Organize your pictures in 5 easy steps…no kidding!
This article is part of the tutorial called: Simple organization with folders.
<< Previous Lesson || Can you really learn how to organize your pictures in just 5 steps? If you have been trying to find a simple way to organize your growing collection of digital pictures, you are probably frustrated by now because everyone seems to have a different method. Why is my method better? Because it is simple ! Yes, I believe it is the simplest and most efficient method to organize your digital pictures…for most people (read the fine print at the end).
Summary
This simple method is based on events. The steps are all centered on creating a folder structure organized around the events that occur in your life. The steps are simple: establish one folder as your base, create large categories of events, create a sub-folder for each year, create a precise name for each folder containing pictures from a particular event. Last but not least…be consistent.
This organization method is based on
events. Why? It’s simple: our lives are filled with events, some more important than others. From getting up in the morning, going to work, getting a hair cut to traveling, getting married and giving birth, the events in our lives vary in their impact to our lives. Those events that are most important to our lives become the subject of our pictures. So the basic criterion of organization must match the main subject of our lives.
STEP 1: Have only ONE folder that contains all your pictures folders.
All your pictures folders should be contained in only one folder. Usually it’s My Documents/My Pictures or just My Pictures. You must start here, otherwise you will be lost. In the figure for Step 1 you see the folder at the very top of the structure is called My Pictures-final. This is where all the other folders have been created.
STEP 2: Add a folder for each significant category of events
The next step is to create a folder for each significant category of events. The criterion for this folder structure is events. We’re creating folders for significant categories of events.
The criterion for this folder structure is
events. We’re creating folders for significant categories ofevents. These folders DO NOT represent the subject of the pictures, but they are groupings ofevents.
The structure shown below outlines the folder structure created for a fictitious family: CARLY (pictures containing events for their daughter Carly), FAMILY (pictures containing family events), FRIENDS (for all the pictures containing events that involve their friends), CHURCH (for all pictures containing church events) and WORK (for pictures containing work events). Also, they’re adding a folder called MISC to include miscellaneous events and other pictures.
REMEMBER: These folders DO NOT represent the subject of the pictures, but they are groupings of
events. We’re just grouping the events into large categories. This way you’re dividing a large quantity ofeventpictures into more manageable chunks.
STEP 2: Add Category Folders
» My Pictures
» CARLY
» CHURCH
» FAMILY
» FRIENDS
STEP 3: Add a folder for each year.
There is one thing still missing. While adding categories certainly helps, the FAMILY folder will grow very large very quickly as time passes by and events accumulate. So, “divide and conquer” is called for here. For this reason I recommend creating a folder for each year in the FAMILY folder. You may add folders for years in the other category folders as well but that may be too much for a folder like WORK where there might be only one or two events per year. However, if you anticipate that any category of events will grow very much, then you should add folders for each year.
If you anticipate that a category of events (i.e. FAMILY, WORK) will grow very much, then add a sub-folder for each year in that category folder. This way you can divide the quantity of pictures even more.
STEP 3: Add Year Folders
» My Pictures
» CARLY
» CHURCH
» FAMILY
» 2005
» 2006
» 2007
» 2008
» FRIENDS
STEP 4: Create and name your folders.
This is the most important step. The folder structure you create here is the backbone of my folder based method. In order for us to remember an event we need two pieces of information, namely an approximate date and an approximate description (read more here). You must include both of these in your folder names. You must name your folders as follows:
- 2 digits for the year (i.e. 06 for 2006)
- 2 digits for the month (i.e. 08 for August)
- 2 digits for the day - the day is not required, but if you remember it put it in the folder name. If an event spans more than one day, use only the month.
- description - you need two things: the place and a description of the event. Use one or two words to describe the place and a max of 3 short words to describe the event.
- don’t leave blank spaces in the folder names, instead use the hyphen (or underscore) sign between your words. This way your folders will be automatically sorted properly by your operating system.
- Examples of good folder names: 06_08_11-tony_restaurant_dads_bday, 05-07-california_family_trip.
- Examples of good descriptions: “kings_cyn_hiking”, “mandalay_beach_church_picnic”, “grandma_visit”, “our_house_christmas”, “petersens_4th_july”
STEP 4: Create and name your folders You MUST name your folders as follows: (read this article to see why.) » Rule: YY_MM_DD-[place]_[description] » 2 digits for the year [YY] » 2 digits for the month [MM] » 2 digits for the day (optional) [DD] » 2 words max description of the place » 3 words max description of the event » examples of efficient folder names: »» 04_10_23-grandma_family_trip »» 06_08_11-tonys_restaurant_dads_bday
Final Example
» My Pictures
» CARLY
» CHURCH
» 06_05_10-mandalay_park_picnic
» 07_07_04-beach_july_4th
» FAMILY
» 2005
» 2006
» 2007
» 07_01_15-grandma_family_trip
» 07_02_18-tonys_restaurant_dads_bday
» 07_04-yosemite_park_family_trip
» 2008
» 08_01_01-smiths_new_years_party
» FRIENDS
STEP 5: Be consistent!
Now, use the same techniques every time you transfer more pictures from your camera to your computer. However, it is very important that you remain consistent every time you transfer new pictures to your computer. If you become lazy again, you will have to go through the same process later on. However, it will take more time because you will not remember what has been organized and what hasn’t.
STEP 5: Be consistent! You MUST use the same rules every time: » you download new pictures from your camera » you download new pictures from the web » you download new pictures from emails
Congratulations! You have just organized your pictures in 5 easy steps…wasn’t that cool 
Hmmm…maybe it’s not that simple
Organizing your pictures is not a trivial problem…actually it’s quite complex. In fact the more pictures you have the more complex it can become. However, I believe that creating an efficient folder structure based on events is a great step towards organizing your pictures. On the other hand, while this events based folder structure work well for most people, sometimes folders are not enough for complex organization structures. If your folder structure seems to not be enough for you, read this article: “When folders are not enough…tags are your friends.”
This article is part of the tutorial called: Simple organization with folders.
< Previous Lesson >||
This current article outlines the steps necessary for creating an efficient folder structure based on events as the criterion for organization. To read more about choosing the right criterion for organizing your pictures read the article entitled: “Divide and Conquer for efficient picture organization.”
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11 comments
The problem with organizing by folders is that often, a picture belongs in multiple folders in different places–no matter what the top folder is.
Example: Suppose you have a picture of your dog, your friend, and your spouse at central park on July 4. One for each year. How do you find (or categorize) all of them quickly? Another example: Suppose you have 4,000 landscape photos from an art collection you purchased online, but sometimes you get a picture that fits all categories of “architecture”, “astronomy,” and “seascapes”? And by the way, they don’t have dates on them.
Solutions: The real solution is to use a photo organizer that can “tag” images. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_organizer for a list). That way, you can search by tags rather than folder, so when you want to find all birthday pictures of your grandmother, you select “birthdays” and “grandmother” — voila, you can see her last 15 birthdays (or however many you’ve tagged). I also have a tag called “favorites” Most photo organizers (not all) automatically find the date stamps on your images, so you don’t have to manage the date unless it’s incorrect (it usually isn’t, if it’s from your digital camera).
To find a photo organizer, I suggest visiting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_organizer because organizing by folders “just doesn’t work” in the digital age with thousands of pictures–and eventually you will have thousands.
Answer to KR. First I appreciate your comment. Secondly I do agree with you partly. Unfortunately my hosting provider disappeared a few months ago and I have lost quite a few posts. I have written a post on my old site comparing photo organization done through tags and organization via folders. I was explaining the pros and cons of both.
My take is that folder organization is most efficient for home users. I do agree that by using folders you can’t have one picture belong to two folders…however, most people don’t need that. The biggest drawback of tagging pictures is that you have to spend a lot of time developing tags for your pictures. The second biggest drawback to tagging is that your tags would not work in another tagging software. If you’re using Picasa then you have to stick with Picasa, otherwise all your tags would be gone if you’re using a different program.
The method I’m presenting is my method and it’s based on my experience with different software and methods. I have had my share of picture tagging…I gave up because it was taking too long, even with bulk tagging. Organization using folders is a lot more portable from computer to computer and makes finding pictures a lot easier even without using your favorite software.
My method doesn’t preclude someone from adding tags to their pictures. If you organize your pictures in folders then nothing stops you from adding tags to your pictures also. This way you can do both.
I agree with the comment about the drawbacks of tagging software. I was using an application on a pc and spent quite a lot of time and effort tagging my photos. We switched to an iMac about a year ago and the loss of that information was difficult. I’m reluctant to start over again with the tagging process.
Get Memory Manager. It costs only $39.95 and it is a great software. You can find a picture (even if you don’t remember when you took it) in a matter of second. The way you organize your photos is very impressive. I love it.
Great system thanks. I have thousands of old digital with messed up names, but I do have them organized in one folder with sub folders. Do you have a way to rename in groups.
Jim…thanx for the note.
Are you asking about renaming pictures in group? Or renaming folders in groups?
Pictures are easy to rename in groups. You can use most Free Image Viewers…they have a feature called Batch Rename.
However, you don’t need any software…Windows XP (assuming you’re using windows) has a quick way of doing that…you select a group of pictures and you RIGHT CLICK on the first one and choose rename…you rename that one and then all the other pictures selected in the group will be renamed just like the first one plus a counter at the end.
Hope this helps.
Vlad
[...] Organize your pictures in 5 easy steps…no kidding! 5 steps to create precise keywords for tagging your pictures Tags vs. Folders - the great debate [...]
[...] here is that the most popular posts from the 9 bloggers cover a wide range of topics that include organizing and tagging photos, DIY lighting, macro and 3D photography, playing with basic photo software, [...]
My method for organizing photos differs quite a bit - it’s based on dates and events.
My folders are all named either:
YYYY.MM.DD - Name of Event, or
YYYYa.MMa.DDa-YYYYb.MMb.DDb - Name of Multi-Day Event
On top of this, the files inside are named:
YYYYMMDD-Photographer’sName-NNNN.ext
date photo was taken - author/ creator - original suffix.extension
As for the specific subject of each photo, I take care of that in tagging.
[...] Organize your pictures in 5 easy steps…no kidding! 5 steps to create precise keywords for tagging your pictures Tags vs. Folders - the great debate [...]
Luis…thanx for sharing your method. First I was a little confused…because my method is also “events” based. Then I realized that you have mistaken the category folders (CARLY, FAMILY, CHURCH and WORK) as “subject” folders instead of “events” folders. I have made the Second Step more clear…I hope. These folders represent groupings of “events”, they are events that happen for FAMILY, events that happen at CHURCH, etc. They do not represent the subject of the pictures in these folders. So, our methods are actually quite similar when it comes to folders. I’m just adding this extra level of folders to categorize my events and thus be able to divide the quantity better. I hope this is clear…and thanx again.
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