Last week I was going to post a picture and realized I had made a terrible mistake.  The edited photo I had, was sized for a website and was a bit small.  The mistake I had made was, I did not move the master into the folder with my edited work to keep all of them together.  I went ahead and posted the version I had apologizing for my smaller size explaining that I was simply too lazy to dig out the master and redo it hoping people would laugh due to the fact they have found themselves in the same situation somewhere in their past.  MrsLubner posted a comment that she in fact had no organization to her photos and it made me think…….how many of us are overwhelmed by a sea of bad photos with no organization system for the good ones??  I recently adopted my system and thought I might pass it on to the rest of you in hopes at least 1 person might benefit….

 

Step 1:  When I pull my pics off my cards I put them into a folder on my desktop labeled “unedited pics”.

Step 2:  When in the mood to do some post work (by now I have sent several batches of pics to the folder) I go thru the “unedited pics” folder using either the bridge or just my Windows Media and delete out my immediate rejects.  I basically filter down to pics that I want to take a closer look at.  Then move those pics into a folder named just that, “ready for a 2nd look”.  (I have that “ready for a 2nd look” folder so if I only get that far in my sorting process I can keep track of what stage everything is at.  Many times I'm too busy to get it all done in one night.)

Step 3:  Now for some serious editing….  Using my photoshop I open the pics from the folder “ready for a 2nd look” and start looking too see if it’s a TRUE keeper and start doing my post work.

Step 4:   Personally, I do a duplicate, do all my photoshop edits EXCEPT CROPPING.  I then save both of these.  Say Im going to name the pic Wall of Color.  I save the master as WallofColor-M.  Then the postwork version gets named WallofColor-EM.  M for master, EM for edited master.

NOTE:  When I save these, I have several folders named appropriately:  Macros, Landscape, Animals, ect. and put them in the appropriate home.

Step 5:  THEN I duplicate the edited master and crop.  And of course I name it appropriately but for myself in a unique way….by the size and if its for web.  Say the pic ends up with a size of 1000px x 800px and its for the web to go on Renderosity.  It would be named WallofCorlor-1000pX800p-FW.  I do this for a specific reason, I have been known to crop for more than one size or format.  For example, if I want to print a pic I would save the pic for the size I made it (WallofColor-8iX10i) and so on. 

 

So why all the saving in different ways??  Simple…….I”M LAAAAZY!!!!!  Because I have done a master full version photoshoped version and saved it……I NEVER HAVE TO AGAIN!!!!  If I want to crop it different and whatnot, no prob but the brunt of work is done.  If a friend wants a print out of a pic, cool, I go to the folder and see if I already have that sized version………you get it.

So my end result in the folder might look like:

WallofColor-M

WallofColor-EM

WallofColor-1000pX800p-FW

WallofColor-8iX10i

WallofColor-5iX7i

 

I challenge the rest of you to share some tips, ideas or your organizational formats to pass along to others!!