Recommendations for finding/organizing photos on PC?

Taytee

My computer is getting dangerously low on memory space. DH has built us a computer server to store all our pictures (with backups). Need to find and organize all the pictures. I was going to use Picasa but it appears it gives google a ton of rights to all your pictures. I have pictures in multiple places on this damn laptop and I know many of them are duplicates etc.

Recommendations?

molliedb

i can tell you what i do an a monthly basis, but its a BEYOTCH to go back in time and organize all of your images this way, but once you have it set up its so great.  it works perfectly for me, though others may have better methods.

i have a folder for every year, 2010, 2011, etc.  inside the year folder there is a month folder 01_2011, 02_2011, etc.  inside every folder i put the images from that month/year and at the end of the month i go through, delete, edit, yadda yadda then rename the files in a numeric sequence (2011_01_001, 2011_01_002, etc)

 that way i only ever have one month of images to organize at once (after you have the past under control) and from looking at an image name i know when it was taken.  also naming with the three digit sequence allows for over 100 images per month, which i almost always have.

i am also ruthless about deleting.  i could have a thousand images per month and that would just be silly, imo.  i only keep images i am going to put in our annual photobook or print for the most part.

edit to add:  if you're asking how to view the images to organize, i can't help   i use photo editing software.  maybe someone else can help there

libbyann

molliedb:

i am also ruthless about deleting.  i could have a thousand images per month and that would just be silly, imo.  i only keep images i am going to put in our annual photobook or print for the most part.

How? I can cull a session like nobody's business but when it comes to my own stuff I have a seriously hard time hitting delete. I probably have 50 OOF pictures from today alone that will remain on a hard drive [in RAW, nonetheless] until the end of eternity.

Taytee - I use a similar system to Mollie's. I have a 2011 folder and inside each folder there is a month. All the pictures from the month get placed into their appropriate folders and then I renamed them all at the end of the month  [2011-Jan-001]. I use Lightroom to view them, which is a photo editing program. It's not terribly expensive, but probably not worth the cost if you're just using it to view/organize photos.

Taytee

Yeah, it's not really a system or naming convention I need. I need to find and then organize the last 8 years of images that are somewhere on this computer in random folders.

I don't have a hard time hitting delete just like I love throwing stuff out but it's still about 5,000+ based on doing a *.jpg search which includes some random non family photography but still.

PrincessBrideSarah

I have a similar method to molliedb.

In the "Pictures" folder, I create a folder for each year (2010, 2009, 2008, etc)

Within the year, I make a subfolder for each month of the year.

As I edit the photos, I name them based on the date taken--

2011 May 1 (1), 2011 May 1 (2), 2011 May 1 (3)---if I had 3 photos taken on May 1st that I deem save-worthy.

I delete any pictures that are truly awful and only save unedited pictures that are for some reason save-worthy (as in, I think I may change my mind about deleting).

I mark on my calendar to upload and edit photos to the computer and to update the annual photo book about every 2 weeks. If some big event happens with lots of photos, I will often go ahead and upload/edit and then update the photo book even if I haven't reached the assigned day for photos.

Every few months, I burn photos to a back-up CD. DH periodically backs up our computers to an external hard drive. I also have the pictures uploaded to Shutterfly. So, I feel like that is 3 back-ups for our photos in addition to the computer and the annual photo book. 

It will be a pain to gather and organize your photos if they are all over your computer, but once you have a system, it is no big deal to keep up with things. 

PrincessBrideSarah

Taytee:

Yeah, it's not really a system or naming convention I need. I need to find and then organize the last 8 years of images that are somewhere on this computer in random folders.

I don't have a hard time hitting delete just like I love throwing stuff out but it's still about 5,000+ based on doing a *.jpg search which includes some random non family photography but still.

Hmmm...

I would create a picture folder and then move each random folder of pictures into the picture folder as you find them. Then start moving the photo files around into appropriate folders.

In addition to year folders, I also have folders for friends/family that send me photos. 

kiarox2002

I also put mine on folders, but I go one step further.  I have a year folder, within it I have a month folder, and within it I have a folder for each event that took place in May.  So 2001--> May--> picking strawberries.  I am terrible about deleting pictures.  I easily have over a 1000 from each month.  (Some weeks I have over a 1000.)  DH hates it and is always on me to delete some so he doesn't have to buy another external hard drive.

I use Picasa and I really like it.  It's easy to star the pictures that I want to put on Kate's blog or print and then I can look just at those.  (I guess I should delete anything I don't star?  I just can't bring myself to do it.)  I didn't know that using Picasa gave google the right to my pics.  I don't use their "share" function though, so I'm not sure how they could use them even if they wanted to. 

Taytee

I'm so shamed. You guys and your fancy photo books. We've had no less than 5 professional sessions since Abby was born. And still, the only pictures in frames are the ones the photographers gave us I've managed to print pictures for family maybe 3 times? And our "Annual Calender" went out in April this year !

kiarox2002

Just saw your other reply.  That's part of what I love about Picasa.  It finds all of the images on your computer(s) and puts them in order by when they were taken.  I'm not sure if that is some special system that DH has set up, but I think it does it automatically.

Taytee

I was reading more online about Picasa. Two different products which I didn't get at first. Their "software" and then their online storage. Technically I guess the online storage is searchable and out there somewhere? But whatever you do on your hard drive is still private. But it sounds like it may be what I'm looking for!

kiarox2002

Taytee:

I'm so shamed. You guys and your fancy photo books. We've had no less than 5 professional sessions since Abby was born. And still, the only pictures in frames are the ones the photographers gave us I've managed to print pictures for family maybe 3 times? And our "Annual Calender" went out in April this year !

Don't feel bad!  You have the pictures and that's what's important.  We've never had professional pictures taken so you're way ahead of us.    We are actually having some pictures taken soon and I'm so excited, but it's going to be awhile before I can have anything printed and I'm totally ok with that.  I figure one day we'll get it together and when we do the files will be waiting.  You can always go back and make a photo book later, you can't go back in time and take the pictures.  

molliedb

picasa is probably a good solution for you!  just remember this pain in the future and set aside an hour a month to get them organized so you don't have to deal with it again

 

and libby i don't know why it doesn't bother me to delete, but it just doesn't.  i have SO MANY images as it is, i can't imagine saving my RAW or images that aren't my favorites.  i am crazy protective of the images i have (triplicate backups) and i can't imagine triple backing up more images than my favs

KittyFX

I do the same thing, folder for year and then for month. I back them up every month and upload them to flickr for family to see. But, for going back 8 years, I don't think I would try to organize them by month. I would just search for .jpgs. Take them all and put them in a single folder and then sort by date, move each year group and put it into the year folder. You could then break them down by month and sort through which ones are not pics of the family. But, personally it would be hard for me to find the time to do that. Maybe I would do that part over time but make sure to organize all future photos as they come.