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Image file storageFolder hierarchy or metadata retrieval

Author	Post

Posted by Robert: Sat Mar 30th, 2013 12:27

1^st Post

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? o.O

____________________
Robert.

Posted by Eric: Sat Mar 30th, 2013 18:57

2^nd Post

Robert wrote:
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? o.O

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.
:rofl:

____________________
Eric

Posted by jk: Sat Mar 30th, 2013 20:13

3^rd Post

Robert, I dont knw if iPhoto does/did this but in thevimage EXIF there are two fields Date Created, Date Digitised.

The fields usually hold diffe rent data.
Hopefully the Date Created field should show the original date that the picture was take.

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Posted by Robert: Sat Mar 30th, 2013 20:33

4^th Post

The Exif data is still viable and available once the files are imported to Lightroom, but the file data is as exported. With that number of files I don't feel inclined to modify the data, I have tried in the past with a variety of software inc Lightroom but with scant success, It seem to have done it but it tends to revert when you turn your back!

This is one small sample of the exported files from iPhoto.

Don't get me wrong, iPhoto is a handy tool if you don't need access to the actual files but if you do it's a nightmare.

My friend has a large iPhoto library and when he upgraded to the latest 27" iMac recently I had to export all the images. It took over a day just for the image files and that was between to modern iMacs. I exported them onto an external Firewire drive then re-imported them to the new machine. They refused to tfr directly.

Attachment: Screen Shot 2013-03-31 at 00.19.26.jpg (Downloaded 19 times)

____________________
Robert.

Posted by jk: Sun Mar 31st, 2013 05:18

5^th Post

There is another field in the EXIF called Date Digitised I think without looking at the EXIF specifications.
This may be the one that holds the original date the image was taken.
I know as I had a similar problem when I moved to iMatch on Windows from ACDSee. There is also a method of synchronising the image creation date into the date created field(s) using ExifUtils. You can do it on any platform as it is available on all.

____________________
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Posted by Robert: Sun Mar 31st, 2013 07:16

6^th Post

Thanks JK,

http://www.hugsan.com/EXIFutils/index.html

I seem to remember I did try this but I may have a go again, $29... I will download the hobbled demo and see if I can cope with the command line interface.

The other thing I think I will need is something to weed out the orphaned sidecar files from the NEF's I have deleted, although most of them seem to have gone, perhaps Lightroom removes them when it removes the culled image files?

____________________
Robert.

Posted by Doug: Sun Mar 31st, 2013 09:54

7^th Post

Is the iPhoto library still intact?

Events in the iPhoto software are folders under originals inside the iPhoto library file
You would lose crops, titles and edits, but should be able to open the iPhoto library by right clicking in finder and choosing 'show package contents'

From there look for originals and note that there are the same number of folders as there are events in the iPhoto software

Copy these and then import into LR and LR will have files with original creation dates

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Posted by Doug: Sun Mar 31st, 2013 10:07

8^th Post

I help people with iPhoto a lot but normally they are not advanced enough to have keyworded, renamed, or rated

As such the following is untested but I believe ratings, keywords and definitely titles will be lost if copied as described above. I suggest experimenting with a small copy of the library as another user to test and prove how it all works.
It seems likely that exported files WOULD contain keywords and ratings
You could then use a program (back in the day I would have used file buddy) to adjust the file creation date to match the capture date
You might be able to find a free Automator action to do this

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