| Joined: | Thu Apr 19th, 2012 |
| Location: | United Kingdom |
| Posts: | 4424 |
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There is currently an ongoing debate about the relative merits of metadata (key-wording and attributes) vs folder structure as a means of finding specific image files.
I am currently organising my image files and my physical prints and negatives. Dating some of my physical images is a challenge. Some prints and some slides are dated, but many are not. Some images are fairly easy to date because of the events, faces or clues like cars in the image but not all... I have spent most of the last three weeks on this project so far, I may be half way through the organisation stage.
Many of my problems stem from using iPhoto until Lightroom came on the scene in about 2006. I had kept all my digital images and some scans, in iPhoto, but because iPhoto ingests the images, the only way to get them out again was to export them. When I exported them they all got dumped in the same folder with the same file date. So I have about 2,000 images all with the file date of 30 Dec 09 which was when I decided I could no longer run the two systems (Lightroom & iPhoto) in parallel. I still can't face altering the actual metadata of the exported iPhoto files because whenever I tried it was unreliable, so I have placed the images in a strict file structure before importing them into Lightroom while leaving the files in my chosen folders.
For pre 2000 images the images are in a slightly messy folder structure based on a loose time frame depending on where I lived at the time.
After 2000 each year has a folder, each session has a subfolder within that year and all edits from that session are in a further subfolder called 'Edits'. Each session is named 'YY-MM-DD Descriptive Name' That keeps them in date order and makes them easy to identify to find a given image.
In order to organise the undated ex-iPhoto images and to help find scanned slides and prints, I am adding keywords of the year and month as best I can to every image file. Together with the usual keywords of the names of any subjects, locations, cars and any info which would help retrieve a particular image.
Now here is the rub...
In theory, I could dump all the images into one giant folder and retrieve any image I wanted by the use of keywords or metadata, or both. I couldn't date the images so easily if they were all mixed up in one giant folder, I find placing the images in age related folders is a great aid to sorting them.
A couple of years ago I culled my 'general interest' images drastically from almost 40,000 images to just over 15,000, since then it has crept back to 20,000. I have just had another drastic cull and the count is now well below 10,000. I decided I didn't need numerous very similar images of footballers, racing motorbikes, flowers, trees or children, so I have removed the dross. I saw no point in storing or key-wording images I would never need. Anything less than 4 star IQ went, with the exception of images of exceptional interest. No point in keeping an image I will NEVER use.
I culled before I started to keyword, I saw no point in key-wording images I was expecting to remove.
I suppose I am using belt and braces (suspenders) a folder hierarchy and key-wording. I simply can't bring myself to dump all my images into one 'pictures' folder with no structure. No doubt my collection will grow again. I am planning to digitise many of my older images from film and prints. With a growing family there are always photo opportunities and I enjoy capturing my surroundings with the camera.
I am expecting to continue with my folder structure and the key- wording as long as I can.
How are you managing your image files?
I must be a very lazy person. Mine are all in folders by event name/ date.
In my experience if I can't remember when and where I took a shot...there's a strong possibility I wouldn't remember the shot anyway...so I wouldn't be looking for it in the first place.
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Eric