I've been pondering this lately and just don't have a good answer.

First: I'm curious to know - how many of you use your work cameras for personal use and vice versa?

Second: How do you organize all of those images?

When I shot pics back in the day before 'going pro' all my pictures were numbered exactly how you think they'd be. If I wanted to go further back, I looked for a smaller number. Now, my 2 cameras are numbering all over the place and if I choose continuous file numbering, there are gaps and if I to reset the numbers, there are a million duplicates.

Yeah, there's always iPhoto to help find stuff by date but it seems really overkillish to open iPhoto up each time. Bridge seems a little better, but surely there's a good solution under my nose. Teach me oh great masters!

Thanks,
-Eddie

folder named with the date.


that's how I do it anyway.

Folders & dates here too. For instance -

2007 photos
Jan 07
Feb 07 ...........etc.

Easypeasylemonsqueezy!

All the best,
Roxanne

I have month/year folders too...but here's the thing about that. If you set an image aside and edit it for your blog or whatever, how do you efficiently find it again if you have several images with the same names? Hmmm. Maybe I'm just making a deal outta nothing, huh?!

I have a folder on my desktop called "For Blog" where all my blog photos go.

My personal photos are catagorized by month & year, then subject or location so I can easily search for what I want.

My personal photo folders are by subject matter - for example, pictures of my niece are all under her name in subfolders by date, trips are by their location, projects are by their name, etc. I could never remember where anything was if I did it by date!

I have a separate blog folder like Melody.

Month/Year/Subject for me too. But I need a system for backing them up, which I currently don't have. All my 2002 personal pics are gone cuz they were on the PC, which died. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson.

I have some that say "Really really needs edited right now" and "Work on this instead of OSP"

...yet here you are once again my sweet! *snerk*

For the P2C stuff, I have MANY, MANY folders - many like those have posted above. Printed docs. Blog pics. Logos. (name of forum) Docs. Sponsored Charity Docs. And WAY more!!!!

My personal ones I just scan through month by month with my new Canon software. Came with my new WICKED COOL PowerShot SD750 - I love it. But I digress...

Many folders is the answer. Many, many folders.

I use my cameras both professionally and personally...and I shoot for myself *almost* every day.

Each folder gets named numerically...e.g. 7.20.07 (month.date.year). These go into monthly folders, which go into yearly folders. I often go through them and purge whatever I don't want to keep, then I burn them on DVD whenever I feel like it. With such a high volume of personal work though, it can get a little chaotic if I don't keep on top of the organizing.

mine go Yearmonthdate - because it makes them sequential then (without having to sort by 'date created').

My RAW files are in one set of folders marked that way with the full res jpg's for printing in another set named the same way and the smaller blog photos are in another set named exactly the same way.

everytime my laptop slows down I send them all onto my backup storage media, clean the folders right out and start a-fresh.

i use aperture so whatever it is, personal or otherwise, gets a folder. i would be lost without it.

I use my good camera for portrait stuff and parties, then I have a small point in shoot digital for out and about like Zoo or parks and stuff when the kids are playing. I have a folder called "Family" and keep another for "Client".



~Scott

I'm with Brent! It's gotta be YYYYMMDD or else you're not chronological.

My personal (and work) folders look like this:

20070716 Jane Doe portraits
20070717 Billy's 5th Birthday
20070721 Riding bikes

Now, what if I shoot two totally different things on the same day?

20070722a Swimming with kids
20070722b President Bush press conference

(Never been to a White House presser, but you get the idea!)

Within those folders, I have more folders. It goes like this (roughly)

1 RAW
2 Retouched TIFs
3 Final jpgs
4 Small jpgs for e-mail

That way everything is in order of workflow because of the leading number.

My biggest challenge has been trying to figure out how to properly append the filenames with some indication of the work I did. Like adding "cc" for color-corrected, or "r" for retouched. I still don't have a system I like for that stuff.

But, the short answer to your original question is I organize personal work exactly the same as real work because I don't want to have two organizational methods in my head.

I guess I use my work camera for personal stuff but I call those "practice".

My files are by:
SUBJECT: RAW, JPG & WEB

I'm fascinated by this. I didn't think there would be so many methods. Lernin' all the time!
-E

+1 date and small description

Downloader Pro is great at recognizing what images are taken by what camera and renaming accordingly - even if one card is used in two cameras.

My family images are renamed as they come out of the camera by Downloader Pro to Cx-YYYYMMDD_nnnn where Cx is C1 for the 30D or C2 for the XT and nnnn is the original file number in-camera. My wife's images aren't renamed. She likes the IMG_nnnn names and only shoots with her Powershot, so it's not a problem.

We keep them in folders for Year, then Year-Month. If it's a special occasion such as a birthday, we'll put that in a special folder under the month. Duplicates are kept on Kim's machine and my laptop, synchronized with microsoft's SyncToy. Work images go in a separate folder structure, with only portfolio images getting copied here so she can see them.



We use Picasa for personal stuff because that's what Kim likes and it's easy for her to upload to her Picasa Web Album for sharing. Picasa's folder view makes the folder naming relevant and useful. She only uses the "Favorites" star for organization, but I'll usually do keywording on images I add.