No question is a stupid one, well

[oaksmith]

I have a A80 and I'm using hoto elements 2. Please keep in mind that I'm new at all this, but I am a experience computer user.
What is the best way to organize and name your photos? Do you store them on your HD or move them to a CD? Do you need a program such as Photo Album or do you recommend other ways? This may seem to be a simple question, but I can't seem to figure it out.

[stardis]

I use the ZoomBrowser software that came with my s30 for downloading and printing.

-- When downloading the photos I use the option (default, I think) to download into a folder by the shooting date. All of the photos go into a folder that is named the date of shooting; ie, 2004_01_25.

-- I keep the photo's original file number as the image "name".

--The photos go into 'My Documents" on the hard drive and you can just keep them there.

--Then I burn the photos to a CD as "data" using Nero software. You can add photos until you have as many on the CD as you want to have. I name the CD's by the month of the photos that they hold. After the photos are safely archived I can do post-processing in PhotoShop Elements 2 which is plenty good enough for my work.

--I use Extensis Portfolio software to catalog everything and find the photos again. This is a good place to give them descriptive keywords instead of a "name" because, eventually, you will run out of names. I believe there was free Extensis software in Digital Camera magazine the last time I was at the newstand (that's where I got mine some time ago now-- but I think I will buy the upgrade because I like it).

--I am still trying to perfect my methods, but this is what works for me.

[Conk]

Thumbs plus is a program you might want to look into.

[joefzd]

Bear in mind that the more times you save a jpeg the image quality degrades . Saving in tiff format is a good option if you want to work on them later. If you are just keeping a folder on your pc or cd for viewing then jpeg is fine and uses a lot less space.

[Novell]

Here's how I organise my photos:

Firstly, all pics given standard IMG prefix. Choosing longer prefixes might make the filename (especially finenumber) unreadable when viewed in thumbnails (especially when using Browse in Paint Shop Pro).

All pics are downloaded to a Camera Pics folder. Pics are saved in sub-folders with names that relates to the pics e.g. Linda's Birthday Party or Family Pics or Vacation In Venice or Test Pics etc.

Once the pictures in Camera Pics (which contains all the sub-folders) reached about 600mb, I burn the whole thing in CD and label it "CD -1 DigiCam Archive December 2003 to January 2004", for example. I would also write the subfolders name (i.e. events) on the CD as well for easy reference.

Then I would transfer all pics in my Camera Pics folder (including all subfolders) an archive folder with similar name on the CD.

Now my Camera Pics folder is empty (except a shortcut to my Camera Pics Archive) and restart the whole process.

That's it. :)

This way I get to sort all my pics in relative chronological order, and it would help me figure out which pics I've backup / burned on CD and which I haven't. Plus this way its easy for me see and find which pics was stored in which CD.

[Maxhome]

I'm new to this too, but what I've found good so far is:

... keep the Zoombrowser date folder structure - you can't go far wrong with a date

... save to CD fairly often to free up PC space

... use Explorer to burn your CDs - you can just drag the folders onto your R/W CD and then "write to CD" - much quicker, I've found, than the "special" burning software (this is with Win XP, however - not sure how good it'll be with other windoze versions).

Finally - burn an "index" text file - from Notepad or Word etc, to describe what's there. It's easy enough to say "the pics on the 30th include a great shot of Dad at his party" or whatever. Needs only to be a few lines, but in my view it's the best way to ensure you can get to the good stuff quickly. For the rest, you'll want to browse anyway.

[EoSD30fReAk]

I make 1 folder with seperate maps like nature
weather
Animals
buildings
others
etc etc etc

i also use a CD RW to write new pictures i've made to. when i have enough photo's i burn them on 2 cd R so that if one fails i still have a backup! then i empty all folders on the pc and start over again.
the cd's are labeld like: pictures till january 20 2004.