Organizing and manage my pictures

Hi, i just bought a d70s and im figuring out how to manage my pictures.

i used to have an olympus camera, wich have the olympus master software wich creates a folder with the date, copy all the pictures and distributes them in fodlers with the date as the folder name.,

Is there an application that does something similar for the nikon pictures? how do you manage your pictures? thanks...

I manage manually. My folder structure follows below template:

My Pictures


RAW
TIFF
JPEG

I shoot in RAW. Copy RAW pictures to RAW folder. Convert them to TIFF into TIFF folder. Post process and store post processed JPEGS into JPEG folder. Works fine for me.

My pictures
Year
CountryPlace_EcentName_MonthYear
RAW
TIFF
JPEG

Hi,

There are many ways to organize your images and software to assist. When I bought my first DSLR – a D70 - I used NX VIEW, which is a free download from Nikon. In View your can set up folders in a similar manner to any document folder structure and you can tag and key word images for ease of finding them when you have literally thousands or tens of thousands.

The file structure I use is to set up a folder per year, then a sub-folder per main subject and then if necessary a sub-sub folder. So I have a folder called Photos 2009 (as well as ones going back to 2003 when I went digital), then sub-folders for family, sport, places travel, special events, etc. Then, for example, in my travel folder in 2008 I have sub-folders caller France, New Zealand, etc. In my sports sub-folder I have such titles as sailing, skiing, rugby, etc. With this structure I have been able to organize thousands of images in a structured manner and find them when necessary.

Three other refinements. First, during the current year I have a sub folder caller A1 Temp into which I first copy images from the CF card. That avoids muddling them with those I have kept in the main subject folders. In A1 Temp, in NX View, I grade each image as I first look at it into 1 = Good, which I shall post process it; 2 = okay, which I shall keep but not PP; and 3 = bad, which I shall delete. Then I select all ‘3’ images and delete them. I then tag/key word the remainder and move them into a subject folder.

Second, once I have done the PPing, I copy the images into a similar folder structure on my backup, external hard drive. For really important subjects, like that once in a life time trip, I also copy them onto a DVD.

Third, at the end of the year I select those I shall put into an album and put them into a folder I call Best 2009 and print them for the album. I also reduce their resolution in the JPEG format (I shoot RAW/NEF) for slide slows and to put on smugmug. Thus, I have a summary of the year’s best images for soft and hard viewing.

Having an organized structure that suits your style will keep you on top of things as the number of images in your collect grows exponentially, as it surely will.

Hope that helps.

--
J.

http://jules7.smugmug.com/

My system is similar. Folder for year, then main event or category, then very often subcategories. (2009/family/, 2009/hawaii/maui/diving, etc).

I thought about what kind of directory structure to use for a while, and I came up with the conclusion that there was no perfect naming scheme or structure that would always work. Which led me to the conclusion that eventually I'd also need to put keywords into the images and use a database manager to find them.

But there are some practical things to do with file naming:
-eliminate duplicate names by having unique names
-make them sortable

I use DownloaderPro to name my images when retrieving from the flash card. It also creates an initial directory structure and losslessly rotates the files. It can also make instant backup copies and add at least one keyword, or incorporate an event name into the naming scheme.

My naming is yymmdd-hhmmss-subsecond-cameramodel.

As long as I sync the clocks on multiple cameras, I can have all the images in the same directory, sorted by when they were taken, without file name clashes. In the event of having two of the same camera, the model can be differentiated as well.

I dump all the images into a downloaderpro/yyyy/date directory at first. Then I use ViewNX (or Photomechanic) to initially rate and cull the images down, after which I move them to a permanent directory structure. I run a batch file nightly that copies new/updated images to a backup NAS.

I also run a database program called IDImager against the NAS to catalog the files so I can have a chance at finding ones I want later. It's got the features I need, but it seems slow to me. So far I've not found the perfect database manager.

There is a good treatise on file naming for images here:
http://www.impulseadventure.com/photo/flow-name-file.html

What manually I do is:

year
yearmonth-subject
type

Ex:

2009/200912-Christmas/NEF

The JPEGs goes into the "yearmonth-subject"

--
Miquel

1st: Wow.. you bought a D70s. I have the D70 and D80. My D70 just waits on the bookshelf for my D80 to malfunction.

2nd: How do you want to organize your photos? You want a program to do it, or do you want to import the files from your card and direct them to files on your computer on your own. Either way go buy a external hard drive as a back up for your photos files.

If you want to do it yourself, then set up a system and stick with it.

My computer has 2 drives. The system and system related programs are on Drive C. I put my photos on drive D (it has more space since there are no programs on that drive).

Folders set up for me:
Photos
Photos\year
Photos\year\month\datetime\NEF
Photos\year\month\datetime\jpgs

I use ViewNX. I have CaptureNX and Photoshop Elements, but I seem to use ViewNX to do some basics adjustments on the NEF's.

If you want a program to do it then get something like Photoshop elements. Do you have a Mac? The iPhoto program is adequate.

Back up your photo files to your external drive once a week at least.

What I do:

Take pics in NEF + jpg. I think your D70 only lets you do RAW + basic L jpg. My D80 does RAW + fine L jpg.

Delete any pics in the camera that looks grossly bad on the camera's lcd before starting tranfer from card to computer.
Copy and paste the NEF files into the folder on my computer drive D.
Copy and paste the fine L jpg files into the folder on my computer drive D.
Delete all the photos on my SD card.

Go through the fine L jpg files and delete everything that is not 'good.' Any thing left over, I copy and paste the good fine-L jpg back to the SD card. I put that card into my wife's iMac, and her iphoto inputs and organizes it. I then let iPhoto delete the photos on the card after the upload.

I go through the NEF files, and delete anything 'horrible.'. Anything from 'ok' to 'excellent.' I keep.

I power up my external hard drive and I copy the new folders with the NEF and the jpg files into the external hard drive.

In the end, I have 2 copies of the NEF and jpg. I have another copy of the jpg's on my wife's iMac for her to mail/share. I didn't have to convert the NEF to jpg and then give to her since I shot in NEF and jpg.