RAW File Organization

[sebush]

I'm moving up from P&S to DSLR and I've been shooting RAW (Nikon D5100). My question is how to organize the RAW files in a logical way to keep them separated from the JPEGs or TIFFs created during processing.

I'm still deciding what post processing software I'm going to use, so I want an organizational method independent of the post processing software.

So, any suggestions? Should I use a folder structure similar to this:

Date_of_photos/
RAW - (holds RAW files)
JPEG - (holds JPG files)
TIFF - (holds TIFF files)

Or is there a better way?

Thanks!

 

[FrankieJ]

Yup, sounds good to me.

Personally I use ACD See Pro as my DAM tool as I prefer it's browser based approach vs. Lightroom's catalog based system.

I have it set up to import my RAW files from my camera or card into cascaded sub folders based on Year, Month, Date and ACD See has a grouping function which I have set on "file type" so that if I don't feel like creating seperate folders for each file type they remain seperate and easy to access. I find I usually deleate my Tiffs and JPEGs after upload to my Smugmug page leaving only my RAWs, nice and neat.

Also if you want to create the same subfolders many times I find that it isaves time to create empty subfolders, name them RAW, TIFF and JPEG saved to a known location and then copy these pre-named empty folders to your new location/s as many times as you need to create as many file type subfolders that you want.
--



Don't forget to have fun.

 

[MarkNicholas]

Thats almost the same as my folder structure and has worked well for me for a number of years.

I also add different folders such as Jpeg_1200px or Jpeg_Full_Res or Jpeg_B&W etc.

 

[Doug Pardee]

Peter Krogh's The DAM Book is probably still the "go-to" reference for these things.

Krogh recommends separate folder structures for originals (whether Raw, JPEG, Raw+JPEG, or whatever) and processed photos. Then subdivide those by the date, shoot, or whatever.

The reasoning behind this is that you never modify an original, and once everything's set up, the originals you add will always be newer than your other originals. Also, you'll tend to add originals in batches. Having a folder that contains nothing but originals makes backing up your originals a lot easier. And if there's anything you want to be sure is backed up, it's the originals.

Processed photos tend to be created in a less structured manner. You might well not process all of your photos from a given shoot at a particular time. You might go back and redo a processed photo, or maybe even delete it entirely. You might produce different versions of your processed photos. You might process a photo years from now that you took today. Backing these processed versions up is more challenging. For example, it might not be worthwhile to burn a whole DVD just because you added a downsized version of a single photograph that you made for emailing to a family member. In the end, your backups of processed photos will probably be somewhat disorganized, and keeping that disorganization from extending to the backups of your originals is probably a Good Thing.

See The DAM Book for more information.

 

[Mark B.]

I put converted jpg & tiff as a subfolder to the folder containing the raw files. Typically as \LIGHTROOM sometimes followed by a qualifier describing the type of conversion; PRINTS, FB, SMUGMUG, etc since the conversion is different depending on what I'm doing with them.

Mark

I'm moving up from P&S to DSLR and I've been shooting RAW (Nikon D5100). My question is how to organize the RAW files in a logical way to keep them separated from the JPEGs or TIFFs created during processing.

I'm still deciding what post processing software I'm going to use, so I want an organizational method independent of the post processing software.

So, any suggestions? Should I use a folder structure similar to this:

Date_of_photos/
RAW - (holds RAW files)
JPEG - (holds JPG files)
TIFF - (holds TIFF files)

Or is there a better way?

Thanks!

 

[John Deerfield]

Or is there a better way?

Yes. You need to decide on your organizational software. If you are on a PC, just get Lightroom. If you are on a Mac you have a choice between Aperture and Lightroom. And pick up a book on how the application works. I can't think of one good thing about folder hierarchy compared to letting an application organize my images. Rating images, comparing images, stacking images, simply creating versions.... the list goes on and on and you can't do any of the (or at least not well) using a folder hierarchy.

 

[chuxter]

I'm moving up from P&S to DSLR and I've been shooting RAW (Nikon D5100). My question is how to organize the RAW files in a logical way to keep them separated from the JPEGs or TIFFs created during processing.

I'm still deciding what post processing software I'm going to use, so I want an organizational method independent of the post processing software.

So, any suggestions? Should I use a folder structure similar to this:

Date_of_photos/
RAW - (holds RAW files)
JPEG - (holds JPG files)
TIFF - (holds TIFF files)

Or is there a better way?

That is fine, but there is no perfect naming/organizing scheme. As long as it works for you, that's the only requirement. If you want some suggestions, I can tell you what I do?

--
Charlie Davis
Nikon 5700, Sony R1, Nikon D50, Nikon D300
HomePage: http://www.1derful.info
"He had a photographic memory which was never developed."

 

[chuxter]

Or is there a better way?

Yes. You need to decide on your organizational software. If you are on a PC, just get Lightroom. If you are on a Mac you have a choice between Aperture and Lightroom. And pick up a book on how the application works. I can't think of one good thing about folder hierarchy compared to letting an application organize my images. Rating images, comparing images, stacking images, simply creating versions.... the list goes on and on and you can't do any of the (or at least not well) using a folder hierarchy.

I agree...get LR or Aperture. But you still have to decide on a naming scheme for folders, unless you plan to put all the pix in one folder...

--
Charlie Davis
Nikon 5700, Sony R1, Nikon D50, Nikon D300
HomePage: http://www.1derful.info
"He had a photographic memory which was never developed."