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I have about a thousand inspiration pictures scattered about my laptop, and soon I’ll have another bazillion wedding pictures. Organization must be imposed before that happens, so I’m pleading for input. How do you archive your digital files, both off- and online?
Let’s start with online:
Do you upload all of your pictures, or just the good ones? Do you tweak them first, or just store them as-is? How do you organize them - by tag, by date, some other way?
Picasa online is nice because you can upload directly to Blogger… but I don’t use Blogger anymore, I use WordPress. Flickr seems to be popular, but something about the UI has always bugged me. What have you found to be the easiest way to get pictures into blog posts?
Now, about offline files:
Do you have all of your pics backed up, or do you use your online files as your backup? Do you rename the files or leave them as-is? What program do you use to keep all of your files organized? Ooh - this is the big question - how do you manage inspiration files so that you keep track of the sources?
Mrs. Bees, I’m looking right at you (quit ducking!). How did you organize your wedding pics, either uploaded by your guests or provided by your photog?
Help!
Wow, great post. I’m very interested in reading the comments!
I voted flickr, but I used to use gallery: http://www.numine.com/gallery
However, Gallery requires a server-side install, which doesn’t make sense if you’re not tech-savvy and don’t have your own hosting that supports MySQL or somesuch. My friend was hosting for me and hasn’t been good about upgrading the software, so it’s gotten buggy over time.
Now that I’m changing hosting, Gallery won’t work for me, so I’m migrating to Flickr (which has the added benefit of a user community). It will be a LONG migration process, losing thousands and thousands of photo titles and comments. And yes, the Flickr interface bothers me in some ways, but it does what it needs to do. I bought a Pro account before our wedding for guest photos.
For backup, I save all my files to my computer, and then to an external drive and a DVD… often not immediately, but once they have to be moved off the system for space’s sake. I maintain a running backup of my system on a 1TB drive after learning a lesson the hard way that this is a NECESSITY.
I only post “the good ones” but I keep all of them. I wish I had the patience to toss the bad ones, but I often shoot 4 or 5 times before getting the “right” image, and that would mean spending way too much time cleaning up my photo stock.
The easiest way to get pictures into blog posts is just to upload the photo to whatever host you are using, rick-click and select “copy image location” and insert the “img src” tag with “width” and “height” into your blog post editor. You should only do this for images you are hosting, or that or are on flickr or picasa– because otherwise you’re stealing someone else’s bandwidth! Most blog interfaces have an image GUI that will guide you through the image placement process and even upload the image for you.
For inspiration files, I would save them to my desktop in folders named for the blog they were from (mostly the same 6 or 7 in my RSS reader) and then keep the original filename.
Our guests uploaded photos into our flickr account using a UN/Password, and that’s where I put our pro pics too… for now!
I have a buffalo drive that all pictures reside on.
I keep them organized using Picasa. I sort by month. Sometimes by event within the month. I upload the better photos to share on picasa online and the rest get backed up on disk every three months (just to be safe!) Its a process but it works.
i use Microsoft OneNote to organize my inspiration pictures. its like a virtual binder. anything that i paste into my OneNote notebook comes with the original URL of the site i was visiting, along with the time/date.
I use Picasa right now but should really come up with a better organization (and back up!!!) system. Looking forward to seeing what others use!
This is one of my new years resolutions!! Organize my photos!! It’s a big pain in the butt but I know it will be worth it in the future. On my hard drive and on my external harddrive (not sure what kind it is, but I will check when I get home) I plan to have folders month by month and then within the month folders for important events.
I’m giving myself a break on my past photos and just starting fresh from here on out. I figure this year before my wedding will have a lot of photographic events and then the wedding of course and then honeymoon etc etc etc!!
I also use picasa, I like it because I can have some things public, some only for people I share with, and some just for myself privately — I use the private for my inspiration photos!
Ok, I am gonna try not to write a novel LOL. Since I have kids there are TONS of pictures. I use a program call ACDsee to organize all my digital files. I can tag them, with date, time, place, people in photo, ect. Then pull up exactly what I am looking for with a a long hunt. It is GREAT.
On my external hard drive the photos are first divided by year, then each year by month, then each month in days/events. I do not change the name coming off the camera, I keep the camera tag and the file name, it is easier for me that way.
I back up all my originals to an online backup called Mozy. It is a monthly fee, but it backs up automatically so I don’t have to think about it.
I NEVER save over the originals when I make edits, crops or resizing. Most of the time I make edits/changes then put it directly onto a digital scrapbook pages so I don’t save the edit. If I am saving the edit then it does into the original folder and I add an extension to the name so I know it is edited.
I just started using Flickr and so far I like it. I did use photo bucket for a long time, but they resized photos if they were over a certain size so I stopped using them. I will be using the Flickr account for the wedding as well.
i don’t use any online programs to organize my inspiration photos. i do have a flickr account, but that’s just for pictures i have taken. i have a ton of sites and pictures organized in a “wedding” bookmark folder in firefox, and i also have a “wedding” folder in my documents folder on my computer. it’s kind of an unorganized mess, but that’s how my life works!
I am in the process of transitioning to iPhoto and I really like it! Currently I am using Picasa but I like iPhoto more!
Picasa is great to organize pictures because you can tag photos and organize. I only upload pictures to the internet via Picasa when I want to develop or share. Flickr is mostly a pay service so I’ve avoided. I also use Mozy.com to back up everything on my computer because it’s automatic and it backs things up offsite. It’s also pretty cheap, $5/month.
I have been using Snapfish for some time. I just dump them into an album and go back and add captions and what not. I order a lot of prints and other gift items, so it seems to be what works best for me.
I’ve had a smugmug account for years and while I occasionally post photos elsewhere, they are my main online repository.
I tend to organize chronologically and upload everything straight out of the camera, and for things like the photos I took at my brother’s wedding, I separated out the different parts of the “event” into separate albums (shower, bachelorette party, getting ready, ceremony, reception & gift opening)
I’ll delete total duds, but keep most everything and revisit later because sometimes something you think is a bad photo isn’t quite so horrible once you’ve let it sit for a time.
Inspiration photo-wise, I’ve just been saving stuff to my hard drive and keeping a running list of links to revisit once it’s time to actually start making some decisions.
I load them onto my wedding web site, in addition to keeping them on my computer.
My fiance has an account with Smugmug (which is ~$40/year for standard) and can’t say enough good things about it. The website is easy to navigate, with a beautiful layout, unlimited storage, no ads, and you have a lot of options for customization and prints.
We will definitely have all our best wedding pictures on there and order prints through them as well. Check it out!
Shutterfly & I hate them…but don’t feel like making the effort to find something new. I am laaazy about it.
Otherwise, all pics are stored in iPhoto at home!
i keep everything on thumbdrives. i have 4gb drives that are awesome and store a ton of photos.
i keep all personal photos organize in folders by year, then month, then by event. if they’re not from a specific event i’ll sometimes just drop them in the folder for that month.
all my wedding stuff (images, spreadsheets, etc) in on it’s own thumbdrive and are broken down into folders… look & feel, flowers, favors, dresses, etc.
i’m a huge fan of this method as it allows me to always be able to show people what i’m talking about (esp. vendors!). i keep my drives in my purse whenever they’re not plugged into my laptop. it’s 2009, you gotta’ be mobile!
Online pics - i upload the best ones. I use smugmug. it’s $40 a year but it has great options like password protection without visitors having to get their own accounts (unlike flickr, where you can family/friend something but the person must be a flickr user). Tons of themes and album display options too.
Offline pics - I use file folders. I have a mac but I hate iPhoto. I just keep the photos in folders by year, then month, than event. For example:
2008 > 12 > XmasEve
Then we back them up to a media server that the man set up. It’s a separate computer that’s in our closet. We each can connect to it over the network and backup our files to it.
First Elizabeth Anne Designs just did a post on this that you might want to check out.
Second I recently took on the task of scanning old slides (yes slides) of pics of my mom and her siblings and my grandparents growing up. The best thing to do is to rename things especially if it is of something like this is the largest ball of twine or whatever that way you don’t look at it later thinking what is this. Also if the pic is of people it will help especially if someone you don’t see often is in it. This will be especially useful if you have kids.
I usually organize my pics by event like Christmas or Someone’s Bday. I have all my pics backed up on an external hard drive which is just good for all your docs (like any DIY items you need to print or have for inspiration).
Finally date things like Christmas 2008, you can be specific without over doing it.
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Mrs. Cheese, Knoxville Age and Occupation: 29, Engineering Manager Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, CAD Designer Engagement Date: July 31, 2008 Wedding Date: May, 2009 Blogging Since: October 16, 2008 Venue: Our home and the two acres it sits on About Me: I’m an emotional girl who loves sentimental things, parenthetical asides, and trying to do things herself. I can cook, sew, am a whiz at planning, terrible at delegating, and totally in love with my fiancé (who will be my second husband but first love of the rest of my life). For our home/ garden/ DIY wedding, we’ll be moonlighting as interior designers, home improvers, and gardeners with the help of our fabulous friends and neighbors. We can’t wait to be married, and are learning how fun getting married can be.
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