Digital Photography Hacks

Name Folders to Organize Your Images

You have many digital-shoebox applications to choose from to help you organize your photos. Or, you could simply use the built-in tools that come with your operating system.

Of all the places I’ve been, the most amazing one I’ve seen remains my grandfather’s basement. It was organized.

He had, perhaps, an unfair advantage over the rest of us. As a pharmacist in the days when all pills were white, being disorganized could have been fatal. The discipline of being organized was part of his daily routine.

But he also enjoyed the advantage of organizing things, which is simply being able to find just what you need without the frustration of looking for it. The screws were on these shelves, the nails there, the adhesives right here, the rubber bands (sorted by size) over there, and on and on. His basement was as neatly organized as Noah’s ark.

Fortunately, he passed that gene on to me, so when I started collecting digital images, I quickly established a scheme so that I’d never have to look for them or remember where they were.

This was long before asset-management programs such as Adobe Photoshop Album (Windows), Canto Cumulus (Mac/Win), Extensis Portfolio (Mac/Win), iPhoto (Mac), iView MediaPro (Mac/Win), Kodak EasyShare (Mac/Win), Picasa (Windows), QPict (Mac), and others were available. I had to rely on the only thing available: the filesystem.

Filenames

When I was the computer guy at the office, I used to have a standing offer of US$100 to anyone ...