have a folder under my main photo folder named Newest Downloads. All the mixed up stuff goes in there until I have time to edit through and process it. Then, it only takes a few minutes to either drag them to the appropriate folder or create a new folder and drag them there.
I don’t care what software you use or where you have them stored on your computer, it’s a simple matter to set up an easy to use filing system. If you haven’t already set one up, then it’ll take some time to organize it. But once set up, it only takes a few seconds to put things where you’ll be able to find them.
If you don’t have the time or patience to organize the photographs you already have, then at least set up a filing system for the new photos you take and use it from now on. It’s so easy.
But if you’re one of those who keep hundreds or thousands of shots on a card until it fills up, store it and buy a new card. Heaven help you.
Here’s a screen capture of part of my Travel folder:
Copyright 2013 Dennis Jones/Dreamcatcher Imaging
Check out my travel blogs on my extensive world travels at:
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