Better Image Organization
An Introduction using The File System
Organizing ones images in an easy to retrieve manor can be a confusing task for some people. Perhaps it is because they have neglected the situation for too long or because they don’t fully understand how basic filing structure works on the computer. Either way I’ve seen situations more often than not where a person has images strewn in a disorganized mess across their hard drive in randomly named folders. They struggle trying to find things and suffer undue stress worrying at some point they may permanently loose something.
Unfortunately, a neglected file organizing can indeed lead to data loss. It’s no fault of the computer but generally human error. In a disorganized mess of thousands of images, are you able to remember exactly where every image is and are sure the files you are about to delete are indeed what you think they are?
Fortunately, there is no need to deal with a chaotic mess of files. Organizing your data is really a very simple thing to achieve. You just have to get there first and that is what this article is here for.
Directory Structure 101
The first thing to understand is the basics of how the directory structure of a computer works. If you already have a grasp on directory basics, feel free to skip ahead.
Directories on a computer can be thought of in the same manor as a filing cabinet. The cabinet itself is the computer, each drawer is a hard drive and directories are the folders found within each drawer. That last one is especially convenient as directories are referred to as folders as well.
An example of a directory structure on the Mac would be:
/Macintosh HD/Users/UserName/Pictures/
Pictures with full directory path showing.
“Macintosh HD” is the name of the main hard drive, “Users” is a directory within the hard drive and "Pictures" is a directory within the previous “UserName” directory (called “Dan” in the picture above).
The same folder can be found on the PC as:
C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\My Pictures\
My Pictures with full directory path showing.
“My Pictures” and “Pictures” are simply default directories on the Windows and Mac (respectively) systems. Where you finally choose to store your images depends on space restrictions and your own tastes. For instance, I store my photographic works on their own dedicated hard drive I creatively named “Photography.”
Note: Although “Pictures” can be found directly in any Finder window sidebar on the Mac or for PC users, “My Pictures” can be found in the Start Menu these are not the physical locations for these folders. What you find in the Start Menu and the sidebar of the Finder are nothing more than shortcuts that lead you to the actual folder.
Choosing A Location
The first step is to choose where on your computer your images should reside. I tend to recommend people to not use the default “Pictures” (Mac) or “My Pictures” (PC) folders as a starting location. The reason for this is primarily due to the storage space needed for photography. Those two folders are located on the primary hard drive (“C:\” on WinPC and “Macintosh HD” on the Mac). When the primary drive is used to store your photographs they must also compete for space with your operating system, additional media (songs, videos, etc), documents, software programs, system swap file, and temporary files. The space needed for these items grow and shrink (mostly grow) over time as you use the computer which can conflict with your ever increasing drive space needs for your photography.
Considering the large amount of space images need and how quickly that can add up, it is best a dedicate a hard drive for them. This will allow your system to operate more smoothly by giving it room to “breath” (about 20% of the drives capacity should be empty for optimum performance).
Choosing a Structure
The final way you structure your directories is entirely up to you. However you do it, I highly recommend you to make Mr. Spock proud and keep it as logical as possible. Since everyone’s needs are different I can’t tell you what to do specifically but I can give you some things to consider and show you my own directory structure system.
The first thing you need to do is to think about how you consider you photography. When you talk about the images you take what comes to mind the most? Is it the type of photography it falls under? Is it a time frame in which you took it (i.e. “in the fall,” or “last year”)? The key here is to break it down into its most basic label or category for the first folder in the chain you will place things in.
If you are organizing thousands of images taken in a short time, be especially thoughtful here and consider what you chose will entail. If you choose to start with the year the image was taken for example, do you really want you personal images mingled with your commercial work? Or how about fine-art nudes mingled with a customer’s portraits of their little daughter Susie?
Typically organization structures start of with genres, types of financial intent (work, recreational, etc.), or a combination of the two.
My own system works as follows:
I first break things down into three general categories: “Artistic & Recreational,” “Family Events” and “Work.”
Within each I start off with the year it was taken. Next I create a folder for each group of images or session that consists of a two part name. First the month and day written out numerically and then a short but descriptive title. Within that folder I would place all of my raw files and any edits.
An example of one of my directories would look like this:
/Photography/Family Events/2005/07-20 Pismo/
For me the benefit to my system is in its simplicity. Not too much, not too little. It is structured in the manor I recall images in my head (“A photograph of my cousin last year at Pismo”) and it is structured in a manor that is understandable and searchable by my operating system. A search for “Pismo 2005” would churn out the example folder I gave and most of the related images (raw file support by the OS is sketchy).
A Spotlight search for “Pismo 2005.”
Conclusion
All to often I see people running in circles with their files in a disorganized mess. It’s a shame as that is completely unnecessary. With a little bit of thought a manageable system can be put together that is easy to sort through and takes little effort to maintain.
If you haven’t done so already, dedicate an hour or two in your schedule to sit down and get things organized if you haven’t already. Doing this from the start is far better than trying to clean up after thousands upon thousands of files of neglect.