Grab your favorite drink, play some relaxing music, and find a comfortable chair. Let's start the demanding and time-consuming process of organizing our photos.
I take a lot of photographs with my phone: some are on the subject "so beautiful, let's take a picture," plus "ideas for later," others are just "memories," and more importantly, are the ones I take from my "in progress" or "final artwork" category. In addition to all this, I have downloaded the pictures during my web readings and research.
All these images, pictures, and photos ended up in the messy "downloads folder" or the "Photos` home folder." Later on, trying to find something was a long and exhausting process.
I don't want to deceive you: I tried to postpone this issue as much as possible, but my computer memory was quickly approaching the storage limit, and the chaos was installing, so I had to do something.
Before I started, I asked some friends how they managed their visual data, but I perceived that most people have their own method of organization and do not like to talk about it. Even the most organized friend becomes evasive on this subject.
So, How could I improve my photo's digital organization storage?
So this is something that I'm trying to improve, starting by saving them in the right place with the correct name in advance.
I haven`t reached perfection. My method is in progress, and I am still learning to refine it, but I thought it would be helpful to show you how I organize image files in this week's post.
Coffee or maybe tea? Here, where I live, they would prefer a beer. 😏 Grab whatever you like to drink, choosee a comfortable chair and relaxing music to accompany you on your journey.
In the beginning, we all agree that it will be demanding and exhausting, as this is also an emotional procedure. Also, do not try to do everything (you haven't done for years) in one day. This is going to be a bit time-consuming.
Whatever software you are using to organize your images, check the following steps:
FOLDERS
Create (only) one Photos folder. This is an obvious point, but you'd be amazed by the number of images lost on other business/theme folders, which are very difficult to reach if you look for that specific picture after one year. Keep all the images together in one folder.
Create sub-folders and name them correctly. Would you please avoid the general/mix and whatever folder at all costs? Your future self would be grateful. For artists, I will advise following the main artistic themes: portraiture, landscapes, abstract, etc.
Put the images in the proper subfolder. Do not overthink this one. Pictures related to the same content remain together.
Still, don't create too many sub-folders. Don't go too nuts creating folders to categorize each type of image. For example, don't create a folder called "blue" inside the folder "geometric" inside "watercolors" inside the "abstracts" folder. Even though it only takes a split second to navigate through such a file structure, it adds up when working with hundreds of files. Instead, reduce the number of subfolders involved by following the following tips.
IMAGE FILES
Name them according to what they are. When you're looking for a specific file, and there are too many in a folder to view in thumbnail mode, you can change the viewing mode to list mode. Naming them according to their purpose will allow you to look and find what you need at a glance.
Be specific with your file names. Be specific when naming your image files. If you're naming a picture of an abstract painting, name it abstract-watercolour-green-detail.png, for example. This way, your similar images will be grouped alphabetically when you list your image files.
Adopt a naming convention. When naming your images, follow the same logic sequence. For example, theme, technique, format, and size = abstract-watercolor-green-square-detail.png. See what suits you better.
Add a diminutive/suffix. You can come with some suffixes, like sq. for square or wco. for watercolor, to reduce the length of the file name. Just adopt one prefix system and follow it consistently. Example: abstract-watercolor-square-detail.png = abstract-wco-sq-dtl.png
Be consistent and do it regularly. Do not change the rules in the middle of the game. It's better to think in advance about how you're going to do it and keep on. Keep your files organized by setting aside weekly time in your schedule.
🦾 When you feel confident and energized, move on to printed photos. Go through all family photos and albums. If you've printed images, find the ones you want to preserve. Once you find all the photos, use a good quality scanner to scan them in high resolution and store them following your winning organizing method. 🦾
Extra things to do as you finally feel comfortable with your phots` organizing method:
Use a single storage device. No matter how many photos you have, go through every device, from your smartphone/tablet/computer(s) to external drives to locate every digital photo you have and put them all in a single storage device. Keep on using your easy-to-remember name structure.
If your current storage device has insufficient storage, buy an external hard drive with enough capacity to hold your entire photo library.
Back up your photos. When you have all the photos organized, it's time to back them up. Use another local storage location to back up your photos. Is it another external hard drive or in the cloud? See what suits you better.
To finish:
I use my computer and an external hard drive to store my photos.
I have six subfolders inside the Art Photos folder: Abstract; Still Life; Landscape; Human Figure; Social Media, and Art Lessons.
On my Art Photos files, I use the following structure: theme-technique-color-format-kind of shot-number.jpg (kind of shot is for example: detail; flat lay; panoramic; etc.)
My Life's Photos folder is organized yearly by Places and Family (I consider my friends as family 😉).
I delete similar photos and the ones that do not "bring me joy."
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