Image File Organization
By Carey Brown
Copyright 2009
Table of Contents
Directories (a.k.a. ‘folders’)
The goal of organizing anything is to be able to successfully search for, and find, something some time in the future. This holds true for photographs as well. Organizing digital photographs takes some effort up front but with a proper organizing procedure you can use the computer’s power to quickly search for selections out of hundreds or thousands of photos.
The simpler your organization scheme is the more like it is that you will keep it up to date.
Your computer and image files come with three built in tools for organizing your image data
We will deal first with file names and directory hierarchies because they are related and because they form the foundation of any organization.
When you take the photo the camera assigns a file name. It is typically something like DSCN_0123.jpg, where the prefix ‘DSCN’ stays fixed by the camera manufacturer (I think DSCN stands for Digital Still Camera Nikon) and the ‘0123’ component is a sequential number that is incremented every time you click the shutter. There are two problems with these file names: a) they are not guaranteed to be unique, the counter may get reset or the value may rollover (e.g. ‘9999’->’0001’), and b) they don’t help you find images in the future.
So, the first set to organization is to rename the image files as you are copying them to your hard drive. Many image management or image editing programs have the capabilities to automate this process. The file naming convention that you end up choosing may be driven by the programs that you use. The re-naming process of most programs allows you to build a name from one or more of these items: 1) an annotation that you type in, 2) the date the picture was taken, 3) the time the picture was taken, and 4) a sequential number.
A simple approach would be to use the date followed by a sequential number. This might yield a name like ‘20090807_0001.jpg’. This approach should guarantee you a unique file name and allows you to find the file if you know the approximate date that the photo was taken. Being one of the simplest approaches it is also one of the easiest to maintain. It does not require that you select subsets of you images to rename.
Building on the above approach you can add an annotation. As an example you might want to include an annotation like ‘NY vacation’. Annotations are usually added at the beginning or the end of the name which would yield a name something like ‘NY vacation 20090807_0001.jpg’ or ‘20090807_0001 NY vacation.jpg’. The advantage of this approach is two-fold: 1) you can get an idea of what may be contained in the image just by the file name, and 2) you can use your computer to sort (if the annotation is at the beginning) or search for files with a given annotation on your hard drive. The disadvantages are: 1) you will most likely have to select a range or subset of images to apply this to, and 2) you have to be consistent with your annotations in order to get meaningful sorting and searching results. You could leave out the date but then you may run the risk of getting non-unique file names.
Long file names tend to be difficult to work with because many programs will only show you the beginning of a long file name. If your annotation were to include, say: people’s names, you might end up with file names like ‘20090807_0001 Joe Mary Bob.jpg’. This may be useful for searching but not for sorting because the next time you annotate a file you might enter it as ‘Mary Bob Joe’. This will also require making many selections of subsets to apply name changes to. The chances of you maintaining a system like this are slim to none.
My personal renaming system uses <year><month><day><hour><minute><sequence> which yields a file name like ‘090807134201.jpg’. Not many programs support this level of detail with auto-renaming. This scheme is excellent for finding images by date and time but is not so good when it comes to finding images by subject. For that I augment my file names with meta-data (discussed later). You may find dealing with meta-data too much to deal with, in that case, I would look at adding some form of annotation to your file name; here the key is consistency.
A note for those of you who shoot using the RAW file format: you may end up with as many as three related files that will have to be renamed in sync, such as: the RAW file, the JPG copy, and the XMP data sidecar file. Make sure that whatever renaming system you use will keep these in sync.
First of all, I highly recommend having a single master directory containing at least one level of subdirectories which then contain all of your images. Having a single master directory simplifies back up and searches. This may be a directory like ‘My Pictures’ (with Windows Vista this is now just ‘Pictures’) or something else of your choosing. It may be under your user login directory (e.g. ‘My Documents’ (With Vista this is now just ‘Documents’) or somewhere else on your hard drive. Where ever it is, make sure you know how to find it and how to back it up.
Your directory structure will probably be highly influenced by the file naming conventions that you’ve chosen. Again, the simplest approaches are that ones that will most likely be maintained over time.
I will start but outlining my approach. My directories are arranged like this:
Archive
09
0908
090807134201.jpg
First the master directory, then a subdirectory whose name is the two digit year, then a subdirectory under that whose name is the year and month, and finally the individual image files. This is a straight forward system that has allowed me to organize many thousands of images.
If you’ve chosen an annotation approach for your file names you might end up with directories like this:
Archive
NY vacation
2009
NY vacation 20090807_0001.jpg
Or
Archive
2009
NY vacation
NY vacation 20090807_0001.jpg
What ever approach you choose it should be simple to maintain, it should be expandable, and it should be consistent.
Meta-data is text that can be inserted into the image file. The two pieces of meta-data that are of primary importance are: captions and keywords. There are many other pieces of meta-data that can be inserted into an image file, such as: copyright, shutter speed, f-stop, latitude, and longitude. Some of these are automatically inserted into the image file when you click the shutter. The two main sets of meta-data that we deal with are EXIF and IPTC but these names aren’t particularly important. IPTC, for instance, is where the caption resides, and EXIF is where shutter speeds and f-stops reside.
The main advantage of embedding text directly into the image file is that the text follows the image where ever it goes. If you email an image to your friend, the embedded data goes with it, it does not require an extra step on your part to send the caption. If you copy an image file to another file, or back it up, the meta-data goes with it.
The disadvantage of meta-data is that it requires the use of programs that are meta-data aware in order to edit, search, or display the meta-data. Programs that interact with meta-data used to be rare and expensive, now many image management or image editing programs have this capability.
A caption is some free-form text that is typically displayed below an image during slide shows. The key to captions is that they can be searched by appropriate software. Most search software can look for an exact match to an entire caption or look for the presence of text anywhere within the caption. To take advantage of this power it is important to develop a caption style that is consistent. As an example, you might add either ‘New York’ or ‘NY’ to the caption, whichever style you choose you should stick to it so that you know what to search for later.
After writing text with a generalize caption I will make sure to add the first name of anyone in the photo and the location where the image was taken. This greatly facilitates my ability to search for photos.
Image management programs typically give you the ability to select a group of photos and apply the same caption to all of them.
Tip: If you have a group of photos that need to have the same caption except for, perhaps, people’s names, first select the group of photos and apply the common caption, then edit the individual captions to include the specifics, e.g. people’s names.
Keywords are (typically) individual words associated with an image. An image can have multiple keywords associated with it. It is very easy to search for an image with a given keyword or keywords.
Because keywords are very powerful when it comes to searching, they tend to be over used. Most management programs maintain a list of all of the keywords in use and a lengthy list can become difficult to use.
The trick is to balance your use of keywords with your captions. As an example, do not add keywords for ‘Joe’, ‘Mary’, and ‘Bob’. Instead, put those names in the caption and add a keyword of ‘friends’. Search tools usually give you the ability to specify various combinations of keywords and caption components in the same query, so you might search for a keyword of ‘friends’ and a caption that contains ‘Bob’.
Capabilities:
The cream of the crop (with a price to match) is Adobe’s Lightroom, which is currently at version 2. At $300 it is more than most people want to spend. Its numerous features are also more than most people want to spend the time to learn. Photoshop comes with a program called ‘Bridge’ which also works nicely but the Photoshop/Bridge package is even more expensive and complicated.
Two other programs that you might consider are Adobe’s Photoshop Elements and ACDSee’s Photo Manager. Both of these products have been reviewed positively on photography forums. I, however, do not have any direct experience with these programs. I would recommend that you download the free 30 day trials and give them a try.
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelwin/
Photoshop Elements - $100
Trial available
http://store.acdsee.com
Product: ACDSee Photo Manager - $50 – Pro $130
Trial available
Photo Manager is currently available bundled with their Photo Editor product for the same price (8/23/2009).
Copyright 2009 Carey Brown