Tags vs. Folders (2) - “Folder” your pictures!

Categories: Organize Pictures

If you have read a few of my articles you probably noticed that using folders is my preferred method for picture organization. However, picture tagging is very powerful when done and used correctly. This article analyzes the folder based method for organizing your pictures. Next week I plan to write the final part in this article series. I will deal with the pros and cons of each method.

Organize your pictures using folders.

What do I mean by folders? I mean simple folders that you create on your computer hard drive. These folders contain groupings of files that you think share something in common. For example: a folder called My Pictures contains all your pictures taken during family trips, with your kids and at various events. In order to further organize your pictures you may choose to create sub-folders within the My Pictures folder. You may create sub-folders like trips and kids and split your pictures accordingly. The whole purpose of creating folders and sub-folders is to divide the quantity of files present on your hard drive. This is a classic application of the divide and conquer principle. One can manage complexity by dividing the quantity of objects into smaller and contained portions. Now, this is pretty simple stuff, and if you know how to use the Internet you should be very familiar with creating folders and sub-folders.

However, even though this is very basic, there is a common problem that most people face. Most people don’t spend much time thinking about the names of their folders. Pretty much what comes to mind first, that’s the name of the folder. While this may work for a short while, in the long run it doesn’t solve the clutter problem. Actually, it may make it worse because we can create multiple folders with similar names and then forget we created them and create a new one.

Therefore, organizing your pictures using folders requires a little thinking and most of all it requires consistency. The thinking behind this method has to do with finding a naming convention for your folders. This convention has to have a few particulars about it. Below I’m listing some of the characteristics of my folder naming convention:

My folder naming convention

Solution

Consistent rules for folder names: Date-Description (i.e. 06_08-Yosemite_Park)
Folder names include a date for their contents
Folder names contain a concise event description.
The naming convention uses the inherent sorting mechanism available in the operating system. All folders will be sorted by date without you having to do anything.

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