How Should I Organize My Photos For Forum Posting?

[bossgard]

What kind of method are you photographers using to organize your photos so you can find the right one when you want to?

I'm looking for something that can lead me through a step-by-step system so that in the end I can tell if I have existing on my computer a proper re-sized photo image to post to the Forum.

Kodak Easy-Share lets me organize my photos thus:
TABS –will let me organize my photos by using the Forum Directory List Topics/Sub-Topics such as NATURE. (Tabs will let me see all of my NATURE tabs at one time.)
ALBUM – will let me organize my photos by name ‘DIRTY HARRY’S BALCONY’.
CAPTION – a 250 character description of the photo, as in ‘A LOOKOUT ON TOP OF A HILL, etc.’ The Caption is supposed to ride along with the photo, and appear in the Posting.

Taking all of the above into consideration, I then want to go through the new FOLDER/SUBFOLDER procedure on my computer to create something on the order of FORUM IMAGES/DIRTY HARRY/DH#001. (The number referring to the fact that the image is #1 in location in the DIRTY HARRY’S album.) By then locating DH#001, on FORUM IMAGES I can post properly to the Forum. Sound possible?

My scans and their resultant images will undoubtedly be included in this same type of process.

Thanks,
-Toby

[ideasguy]

Photos can be organised in an infinite number of ways.
However, if you just happen to have 1000's then organising them by Category can be very laborious.

I have two fairly simple organisational requirements.
a) Family - one Folder called Family, with sub folders.
b) Other - A new Folder each Year with sub folders (for Garden Photos etc).
e.g. When I downloaded such images from my Canon camera in 2009 I directed it to the _pics2009. The camera software makes sub folders by date taken in the format YYYYmmdd.
This can be seen in the following screenshot (e.g. 20090624 in the screenshot is 24th June 2009).

There is always an overlap (e.g. family members just happen to get in the way when I'm taking a photo of something looking good in the garden  )

I usually keep the photos in that format but may edit the folder name to make it specific.
e.g. 20120612-Daires Christening (on 12th June 2012)

Look under Tools on the Ideas Genie Pro program menu and use the program Resize Images-GA051
Here's a screenshot after going through the steps (they are numbered in the screenshot).

http://www.flowergenie.co.uk/forumImages/ga051s01-1.gif

If you want to keep your forum sized images organised and separate from their original location then you could do something along the lines shown in the screenshot.

From this you can see that Ive made a suggestion for you.
Make a folder called Forum (see Step 3).
You could direct ALL your resized photos to that folder. By that I mean every time you have to create a resized photo for the forum, direct it to the same location every time you use GA051.
Note the sizes in the screenshot - Max Height and Max Width both set to 600. This is perfect for the forum.
In that folder, make sub folders if you prefer to keep them sub-divided in some way.
Here Ive made one called Begonias 

Suggestions only Toby. I'm sure everone has their own method for organising photos.

[bossgard]

George, I've printed out the screenshot, and I think I'm understanding what to do.

Maybe, by the time I get through, it will be a combination of both. That is using both the Kodak Easyshare organizing tips and GA051 RESIZE PHOTOS. I have to use the RESIZE anyway, its just where I direct the reduced copies that will be important.
 
I will work it through, if I've got any problems I'll get in touch.

Thanks,

Toby

[Palustris]

Adobe elements has an Organise facility, but no idea if it is any good as I am not organised. I keep all my photos in Folders appropriately named. The Folder contains the image as downloaded from the camera. Inside that Folder is another one containing resized images. Sometimes there is then a third folder containing images of a different size depending on which website they may be sent to. For example, if I am doing a Web page through Ideas Genii then there will be a sub-folder with the images I am going to use in the original folder.
Obviously all these images are also stored elsewhere, in case.

[bossgard]

SCBG - especially for George!

[ideasguy]

Oooooh Oooooh!!
Congratulations Toby - you've cracked it.
Sizes look just perfect.

As for the subject matter - many thanks indeed!
To explain to our members, SCBG is Soos Creek Botanical Garden.
http://sooscreekbotanicalgarden.org/
They purchased Ideas Genie Pro more than a year ago.
Toby has visited the garden, as you can see from his posting and tells me it is all very impressive.

If you'd like to post some more photos of SCBG, here's a suggestion Toby.
Look for the section Good Gardens to Visit on this forum.
Then look for the sub section Good Gardens to visit (USA).
Post a new topic there called Soos Creek Botanical Garden.
Photos there would be very much appreciated indeed Toby.

[JeanV]

I too am interested in this topic. My husband arranges his by date and then notes what he takes that day. My new camera promises a trick where if you tell it a person's name it can then recognise them  in other photo graphs : I have not tried it yet but maybe it would work with plants. Has anyone tried anything else?

My old camera Panasonic had a really good filing method but this new one I have not got sussed yet!

Any advice welcome!

[NightHawk]

Try and keep your filing as simple as possible.

Digital cameras can be configured to have a default naming system - usually the date the photos were taken.  Then you can organise them manually later on by creating specific folders on your computer - family, holidays, garden, etc.
This is one of the most basic methods, and was the system I started with, and still do to a certain extent.

If you have thousands of photos then you will need to have a more organised system.

A lot depends what imaging software you own, many of which come with a built-in organiser feature.  Eric (Palustris) mentioned Adobe Photoshop Elements.  I have used this program and it works very well.  I now use Adobe Photoshop CS5 which comes with Bridge, it's own built-in organiser.

I do a lot of day-to-day graphics work, take a lot more photographs than I used to, so have built up quite a large library of images.  To help keep track of these I use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.  You can have the images scattered all over your computer in numerous different folders and it knows where they are.  You can allocate various tags, comments, notes, whatever to them so you can sort them into any order you want, or find exactly what you need easily.

This is a very expensive program to buy and not everyone can, or wants, to own it.  If you can afford it, and can justify the expense for the work you do, then it's worthwhile.

I still have loads of graphics/photos that are not startlingly brilliant and I may or may not use them, or view them very often, so I just manually give them their own folders and don't import them into Lightroom.  My main 'keeper' items that make the grade get the benefit of taking their place in Lightroom to get fully categorised.

Everyone has their own way of organising themselves.  There will be many suggestions of differing methods to try, and there is no wrong way of doing it.  If you find a method that you're comfortable with which works for you, then stick with it.  I know of many people who have over-complicated their filing system and get in a real pickle over it, having numerous folders and sub-folders, for just one particular event, then find it hard to locate a certain photo again some time in the future.

I think of myself as being a very organised person, and early on I did fall into the trap of being one of those 'over-complicating' types I mentioned above.  Trying to be too organised with multiple folders and sub-folders for just one event wasn't very efficient.

I have a set of folders on my computer that contain the original photos downloaded from my digital camera/s.  These photos are left untouched and I work on copies in a 'work-in-progress' folder.  When work is completed on them they are then given their own folders (if it's a new subject matter) or allocated to an existing folder containing similar photos.

I then back up all of my 'original' photos onto an external disk drive BEFORE I delete them from my camera memory cards.

This is just my own personal method of organising my photos/graphics which works for me, and I can find what I need when I need it.  And this is the criteria for any filing system I feel.

Laurie.

[bossgard]

Laurie (or whomever?):

Can you tell me, please?

I am using Kodak Easyshare software to help me organize my photos for Forum posting.

At the moment I am working with ‘ADD PICTURE CAPTIONS’ to a set of my photos which I want to appear on the Forum. There is a NOTE at the bottom of the page that reads: ‘Captions are included in most pictures’ file properties so they appear with the picture in any application that checks the properties (for example, Microsoft Windows Photo Gallery, in the Windows Vista operating system)’ I am running Windows XP.

My question – when I post to the Forum, will those captions be included as part of the photo? If so, does that effect WHEN I do the re-size on the photo. Should I complete the caption procedure before I do the re-size? I am using GA051 for the re-size.

Thanks,

- Toby

[NightHawk]

Toby,

Short answer - I don't know.  I'm not familiar with that particular piece of software.

I suggest you add a caption to one of your photos and upload it to the Forum and see what happens.

Laurie.

[bossgard]

There is another method of organizing your plant photos, if you have done your homework and have linked your photo to the correct plant.

In screen GA004, if you’ve completed the ‘ww’ segment you should have a path to follow for sorting, linking, and organizing your photos. In this example I’m working with a Tuberous Begonia photo that might have been APPLIED as follows:

In GA004 (ww):
In the GARDENER area you might have placed this: BEGONIA PATCH.
In the GARDEN AREA perhaps this: PETTICOAT JUNCTION.
In the GENUS area is TUBEROUS BEGONIA.
In the PLANT PROFILE area is ('Roseform, White #375' Mcl’)
And then the IMAGE description: 100_120 JPG 12/24/2011 as when you were linking or looking at your photos.

So the path for the sorting and/or organizing procedure reads something like this: GARDENER/GARDEN AREA/GENUS/PROFILE/IMAGE (5 different topics or headings to organize with).

IdeasGenie PRO has already figured the organizing of your plant photo(s) for you! It works for me!

If you are going to post any of your plants to the FORUM then a resizing procedure will be necessary, which will add several more steps if that is your goal. I can give those steps as I do it, too, if you want additional ideas. Otherwise, Laurie has posted that procedure earlier in this same Topic.

- Toby

[ideasguy]

Glad you've found a method that works for you Toby!

I like to think of Ideas Genie (and Flower Genie) as allowing you to index your photos.
You can organise them in a multitude of ways, to whatever way works best for you.

As far as Ideas Genie goes, it really doesn't matter where they are actually located. The Ideas Genie linking system provides the index (like a pointer) to the actual folder locations where the files are stored.

Thus, it doesn't matter if a folder contains a mixture of photo subjects (mine invariably do).
The indexing by Ideas Genie makes it unnecessary to move files around into pigeon holes on your computer.