The Folder Structure I Use
Managing image files can be a tricky affair. Where do I store my current working copies? Where do I store my photos from two years ago? Do I store my JPG and RAW files separately or together? Do I allow my image management software decide where to store my images?
Image file management is platform independent. Windows or Mac users can follow the same basic principles to keep their files in good order and retraceable. I will give you my take on image file management:
- On my mac, I create a folder called ‘Photos’ that contains all my image files.
- Within my ‘Photos’ folder I create a sub-folder for each year, where I ensure that this year’s photos are placed into this year’s folder
- Within each year I create a ‘Lightroom’ folder
- I create a further sub-folder with an event description, and optionally the date
- I create a last set of sub-folders called ‘JPG’ and ‘RAW’
- I put my images into a subfolder of RAW or JPG, based on filetype
The first step holds a question in itself; ‘Where do I store my Photos folder?’… I always store my Photos folder in my user account’s Documents folder. This way the folders are protected by OS X’s user account security, which means that other users of the same computer, or any thieves that may get hold of your computer cannot view the images without your password being entered. This may or may not be ideal for you, but I am security conscious and if anyone were to steal my laptop I wouldn’t want them to have any of my intellectual property. Apple gives further options to encrypt your documents based on your login password if you want to really theft proof your data!
I next recommend sorting photos into years, as although this data is contained within the metadata of the photo (if you remembered to set the time correctly on your camera!!) it’s a lot easier for your average human like me to have the large number photo files split into bite-sized yearly chunks.
Within each year, I create a ‘Lightroom’ folder to hold the files that Adobe’s Lightroom creates. By storing the Lightroom catalogue files within the Year’s folder, an entire year can be exported to, for example, external disk without breaking the Lightroom Catalogue file’s internal links – Lightroom works via relative paths.
I keep a Lightroom folder within each year
From then on my organisation becomes descriptive; I describe the event so that I don’t need to remember exactly what month it was when I went for through the Linn of Dee.
The Layout I Use Within Each Event
Within each event’s subfolder I create RAW and JPG folders. If you don’t shoot RAW at all, you can skip this step. Having two folders allows me to do two things; I can keep the out-of-camera JPGs which are often as good or better than I could manage by manipulating the files in Adobe Lightroom, or if I choose not to use the camera’s JPGs, it gives me a folder to place Lightroom’s processed JPGs. A further option is to create a sub-folder called ‘Final Burns’ which means that I can store both the out-of-camera JPGs as well as Lightroom’s JPGs in separate folders.
A point of note here is that I do not delete anything, even my worst shots get kept. This is my self-tortuous way of trying to ensure that I don’t take any poor photographs next time I’m out shooting; applying the theory that less is more when I’m actually out and about shooting.
