Using folders to select favorite pictures

Categories: Organize Pictures

There are quite a few software programs that allow you to mark your favorite pictures through some kind of sign (a star, a colored square). Then this kind of software allows you to locate your favorite pictures by adding labels to these groups of pictures. The problem with this approach is lack of portability. If you want to give a whole folder of pictures to your friend but he’s not using the same software then all your favorite pictures will not appear on as favorite on his software.

One solution is to use folders. For example, I need to three categories of favorites for each one of my pictures folder. I need to select some pictures for printing and others for putting them on my travel website (www.e-vlad.net). The pictures that go in these categories are quite different because I mostly print pictures with my family in them, while on my website I post pictures with places and buildings.

So, here’s how I fit this breakdown in my folder structure.

My Pictures
- US
  - 2007
    - 2007_11_17-Malibu_Adamson_house
      - print_selection (pictures for printing)
      - web_selection (pictures to go on my webpage)
      - web_ready (pictures processed and resized for web publishing)
    - 2007_12_08-Camarillo_Christmas_Parade
      - print_selection (pictures for printing)
      - web_selection (pictures to go on my webpage)
      - web_ready (pictures processed and resized for web publishing)

My approach to digital pictures is not to delete any originals (except the really bad ones) and then copy the selected ones in the appropriate sub folder according to the structure described above. The only drawback to this approach is that I have two or three copies of some pictures. However, with today’s prices on hard drives this is no longer a problem. I only have to make sure I backup my pictures regularly.

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