Sunday, September 02, 2007

Photo Organizing Strategy

I've been struggling with this for some time now on my old PC, but with the new one here, I am doing a migration of all our family photos and boy is it ever tough. The problem is, like a lot of people, I have files all over the place in several different hard drives and there are duplicates. I also have several backups and those arent helping. I have problems deleting backups!

My plan now is to create a single master photo repository in my new 320gb hard drive and create a single sync backup on my 200gb USB drive. Now how am I going to organize them and have a good strategy to ensure I can find a photo after a few years. Some of my current thoughts...

a) For events that happened e.g. a party or a vacation,

d:\photos\year\yearmonth_subject (e.g. d:\photos\2007\200701_harrysbirthday)

b) For miscellaneous snaps,

d:\photos\year\subject (e.g. d:\photos\2007\auctionshots)

c) For subjects that I want to track over time,

d:\photos\subject (e.g. d:\photos\harry)

Obviously, for some of these folders, a good naming strategy for the filename needs to be in place - to make the file name unique within the taxonomy. I am going to look for a good batch renaming software. Will keep you guys posted..

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