I'm looking for ideas for an Organizer workflow.  How do you all go about naming and organising your photo files.  (I'm using PSE 5).  Looking for different ideas so I can decide which is best for me.

Also any good links on the subject would be welcome.

Many thanks, Sassie

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Sassie
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MY DCM Gallery

Great idea Sassie.. although I have nothing useful to contribute, this is an area I am very interested in, as I have just migrated a terrabyte worth of images from various sources onto a portable storage device and now I want to organise them. I only want to do this once, so going forward I want to establish a sound workflow.

I don't know how far a product like Lightroom would help.. so come on everybody, tell us how you do it.

Cheers - Jason.

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EyeWest Photography

    Hello from Sunny Sheffy.
Sassie,,i would suggest using the available tools in PS(i use CS3,hope  PS 5 is the same) to name all your files in one go,you can actualy do this as you download them into your pc via Bridge.Also,you can number them this way,use file info and save the template to add your own stuff,and prolly save them in folders with the month year etc etc as the titles.E.G. have one folder for 2007 and within this have 12 folders,one for each month of the year,etc etc,i,m no expert,but this way does save you loads of time,and you can generaly find stuff quite quickly,one other tip,may mean spending £30,have a seperate hard drive for all your pics,again,this helps when trying to find stuff.
Hope this makes sense/helps.

bill stewardson

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"the best photographer in the world 12/13 May 07" bigbilly

Big Bill's Gallery

myspace.com/billstewardson
photobilly.co.uk

Well, since posting the question I have been reorganising my folders (big job for thousands of processed and unprocessed files to date).

I've adopted the idea of having a naming structure.  I'm using year, month, followed by a descriptive ID, and ending with CR2 or jpg, tif etc for the new files I upload.  I haven't got round to naming previous files as some are processed and have their unique names.

I'm also beginning to use Syncback for backing up - which has been an area I kept getting stuck up.  Fingers crossed.

Next I have revamped my folders and now upload all new photos to folder labelled Holding Bay.  Then after processing they are moved to relevant folder.  I have folders for family & friends, places, events, flora & fauna, landscapes, digi art etc (all with subfolders to make locating them easier).  I'm quite proud of myself as I'm never this organised!!

I do need to be a bit more structured and decisive around keepers and losers.  I tend to err on the 'well I might be able to do something with this one' and end up keeping the image. Lol!  If ever I get the hang of PSE 5 and layers etc. 

I've been lucky enough to get  copies of some brilliant and apparently time-saving (when I figure out how to use them) pp software packages by Nik Software called Viveza, Dfine, Sharpener and Color Efex Pro.  Worth checking them out, although they are dear.

Better get on!

Sas

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Sassie
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MY DCM Gallery

Sassie

If you want a free bit of software to help you rename several files in one go, go to www.download.com and look for filerenamer basic - I use this a lot and like Bill I use the date I take the pics to organise mine unless they are a big event, like a work's function, or holiday.

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Cheers
Moon

Camera = Fuji FinePix S6500fd - currently playing with Cannon EOS 300D on loan
Moonlustie's Gallery