Re-discovering Forgotten Photos
(click on image for larger version)
That my digiscoping archive is a bit disorganized is an understatement. The 13,000 or so images I have accumulated are stored in folders by year and month on my computer. About the only index is my website showing dates individual birds were photographed. But every once in a while, either when I’ve come up with a new post-processing technique I want to try or get an idea for a blog article, I think to myself, “Hey, I think I know where that picture is,” it can take quite an effort searching through the images.
While looking for a particular image, I'm occasionally surprised by finding one I can’t believe I didn’t publish on my website. Take this Hermit Thrush photograph as an example of a picture I recently stumbled upon. Thinking back, I remember that day and taking the shot, but it’s interesting how I had completely forgotten about it on account of my sloppy archive system. Now I’m thinking about reorganizing the folders taxonomically, but I think I’ll save that undertaking for the next snowstorm.
Q: How do you organize your digital image archive?
Hermit Thrush image © 2005 Michael McDowell
posted by Mike McDowell @ 4:00 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Get website and photos Mike. I order my photos Taxonomically into folders with each photo having a file name consisting of "Species Name - Date - Place - Sequential Number" This way I can search for species, places or dates.
I organize my photos by species. Filing photos including multiple species depends on the photo. If one species is clearly dominant, I file under that species. If 2 or more are clearly evident, then I file a copy with each species.
My concern is filing space and organizing backup. Currently I am using a 300 gb external hard drive. I think I should backup more frequently to CD or DVD but my current file organization system results in an ever increasing mass of data as files previously backed up are backed up again and again with new files added.
One way I overcame this was to create a 'Favorite Wisconsin Birds' folder where I keep my absolute favorite and best quality images of each species I have captured on photo so far.
I think this redundancy should be avoidable while still having a well organized hard drive. Perhaps I need to start a new folder system each year, but that would begin in segment my organization by species.
Ideas about how to deal with this problem/challenge would be welcome.
Birder Guy
I must admit I don't have much organization beyond folders for specific outings. This is starting to get cumbersome!
However, some suggestions I have:
Take advantage of the keyword metadata of images and insert the species name or other valuable information. This allows you to search by keyword.
If you want an area that has your "top photos", such as one poster's comment stated, you could just use shortcut icons instead of copying the files and bloating your hard drive.
Lastly, BACK UP YOUR DATA! Being an IT guy, I know that hard drives can, and do, fail. Use tapes, additional hard drives, or DVDs to keep an extra copy of your data. And if you can, keep the backup off-site or at least in a fireproof safe. There's nothing worse than losing years of work.
Jeff
Thanks for the ideas. Now all I need is a snowstorm!
Mike
They're supposed to be organized? Then how would I ever happen upon surprises like this?
I simply list the images by date and location. If there's anything particularly noteworthy, like "American Avocet," I'll mention that in the file name, because I'm more likely to want to find those later.
When I have a few files like that, I'll save them to a CD and label that. I know I really should do something more sophisticated, but this is pretty much the digital equivalent to my film filing system, and it usually works for me.
Oh, and it looks like the snowstorm might be coming!
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