How do you organize your photos in PP software?

I've never messed around much with post processing my photos, but I'm starting to get into it a lot more and I have a lot of questions. I just upgraded to the newest Aperture and mainly I'm curious what the best way to organize is?

Someone like me, I don't do professional shoots (right now) where I could organize as a specific project for someone. I shoot photos of my kids, dogs, and day to day stuff. Occasionally we'll go to the beach or someplace that is a bit off the day to day.

1. Do you bring in all your photos into the software, even the bad ones you don't want? Or do you only import the ones you like and would process?

2. Aperture gives the option to store the photos in their original location or store in the Aperture library. Which is best? From the camera, I upload all photos by date to a photos folder on my computer.

3. Now, how would you recommend organizing? I don't think by date is best. Maybe organize in general folders like "kids", "flowers", "dogs", etc? Maybe have projects for the specific events like "Ocean City 3-17-14" or something like that?

4. Finally, what do you do with your photos? I've started uploading to flickr for sharing purposes. But what about using them locally to make a calender, or email to someone, or something like that? I assume I'd want to export as a JPG or something. Do you dump them into another organized folder and save them, or what?

Thanks!

I bring in everything to LR. Store them by date. Have been adding keywords finally... Trying to do this now when I initially bring them in.

I need to figure out the best way to cull the crappy ones before bringing them in. If I simply uncheck them they are still there on the card. Not sure of best way to delete. Don't want to do it in camera if I can do it on-screen instead.

I post the processed photos to flickr, but only the keepers. Don't want to clutter that space with crap.

I organize by folders, starting with a folder called PhotoAchive, within that it divided by years. Within years, each time I drag out the camera there is a date and name folder eg: 2014_01_24PandasBearsV​B. Works for me and relatively easy to find stuff and I do about 50,000 images a year.

Not a Mac user so use Lightroom on a PC, but the concepts are similar. I would suggest keeping the images in the original locations and just keeping the edits in the database. Personally I think that is much safer, you also might (MUST?) consider some sort of back up system.

As for organising the images this is where database based systems come into their own. I usually just store the images (All RAW files) in folders by date. With these management systems you are not often going to make use of the file structure for organising the images. This is where keywording is your friend. LR has a system of organising called collections, and more particularly smart collections (I am told that Aperture has effectively the same thing). This is where you do most of the image sorting, as smart collections will automatically sort ALL of the images by many different variables. On import you add general key words to all images, such as location, event etc. The next step as you sort and grade images is to add specific keywords to each image. So if you have some pics of the kids playing with the dogs in the park you might add the location on import, then the different kids/animals etc in each individual image (It's not nearly as time consuming as it sounds, there are tolls to help).

Now you setup your smart collections, which can be hierarchical so you might have the kids at the top of one, with separate collections for each one underneath. The same for regular locations and events. The advantage of doing it this way is that images can then be in multiple collections at the same time, but you still only have one copy of the image on disk. For stuff that doesn't merit a collection, as long as they are keyworded it is still real easy to do a simple search for a keyword on the whole library of images.

For output files it's even easier. You can actually upload images direct from the application to most of the main image hosting/social networking sites, so you don't have to worry about having JPEG files floating around your system. For other uses, such as printing or emailing it is really easy to export a suitable file for each purpose, using presets, so you export, use and delete the file when finished. This ensures that for whatever you are using the file for it will be tailored exactly to that use. You also ensure that when ever you do use an image it is the latest version of the edits. Finding the image within the application is quick and easy, as you have everything optimised, so it is usually quicker to do the export than to find the right version of a bunch of different JPEG files.

Sorry I cannot be more Aperture specific, but the two systems do work very similarly.

Alan

Alan, that's very helpful thanks. You don't have to be Aperture specific. I realize they are similar to a point.

I use Lightroom to organise things. I have a folder on my photo drive called "photos" (funnily enough). I then have sub folders for each year. I then have sub folders within the year of specific events/topics/location​s etc.

When I have made the edit I copy the master tiff into a folder called "master tiffs" which contains all the full res versions of my photos (All transfers done via lightroom so that the linkages are not broken). I then export to photoshop and the image is automatically saved as a jpeg in a folder named "1024 exports". In photoshop I apply any final tweaks, add a watermark and reduce to 1024 pixels on the longest edge. This file is then uploaded to flickr and facebook and can be used to link to here as required.

Obviously all my photos dont get the full treatment so the ones that are not being posted to flickr/facebook/potn just stay within the respective folder within lightroom and dont appear in the "master tiffs" folder. Im not saying this is the best workflow but its one im used to after some trial and error.

One thing I used to do was crop as part of the editing process. Then when the file is converted to tiff you are stuck with that crop. I have now got out that habit and I only crop within lightroom before exporting to photoshop. That way the tiff is always full res and I can crop to different shapes/ratios if I ever change the print size i.e. no point cropping the original to 6x4 only to realise down the line you want to print to 7x5 etc

I import everything into LR (even bad shots) and will cull those bad images as I go through.

In my Pictures folder, I create folders for each year. So by now I have made a 2014 folder.
Upon import into LR I have it copy from SD (or move if I've downloaded to HD) into the 2014 folder. I also have it at the same time rename my images with YYYY-MM_DD_original_file_na​me. (This way, no matter what camera or naming scheme is used, if I browse the folder it is all chronolgical.)

For backup, I then just backup my entire Picture folder (and subfolders) and my Lightroom Catalog.

As far as organizing in general... this is where LR and Aperture is fun. As I said, basically one folder for my images (subdivided by years.) However within these programs you can create collections if you desire... or simply Keyword tag your images.

In your question you mention folders like "kids, flowers, dogs"... but where do you put a picture that has all 3 items? Do you duplicate the image? It gets confusing. If you keyword tag, however... and then simply search for all photos with Dog... there they are. Even better you can search for Dog + Person's Name, and there you have all the pictures of Johnny boy with his dog! In short... if programs like Aperture and LR appeal to you then let the database do the work no matter HOW you organize the photos on disk.

I import images to my desktop workstation and then archive them to my Windows Home Server in the basement when I'm finished with them. Folder structure is the same on both: a top level folder for year, then subfolders for months. For example 2014\01, 2014\02, 2014\03, etc. I *HATE* the idea of creating folders based on some sort of keyword, event, etc. As David mentioned, what do you do when you have images that could belong in different folders? My YYYY\MM structure is scalable until I die and I'll never have to give a moment's thought about how to organize my images. It's automatic and I'll never outgrow it. As you'll see throughout my workflow, I try to automate wherever possible. That said, I have a fairly extensive keyword hierarchy that I use to keyword images.

1. Import all images from CF card to Lightroom, using one of a few import presets (depending on image subject) that apply metadata presets, filenames, lens corrections, etc. I also manually apply keywords here. Nothing is ever imported without having keywords first. Then begin importing. Also use the LR feature to import duplicate copies to my Home Server.

2. First pass through the images to rate them as follows: "X" for rejects, 1 star for those I want to keep but probably not edit, 2 stars for those I may want to edit, 3 stars for those I definitely want to edit. The point here is just a very quick 1st pass to see what I have, spending no more than a second or two on each image.

3. Filter set based on 2 stars and greater and do a second pass. At this point I'll probably have a lot of 2 star photos that are similar so I use Survey view to group them together, demote the ones I don't want to 1 star, and promote the best to 3 stars. I usually end up around 20-30% of the total set as being 2 or 3 stars, and roughly 10% are 3 stars.

4. Edit the 3 star photos. At this point I *may* sync some edits with a 2 star image that I previously decided not to edit, it all depends on what I have (that's my purpose for 2 star images, they're sort of on the bubble and sometimes I go back to them).

5. Export to jpg the images that are going somewhere (email to model, posted online somewhere, submitted somewhere, print, etc.)

6. Once the jpg's have been "delivered", delete them, they're just wasting space and I have the original RAW in LR if I ever need to create a JPG again.

7. From within LR, move the entire set from my workstation to my Windows Home Server.

So that's it. I also have many smart collections based on various keywords, star ratings, etc.

Regarding backups:
1. My workstation automatically backs itself up to my Windows Home Server at midnight every night.
2. My Home Server automatically backs itself up to an external storage array at 1am every night.
3. My Home Server automatically backs itself up to Azure cloud-based storage at 2am every night.

I only post process those images that I think are worth it. Also Photoshop does not require the images to be saved or organised in any particular way, so I tend to use the original file created when the images were uploaded from the camera and work from there.

With a good digital asset management (DAM) system the actual physical location of the file becomes almost meaningless. Which is a good thing.

Suppose you're looking for an image of Aunt Agnes, at the zoo, feeding a hyena whilst wearing a hollyhock in her hair, taken sometime in summer 2007 (or was it 2008). Did you file that image under Relatives, Animals, Excursions, Flowers? How long would it take to find it?

But if the image had been correctly keyworded then it would take just a few seconds to find, no matter where the original file was located. Even if you couldn't remember who the subject was, or when it was taken, I'd bet that a search on the two keywords - Hollyhocks and Hyena - would bring up no more than a dozen or so matches, easily scannable by eye.

It really all been said above by others, but my personal choice using Aperture is to have a new Library for each year. Then to organise by month and date/event with smart albums if they be useful for a particular event.

As others have said keyword are the main tool for searching later, but make sure you start to use them right from the start, its a right pain going back years later trying to keyword thousands of shots.

Take a look here. http://support.apple.c​om/videos/#aperture There may be some helpful information that is Aperture specific.

I organize my photos by date under year directories. All are imported from the card via LR5, appropriate import preset selected, additional keywords entered. After import I cull with a star system, saving those that might be edited into something useful. 95% or more of my editing is done in LR. Publish and export functions create jpg files where needed - FB, my smugmug site.

Of course, all photo moves, deletes, etc have to be done in LR to maintain the database.

timrocks311 wrote in post #16764548
4. Finally, what do you do with your photos? I've started uploading to flickr for sharing purposes. But what about using them locally to make a calender, or email to someone, or something like that? I assume I'd want to export as a JPG or something. Do you dump them into another organized folder and save them, or what?

Thanks!

I've made calendars for Christmas presents (fortunately people are polite and say they like them). I also throw them up on flickr. And yes, everything that goes anywhere gets converted from raw to jpeg.

The advice from Cincy about giving photos a star rating is good. I didn't do it for a long time - why would I do it when I know whether I like a photo or not - but come back a few weeks later and look at a bunch of similar photos and you forget which photos were the better ones. So rating a photo really helps with the process of winnowng out the worthless junk, plus the ones that are very similar.

davidcrebelxt wrote in post #16774923
As a side note, I just listened to an interview with Peter Krogh (the DAM book.)

Regarding multiple catalogs/libraries:
Although there may be a subset of users (pro's especially) who need multiple catalogs. He suggested keeping everything in one as far as possible to simplify things.

For me, I might not remember what year I took a picture... so searching for "botanical" I can find all pictures taken at botanical gardens regardless of the year.

(By the way, he's apparently updating his DAM book and also making guides for specific aspects of it. If you're not familiar with him, he's basically been the authority everyone references on Digital Asset Management. I don't follow all of his recommendations, but his book definitely helped guide me to my ever evolving workflow.)

It's cool, "The DAM book came out in 2006, a time when a lot of interest was being spurred amongst us digital photographers concerning DAM, and when both Lightroom and Aperture were being developed and eventually put out for Beta use (Lightroom had its "official" release in early '07).

"The DAM Book" is now in its Second Edition and is apparently on the verge of coming out with a Third Edition, and the author has done a lot of work with Lightroom and Photoshop, working to make DAM a practical reality for us photogs!

It's been almost 10 years since he started working on that book, my, how time flies!