Reading mode: Light Dark

what do i do with all the pics?

Go to last post
J

jman32

Forum Enthusiast
Messages
277
Reaction score
0
Location
NY, US
i just bought the XT and have it for less than 2 weeks. coming from the S70 - what a difference!!! i took snap shots with the s70 and it was not an enjoyable photography experience, but with the XT i cant help myself but to take more and more shots.

but what do i do with all my pics. i have about 1000 pics(after deleting a bunch), i cant imagine what "my pictures" folder will look like in a couple of months.

any ideas on how to manage the beast?

--
jman
 
KILL THE BEAST... (ahum)
--



(for the moment.. a Canon S40 + OM2 and would be 350d-user)
 
I shoot RAW, and I shoot a fair amount (though nothing compared to what others shoot on here). I organize each shoot into its own folder (be it a 4 day trip...one folder, etc), then arrange them. For instance, I have a "Europe" folder with about 9 subfolders for trips. I also divide by camera (I have 3 digital cameras). So I have a Europe folder in my A75 folder with another 10 folders there...plus about 15 folders inside my Europe folder for my old Kodak camera. Then I have a people folder, a misc. folder, a nature folder, etc, etc, all subdivided for easy access.

All told, I have around 10,000 photos organized into around 80 different folders. 3200 in the last 4 months (with the Rebel). I use Picasa 2 as my image browser, because it then takes all those folders, displays them, and organizes them by date automatically, which is really nice. Then, I also have the ability to view RAW files in Picasa, which is nice.

But, no matter how you organize. MAKE REGULAR BACK UPS. I have a DVD burner, and I burn new files to DVD about every 2 weeks, and do a complete photo backup around every 3 months (I have around 3 full copies of all of my photos, so even if two copies fail, and the hard drive fails, I will still have all my photos in tact.) I can't imagine having a hard drive crash and losing 10,000 photos forever because I didn't take the small amount of time and money to back them up.

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.jordansteele.com
 
Agree.

I do it by date and event. And back up with DVD.

Also, the more picture you take, the less picture you take. because I found as my skill improve graduately, i take less pictures. because I know when is a good time to take, when is not a good time to take.

by then, you'll see you have less pictures, but better ones.
Jman13 said:
I shoot RAW, and I shoot a fair amount (though nothing compared to
what others shoot on here). I organize each shoot into its own
folder (be it a 4 day trip...one folder, etc), then arrange them.
For instance, I have a "Europe" folder with about 9 subfolders for
trips. I also divide by camera (I have 3 digital cameras). So I
have a Europe folder in my A75 folder with another 10 folders
there...plus about 15 folders inside my Europe folder for my old
Kodak camera. Then I have a people folder, a misc. folder, a
nature folder, etc, etc, all subdivided for easy access.

All told, I have around 10,000 photos organized into around 80
different folders. 3200 in the last 4 months (with the Rebel). I
use Picasa 2 as my image browser, because it then takes all those
folders, displays them, and organizes them by date automatically,
which is really nice. Then, I also have the ability to view RAW
files in Picasa, which is nice.

But, no matter how you organize. MAKE REGULAR BACK UPS. I have a
DVD burner, and I burn new files to DVD about every 2 weeks, and do
a complete photo backup around every 3 months (I have around 3 full
copies of all of my photos, so even if two copies fail, and the
hard drive fails, I will still have all my photos in tact.) I
can't imagine having a hard drive crash and losing 10,000 photos
forever because I didn't take the small amount of time and money to
back them up.

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.jordansteele.com
Click to expand...
--
Canon 300D + BG-E1
EF-S 18-55/3.5-5.6
EF 50/1.8
EF 55-200/4.5-5.6
 
Every time I empty the camera, it all ends up in a folder named with the date I do the transfer. I look thorugh that folder and delete anything obviously not good (motion blurred, lack of a subject and so on), and make a rough selection when I have multiple photos of the same subject; that gets rid of about half to two thirds of all images right there.

Then I make a subfolder for the obviously good images, and make a second pass, selecting, doing post-processing and moving stuff to that folder. With about a hundred images to start with, perhaps three or four ends up there straight away - and sometimes none.

After that, I look at each image in turn, and when I feel inspired by an image, I do post-processing and cropping. If it feels like a keeper I move it to the save folder. If I realize an image really was no good after all, it's dumped. I review the folder now and again over the course of a few weeks; it's not unusual to see something new in an image that looked fairly bland at first - or to see the boring reality of a highly hoped-for image.

Usually, after a couple of weeks, a folder that may have started with 200 images, has been reduced to perhaps 3-10 keepers, and another 20 or so maybe's. The one's that still feel iffy and doubtful after another month or so gets deleted, and the keepers get sorted into my permanent archive.

That said, my "permanent archive" still doesn't touch the skill of a real photographer...

--
http://lucs.lu.se/people/jan.moren/log/current.html
 
i have tried the folder approch but have found that organizing by date and location dies not give me a good grouping by subject matter. maybe the program that u use which sorts by date will give me the added flexability to sift through all the pics.

is it only an organizer or do u PP with it, if yes how does it compare to other PP programs in terms of power and ease of use?
--
jman
 
that sounds like a great approach, i just dont have the ruthlessness to delete so quickly. this might change once i see the beast growing out of control
--
jman
 
It's the simplest method.

I have over 13,000 taken over 7 years and I know where each and every one of them are located at on my drive.

It's all in how you name the folders.

Start with the top My Pictures (or whatever). The folders in that top folder should be very generic. Events, Holidays, People, Photography, Vacations, etc. Admittingly, I have 18 top level folders, but when you run 1600x1200 resolution, that's not that many folders.

Then name things logically underneath that top level. Under Holidays I have 'Christmas 2002', 'Christmas 2003', etc. For more timeline things like football games I have '2004 - 1106 - Arkansas'. Games through the years automatically list chronologically.

I guess I just don't trust some super smart type software that can catalog and arrange your images. I'd rather put them where I want and know exactly where they are later.

Now maybe a program where you could tell it where you folders are and put each image into a category manually and then view by catagory, that would be fine... as long as the program didn't do anything to the actual files and folders.

Honestly, I haven't cared enough to look into it yet... I know where images of various subjects are if I want to look at them. :)
jman32 said:
i just bought the XT and have it for less than 2 weeks. coming
from the S70 - what a difference!!! i took snap shots with the s70
and it was not an enjoyable photography experience, but with the XT
i cant help myself but to take more and more shots.

but what do i do with all my pics. i have about 1000 pics(after
deleting a bunch), i cant imagine what "my pictures" folder will
look like in a couple of months.

any ideas on how to manage the beast?

--
jman
Click to expand...
 
jman32 said:
that sounds like a great approach, i just dont have the
ruthlessness to delete so quickly. this might change once i see
the beast growing out of control
Click to expand...
Someone - I forgot who - said that the difference between a so-so photographer and a great one is in how much they dare to throw away.

When I look at archives more than six months old, I can easily delete another half of my pictures - and I do. I mean, if I'm not happy with the picture, why keep it? The sole exception is of course pictures that are important just because of their subject matter itself. Your daughters five-year birthday party won't happen again so of course you won't throw away all the pictures from it - but even then, you owe it to her to find the two or three or so pictures that really shows her and the party "better" than any other and throw away all the ones that will just be boring filler in between the pearls.

--
http://lucs.lu.se/people/jan.moren/log/current.html
 
I organize by:
Year-> City-> Month

I don't use an album manager, but Canon provides one program, look for it on the CD set.

I STRONGLY recommend doing a backup once in a while. Right now the double layer DVDs are great to do this, they are expensive, but going down on price. Right now I'm using the 4.5GB DVD's. I use quality DVD's (TDK) to do a permanent backup. I also do a backup in an external drive.
 
I also forgot to mention, that I created my own program to rename the pics, rezise them, find ups, have a slide show and copy them to a backup drive. Instead of buying a program I do my own.
 
That's what I used to do when I first started . . . folders by subject . . . but then I started getting photos that overlapped by subject matter and it wasn't working well for me. I have since gone to a folder named for the date I transferred from camera. Then I put them into Adobe Photoshop Album (could be a different cataloguing program if you can find one you like). Then I assign keywords to them quickly depending on the subject of the photos. Some may only have one, some may have 10 or more. With this system, it takes me less than a minute to find any photo I want. Before, it would take me forever, but now, in a matter of seconds, I can find all the photos that I took of my wife, with my daughter in them, in a garden on my daughter's birthday, or all the photos of my daughter with her cousin and their mothers.

It's all preference, but this works the best and quickest for me.

Jonah
 
the keywords sound like the best suggestion for my needs as i too have problems with cross over.

does canon canned software allow me to use and search by key words. i would preffer not to use the windows search.
--
jman
 
check out picasa. its a great photo managing program. very fast and handles large amounts of photos easily, best of all since google bought them, it's free. http://www.picasa.com
 
Go to Best Buy and get a DVD burner, blank DVDs, and a CD Storage Booklet. Burn them off as dates and write on the DVD and archive them.

Also, show them off by getting a smugmug account or something. Very fun.
jman32 said:
i just bought the XT and have it for less than 2 weeks. coming
from the S70 - what a difference!!! i took snap shots with the s70
and it was not an enjoyable photography experience, but with the XT
i cant help myself but to take more and more shots.

but what do i do with all my pics. i have about 1000 pics(after
deleting a bunch), i cant imagine what "my pictures" folder will
look like in a couple of months.

any ideas on how to manage the beast?

--
jman
Click to expand...
 
Try Imatch ( http://www.photools.com ).

Allows you to view raw files.
Allows you to organize on disk any way you like (ie. by date).
Allows you to catagorize pics and then select/view by catagory.
Allows for batch processing.
Handles exif and iptc codes.

Have fun.

KS
 
I have been very happy with the Adobe products. I used Elements 2.0 and Album until 3.0 came out. This combines photo organizing along with post processing capabilities (not Adobe CS or Photoshop but close enough for many of us).

I have approximately 3,000 pix nicely organized an tagged for easy retrival using this software.

There are many reviews of Elements 3.0 including one in DPReview.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Keyboard shortcuts

f
Forum
m
My threads
Mobile site
About
Editorial content
Cameras & Lenses
Community
All content, design, and layout are Copyright © 1998–2025 Digital Photography Review All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited.
When you use DPReview links to buy products, the site may earn a commission.
©GPS Media - Guides, Products, Services.
Back
Top