I was in pretty good shape shooting analog transparencies - had a whole system of naming and cataloging.....and then came digital! (I've spent the last couple of days renaming RAW files because I (like an idiot) did not set my camera up to keep a continuous naming system - every card has the same file names....this has been resolved) My question is - what is your solution for identifying, cataloging and archiving digital images? I think I may have found a decent way with iPhoto - Mac's incorporated digital photography viewing and cataloging application - which seems to be a pretty decent solution..allowing keyword searches, fine-tuned shot-specific information that is also searchable, a photo rating system, exposure information read from the files, etc. Just curious what everyone else out there is using (or does anyone else worry about such things?) Wolf

All of my images (digital & film) are named by date. I then catalog them using Extensis Portfolio after I've burned them to cd: 1. digital 2. color neg 3. bw 4. transparencies Each image in a catalog is keyworded using one or more keywords. The search for an image is done usually using keywords but I can also use search criteria based on exif data, resolution size, location, color mode...etc. the search criteria possibilities are long... I don't use photo ratings but I enter as much known data as I can. The program reads exif data and automatically will enter those into the data fields when I add them to a catalog. For film I have to input by hand but I do it once and it'll automatically do it for each further image.... I'm very anal when it comes to my photographs....

i'm terribly embarrassed about my filing system :( month/year... misc1, misc2, misc3, etc... & then the next month... misc1, misc2, misc3, etc... so i have same name files within different month files with also the same number on them right out of the cam... i know i'm setting myself up for more work down the road... sigh actually they're all in my head

Well...I keep my photos... just in Digital, Digital-nude, Fashion, To do work, Plants, ..and so on... and the names of files are simply numbers... just looking at them with acdsee and when I choose one I make of it what I need...

I just have a directory "photo's" and in that directory a directory per shoot/event. The number of folders is getting out of hand so I need to reorganise it. I.E. group same type of events together etc. Other than that I use ACDSee to view :) Or Nikon View when it's NEF files, but NV is sloooooooow even on jpg images.

I set up folders and subfolders, with each specific to an "event" and "date". This works sort of...now with many more images in both original and postwork forms the filing is getting long and longer. I also have "play images" and "temp images" folders for stuff to work on now or later. Too many folders and sub sub sub folders in this system. All images are named by event and date, burned in original as shot to cd right after upload to the pc. Without some recollection of what is what, search could be difficult.

I do a simple naming convention. Usually ABBREVIATED EVENT NAME_YEAR_SHOT #. So, for instance, a shot from the recent Import Life Tour car show would be ILT_2004_001.CRW with incrementing numbers. I then use the IPTC info/editor in CaptureOne DSLR to make any notes I want [they are saved in the headers of the images]. Everything else (date, time, details, etc.) are saved in the EXIF data. -=>Donald

I'm trying out a version of Extensis Portfolio. Not real familiar with it yet, but it looks promising. I'll let y'all know.