Nilla showed a screen shot of how she had her images organized, which made me wonder how others organize their images.

The program I use to keep organized is Portfolio 6. I use the date system, each image is given a name.... eg. 060104-0001, 060104-0002, which is mm/dd/yy-image#.

I keep them in seperated Albums... B&W, Digital, Color Negative, Transparencies, and another for Family Album...

Once I burn them to disc I keyword them by categories, eg. docks, children, water, etc....

When I'm looking for something in particular, I call up the keywords in one or more albums and all images with those keywords will come up. I can then find the discs that they are on...

It can be a lot of work to organize initially, but it's fairly easy to find something when I need it...

Message edited on: 06/05/2004 08:48

Arrrgh! Can you tell me where I left my shoes last night?

I make slideshows now and save them on a disc. You can use many programs for it.Like Paintshop Pro Photo Album5...or Nikon View6.But also I keep a folder on that disc with the full size images.

What you didn't see in that screen shot is the scary part. ;) Inside of each of those folders are more folders. Under sunscapes and nightscapes there is a folder for sunrises and another for sunsets and of course one for nightscapes. I organized each folder that way with subfolders. I also burn them to disc to back them up. I keep them in "My pictures" because I use them for screen savers, XP allows me that where as my previous operating system didn't. Doesn't matter what subfolder they are in, they all show. I have two separate folders under my documents, one has people pix in them and the other has my resized images for upload. I don't particularly want images of people for screensavers, that is why they are separate. I always save the full size image in "My pictures" It is easy for me to catalog them too as in each folder all are named, like in the sunrise folder the file names would start with SRS001 and sunsets would start with SST001 etc. This way when I look for an image, it is much easier to find. Do I need professional help? Probably! Do I care? Go ahead ask me! ;) Brenda :)

Attached Link: http://www.photools.com

I use a program called [Imatch](http://www.photools.com). Once you get your images in, it works like a database... you just check the categories that the image falls under, then you can to intricate searches or simple searches later. For example, if I have a bunch of people pictures, I could search for pictures with women and children in them but without men and I would get just those pictures (if you've been able to keep up with the categorization of the images.

I'll add that even though I am fairly organized on this PC(only a few months old)as soon as I burn to disc,this is where all the disorganization is. What drawer did I put that in?..Or shelf,or hmmmm.

I am not organized. I think that one I took last month is still under my green socks.... or was it on top of the TV?. ...yikes! What good systems you have. I just keep things basic ...titled images. CAPITALS prefix for series (they group together alphabetically). BACKGROUNDS in one file. and separate folder for 'moving outies'. Well done guys.

Ahhh... Mr.Michael thank you very much for that link.... I think I may try out the 30 day demo.... I like Portfolio but there are things about it that I find slow me down when trying to keyword etc... seems like Imatch is a fairly intuitive program, and the price is wonderful. @Nilla, I use My Picture too, as a dumping ground for all of my recently taken images. Named also by date, (thats the first thing I do when scanning or downloading from the camera) and put into their corresponding folders there. And there are tons of folders... The main ones are Dimage, Scans- with subfolders for BW and Negative and Slides, Final Full, Printed, Uploaded, Projects..... Funny thing is, I'm obsessively organized when it comes to my photos, but I can't find my keys or my glasses half the time...

[I found my shoes!] To prepare the "Last Week in the Gallery" page I wrote a custom application to position the thumbnails and generate the image map HTML. If I ever get two days back to back with nothing pressing, I'd like to turn this into a general purpose application.

I use a pretty simple system for my original images. Generally, I can remember where a shot was taken, so I have my photos organized in folders by place name ("MontpelierVT" for example). I then have subfolders that are named with the event/location and the date of the shoot ("Cemetary-06-05-03"). Sometimes I use another layer of folders for each subject ("ManchesterVT -> Home -> Studio -> Candles"). This system works pretty well for me. I can't do any searching, but it doesn't really take long to find an image as long as I remembered where it was taken. Postworked images generally get put into a single directory, where I use the Windows XP thumbnail view to find what I need. -Taltos

I actually have a horrible system. But here it goes. Important images are catogorized in a folder by rough subject matter ( basically why I started using that camera that session or the highlight of the session ) a mnenonic for the image type and camera source. Many images are stored on FLOPPY DISK, and CD. All of my pictures are kept in the original development package which includes the date of development. eg. Chow pics mvc-4-5-2002 Would include the pictures where I photographed the cow using a mavica in 2002. The problem is if I took a good picture of a FISH at the same time. I would have to remember where the fish wound up or search for it. Generally the good one I keep looking for I get copied to someplace easier to find. Post worked images when I am done get renamed to **** fnl.* or ***fnl for now.. It's not a great system because it all mainly hinges on my memory of when I photographed something. If I don't regurly look at the directories I tend to forget. Finally I have a directory with photos I use for experiments sundry retouches morphing excetera and a forder for 3D photos. Bsteph

Has anyone seen my keys?????????? Seems to be a problem! LOL!

Thanks you verry much Mr.Michael . This software look pretty good. I will try the free trial too :). -Benoit

You're welcome... I know it was $50 well spent for me... I have 3,133 pictures so far at about 17.1gb using RAW format... a lot quicker to look through with categories and thumbnails. Otherwise, there'd be no way for me to keep track using the RAW format! Oh, before you get to far, get your thumbnail size just like you like it before starting out... you can transfer to the full version from the trial (I think) and the thumbnail size cannot be changed once the initial database is started.

Cool...Thanks you for the hint. I didnt start my database, because i want to organize in folder and name my pictures correctly...i will also do perfect thumbnails for everypicture :) thx very much. Im sure i will buy it after the trial. -Benoit

The database creates thumbnails from the main images, I don't think you can make custom ones if that's what you're looking for.