What is the solution for organizing your pictures?

The fundamental problem with organizing digital pictures is quantity…there are simply too many pictures we have to organize. Unless you use an efficient and consistent method for organizing your pictures you will very soon be overwhelmed by the large quantity of pictures you are taking. This is all great, but what is the solution to this picture organization problem? How do I organize my pictures? Well, let me give you a bird’s eye view of the solution to organizing your digital pictures effectively.

Watch this video presentation in which I explain the solution to the fundamental problem

Do you love taking pictures ?

Of course you do! We love taking pictures, and we love looking at pictures! We all love images better than words. 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. Pictures help us remember these important events, they help us re-live feelings and sense the people and places that we see in pictures.

Is there any solution for organizing your digital pictures?

Two complementary tools for organizing your pictures.

With the advent of digital photography, we can take thousands upon thousands of pictures. While this is all great, this large quantity of pictures creates the organization problem that we’re all trying to solve. Over the years folder based methods of photo organization have proved to be the simplest for most digital camera users who organize their pictures around events. However, the advances in software and image metadata standards have allowed digital photographers to organize their growing collections based on descriptive and efficient keywords. So, now you’re no longer limited to organizing your pictures based on events but you can organize them according to…well pretty much anything you want. Let’s analyze these two solutions to picture organization.

How do you remember an event ?

Now, let’s think about this from a different perspective. What helps you remember an event? Sometimes an approximate date can be enough, while most of the times you need a date AND a description of the event. If you have these two pieces of information, then you can search in your memory and bring up that event in front of your mind’s eye.

Start by organizing your pictures using folders.

This is where picture organization should start. You might not stop at folders, but you should certainly start here.

The method I use for organizing pictures is based on the clues I need to remember events in my life: dates and descriptions. I use both pieces of information in creating precise names for picture folders. This way I can easily organize my pictures in a structure that easily extends in order to accommodate more and more pictures as more events happen in my life.

The key to my method is the way I name the folders. While most people use a combination of dates and descriptions of events, they don’t do it consistently. Also, most people do not know how to take advantage of how their computer sorts files and folders. My method combines the precise folder naming and an understanding of computer file storage, resulting in simplicity and efficiency. Once you do it once you can keep doing it.

Secondly, organize your pictures using efficient image tags or keywords

Why are image tags important and when should you think about using them? Here is an example that illustrates the point.

Let’s say you visit Paris( See my Paris photo gallery) and you take tons of pictures (you should do that for sure if you visit Paris). Then you come home and you create multiple folders with the date and Paris as the place. Something like this:

08_03_25-Paris
08_03_26-Paris
08_03_27-Paris

This is all cool. But then you realize you have too many pictures and you want to show your friends all the Eiffel Tower pictures(See my Eiffel Tower picture gallery). You realize then that you have those pictures in all of the three folders you created.

Right now you have only one solution: You can create another folder called Eiffel_Tower and copy all the Eiffel Tower pictures into this folder. This will work but you just created two copies of the same picture in two separate folders. Depending on how many times you have to do that you can fill up a hard drive very quickly.

This is why image tags or keywords are so cool.

What if you wouldn’t have to copy the pictures into a new folder? If you could just add some keywords to your pictures it would be great. You could add Paris to all your pictures from Paris, but the ones that have the Eiffel Tower in them you can just label as Paris, Eiffel Tower. All would be complete if you could not search by Eiffel Tower and voila!…your Eiffel Tower pictures would come up without you having to create a special folder.

Yes, you know where I’m going…folders would not work for this! You need a special kind of software to enable you to do this tagging of images. These days, even though it adds quite a bit of technical complexity, image tagging seems easier and easier because of new programs that can help you do this. And, yes, adding tags to your pictures can add a lot of power to your image collection.

So, what is the solution to organizing digital pictures ?

Well, it’s a solution consisting of two layers of organization: picture folders and picture tags.

For most people, using image folders is sufficient, while for others more advanced photographers, adding image tags is a must. What should you do?

I always tell people to start with a carefully constructed folder structure (Read Organize your pictures in 5 easy stesp).

Then, later see if you need to worry about adding keywords to your pictures. If folders are not enough then adding image keywords would give you the flexibility you want (Read When folders are not enough).

Essentials for organizing your digital photos

Here are the essential products and services I have come to rely on for many years to keep my media collection organized and safe. Even though these are affiliate links, I wholeheartedly recommend them.

Excellent Lightroom and Picasa alternative. If you need a cheaper and simpler photo manager then ACDSee Photo Studio for Mac (save 30% until May 24th) or ACDSee Pro for Windows (save $30 until May 24th) is my preferred solution for organizing all my media. It has a very fast browser, great image editing and it's simple to use.

If you do a lot of image editing like I do, I recommend using Adobe Lightroom Classic CC via the annual Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. Lightroom has best photo editing capabilities even though it comes with a steeper learning curve. If you do image editing, Adobe Lightroom is my favorite.

I recommend Backblaze Cloud Backup for affordable & reliable unlimited cloud backup. I have been using Backblaze for backing up all pictures & videos for more than 5 years now. All my invaluable digital memories are safe and secure. This is the best solution especially if you have a large quantity of media files.

Use a reliable & affordable external hard drive for backing up everything on your computer. It is absolutely essential for keeping all your memories backed up and safe.

Start organizing now using detailed, step-by-step instructions and videos:
Personal Coaching (closed) Independent Course Private Lessons
Reference book Basics book Picasa book

YOURS FREE! 10 crucial steps most people miss when organizing their digital photos

Most people want to just organize their digital pictures and ignore these crucial steps right at the beginning...when they are shooting and transferring their digital pictures. Then they wonder why they can't organize their digital photos! Avoid most people's mistakes and start on the right track!

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