Keeping track of all those image files...

At last count my image library manages well over 200,000 digital images.  I have files dating back to 2001 that originated in digital form and many that were scanned to digital files that date ages before.

That's a lot of images to sort through when I need to find that one image I know will depict my message perfectly...  Hmmm, it was a morning shoot, it was warm, I think it was at a park, no the beach...well, that's all I remember but when I see it, I'll know it!!  We've all been in this predicament.

By maintaining a good filing system and keyword hierarchy, with relentless diligence, I can narrow the search down to some manageable number of images with just a few clicks.  Here are some ideas worth considering as you accumulate more and more images....



Adopt a repeatable file system
I have a system that seems to work well given the volume of images...  It starts with a single master folder on dedicated internal hard drive, called My Images.  There-in are folders for each year, simply 2009, 2010 etc.  There are gaps in the years as I continue to catalog older images.  Each years folder then holds sub-folders with the date of the shoot and somewhat unique name...

C:/My Images 
     /2010
        /2010-01-01 New Yrs Eve Montauk 
        /2010-02-07 Bald Eagles MD
        /2010-02-14 Smith V-Day Portrait

I say "somewhat unique" because while I may have visited the same location more than once and same family for multiple shooting sessions, the shoot date singles out a specific shoot.  And both the date and name are searchable in my editing software (Lightroom).

The date and name of the folder and it's location on the hard drive are all handled by Lightroom during the ingestion of images from the memory cards.  If an image or images are scanned or otherwise arrive at my hard drive from a source other than a memory card, I simply create a folder with the right name and hierarchy, locate it in the appropriate year in the My Images folder and tell Lightroom to bring those images in under it's control.  That's the last time I will work with those images outside of Lightroom.  (As an alternative, you can let Lightroom create the folder based on the date the images were created.)

Lightroom then sorts all the images in the same format as above.  The Folders panel in Lightroom's Library module is visually the same as it is in Windows..  If I want to work with just 2009 images, I open that folder in Lightroom and all the sub-folders cascade, sorted by date, and then by alpha order.  If I won't be working with a prior year, collapse the folder out of the way.

Locating images becomes much easier if I know the year, date and/or location.

But this is only the first part of the image management.

Assign Keywords
Much is written about Digital Asset Management (DAM) and the use of keywords.. Google is your friend here.  But I'll share that every image I ingest into Lightroom is assigned a series of keywords..effortlessly, while the images are being brought in.  I can instruct Lightroom to assign as many global key words as I wish..  the year, location, subject, season, people in the image. Once images are in Lightroom, I further sort images with keyword assignment with more specific words, color codes and star ratings.  With images that start life as digital files, Lightroom goes miles more with sorting, on it's own, by using EXIF data to sort by every imaginable bit of information..  While pondering a recent lens purchase, I was able to determine how often I shoot at a particular focal length and which lenses are used most often on which body, simply by sorting my entire library by the EXIF data.  Pretty slick stuff.

Relentless Diligence
While Lightroom and other image management applications can do some of the above on their own, it does require that you allow a bit of time to setup the file structure.  And it's easy to finish a shooting session and not go back and assign the more detailed keywords.  Big mistake, little mistake..  The small amount of time you will spend with keyword assignment pales next to the time and frustration you can spend searching for a lost image.  Fortunately, Lightroom's Painter function allows you to easily 'pick-up' a keyword and paint across select images with a click and the Keywording and Keyword List panels go a long way with sorting and applying available and new keywords.

Sounds like a lot of work but for the most part it's done automatically within Lightroom.  So the next time a client asks for a set of specific images or my wife wants that image of "the family at the party" but can't remember much more, a few clicks on keywords in Lightroom and Viola !!  I am a hero!!

NOTE:  Lightroom isn't the only application that allows for this level of image management, but it's what I use and with only a few nit-picks outstanding, it does everything that I require for successful front end image management.  More on how I use Lightroom in future posts...