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Since I do a lot of travel, I organize my shots based on dates and location (city or country), like - Singapore 2013, Sydney 2012, etc. I find it alright but sometimes I get lost when I shoot random things.

How do you organize your photos? Does it work well for you? Do you use Lightroom or some other software to organize your images?
How do you organize your photos? Does it work well for you? Do you use Lightroom or some other software to organize your images?
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Hi Shuttercloud -

At http://www.digitalbirdphotography.com/12.1.html and the following section 12.2 there is a detailed description of a workflow and archiving process. Although it refers to birds, I'm sure the process outlined could be used or adapted for any or all subjects.

You may like to have a look at it - all the best!

Jeff



I use the Lightroom Library module for my Data Asset Management (DAM) when it comes to organizing my images. My images are arranged by year at the top level and then by month under each year. Within each month, I organize them by the date they are taken. I do this to start because I can often remember the date that I was somewhere and this often helps me narrow down my search that I have for an image.

I also make very extensive use of the key-wording capability in Lightroom. All images are keyed with the Continent, Country, Province/State or other sub-location within the country if available. I also use the city or park name - anything that helps me narrow down the location of the image. I don't have GPS, or I would probably use it. I then use general keywords such as bird, flower, landscape, sunset, sunrise, clouds, etc. to narrow down the image type. In some cases this may be as far as I go. In other cases, I may add an actual name, e.g., if it is a flower and a rose, then the keyword "rose" would also be added. If it is a bird and a Mallard, then I will add the keywords, "duck" and "Mallard". I will also use combinations of the words, e.g., if it is a landscape with clouds and trees, then I will add the keywords "trees" and "clouds" to the list. Anyway, I hope you get the idea. There are two types of "keyword" users - lumpers and splitters. The first tend to put everything under broad keywords so that images get "lumped" together, while others tend to be very OCD with their keywords and end up "splitting" things into multiple small categories. I am probably somewhere in the middle of this.

Regardless of how you end up organizing you images, it has to be a classification that you can use to find specific images. I often make the claim that I can find any image in my collection in less than 10 minutes and most of the time, less than five.

Hope this helps. Smile

WesternGuy