The XMEN Clan Forums

I've got over 9000 images that I've taken so far, and I really need to organize them.

Do you keep everything you shoot, or do you delete unusable images? (I can't think of a reason to keep bad images, but I do it anyway. )

What format do you keep your images in? I was taught to archive in TIFF, but as they were taken in RAWR (.CR2) and I never edit the originals, is there any advantage to archiving in TIFF? I mean, TIFFs are 45MB+!!! I only have room for ~20,000 TIFFs or I could fit ~60,000 CR2s (RAW).

What kind of file structure do you use? I keep everything on my photography drive, a folder for each day (YYYY_MM_DD format)... but I really ought to create subfolders for different locations/shoots on the same day.

Is there a way to add keywords in batches? I really don't want to, but if there isn't, I'll have to add comments and keywords one by one. (I'd really like quick searches by keyword... especially as the numbers get really large.

Is there anything else I should do when organizing my photos?

If a shot is truly unusable and there's nothing artistic (however you define that) about it, you should delete.

No point in converting from RAW to TIFF for archival. Your original image is RAW, and more information is not going to magically appear by converting to TIFF. The only advantage is that TIFF is a standard while RAW is a proprietary format, however there are enough 3rd party RAW readers out there that you should not have to worry about being able to read it later.

I generally combine a date with an event name in my folder so I can find stuff. E.g. "2007.ChristmasAtMoms" or whatever. Hardly the best system, I admit.

Ok, I've decided to store them in RAW/JPG pairs. Each JPG will be keyworded for very quick & precise searching. Main directory will contain folders in "YYYY_MM_DD Desc." format. Each folder will contain either images (in the case of a single shoot per day or similars shoots) or sub-folders for each shoot/location for that day. (This way I don't have a zoo trip mixed in with landscapes or portraits, etc.) I am also considering creating a text file for each shoot that would contain a description of purpose and any important details of the shoot (peoples names, locations, etc). Maybe this will keep me from forgetting where I was when I took a particular picture. Finally, any edited pictures will be stored in a folder under that of the original.

Since keywording 9000+ pictures will take quite some time, I think I'll do quite a bit of culling as I keyword.


*update*

I've been doing some playing and this is really cool! I only added keywords to a few images in a couple different folders, but I can already see how much easier it will be to find images (assuming I add enough, proper keywords)! I can open a search window, type, "zoo" and instantly get all of my zoo pictures... or I can type, "cincinnati zoo" and get only those from the Cincinnati Zoo... or, even better, I can type, "otter" and get all my pictures of otters or type, "river otter" and get only river otters!

So, for example, if I wanted a picture of an F-18... before, I'd have had to scroll through thumbnails from each of my 5-6 past airshow shoots and gather up the ones with F-18s in them... now I just do a photo search for "F-18" and there they are!

This will be well worth the 12+ hours it will take me to keyword all of my images!!!
Now I just need DK to get to work on my website.