DAO - Digital File Organization (Years of Files)

[PBCS]

I have years of files on various hard drives that I am attempting to reorganize for future use.

My primary business had been graphic design and photo retouching. After a couple of years I began to take on web design with some photography as part of a package. In 2004 the photography part morphed it's way in various forms. For the past 18 months photography developed into more travel, nature, and landscape collections.

My client jobs are fairly well organized with everything related to a given job backed up and filed in the client's file folder.

But my photography has found it's way to umpteen hard drives with backups on still other drives, and rather chaotic… other than folders are generally labelled. This chaos happened as a result of the "Go-shoot-but-then-have-to-catch-up-on-client-stuff" syndrome.

So now I am once again attempting to get things under control. I thought I might share my process with the DAM Forum for the purpose of possibly helping others, and others possibly helping me.

I bought and read Peter's first DAM Book years ago, and found it fascinating. At that time I never got a good handle on organizing my own Buckets, and was always working on client jobs, so my photos ended up as they are now.

My first step in this process is that I bought a 1.5 TB drive for the purpose of moving from one computer to another and just start dragging photos into descriptive labelled folders, and more detailed folders within. Example: Birds > Herons  - or -  Birds > Owls, etc. It seems the only logical and simple solution at this point since I've not given most of my files any meta data.

Once I fill this drive I'll buy another and probably begin to split them up. Once I get all the same topic images in folders up to date, I'll begin adding meta data in batches.

Linda

[Marc Beije]

My first step in this process is that I bought a 1.5 TB drive for the purpose of moving from one computer to another and just start dragging photos into descriptive labelled folders, and more detailed folders within. Example: Birds > Herons  - or -  Birds > Owls, etc. It seems the only logical and simple solution at this point since I've not given most of my files any meta data.

Hi Linda,

Have you thought about what you will do with a photo of both a heron and an owl (not very likely, I know, but you get the point)? If you do want to store your photos in one location, I would suggest either using Peter's bucket system, or a date-based structure. At a later stage, you can then add keywords and other metadata to organise your photos.

Marc

[PBCS]

Hi Marc,

Thank you for posting.

Eventually I hope to make the Bucket system work. But the only way I can see gathering all images from the various disks in one place at this point is to begin organizing them by topic first, then group tagging each folder full once I have them together.

It will take more time for me to tag each photo at this point. I'm sure there must be tens of thousands of images to sort through. So for now I'm using Bridge to sort, delete, and drag into folders.

I wish there was an easier way but I can't see my way around it at this point.

Linda

[Bill Lewis]

Hi Linda,

In past posts Peter has advised to begin your DAM system with your new shoots. When you become comfortable with the workflow you can start bringing your old photos into good DAM shape. I would suggest getting a copy of Peter's second edition of The DAM Book and checking out  http://www.dpbestflow.org/   Getting a good handle on DAM practices and some experience with it will make cleaning up the chaos much easier.

Bill

[PBCS]

Hi Bill,

I thought about buying the 2nd book but wondered if a third edition might be coming out before too long. Things keep changing, particularly software management tools. I will try to check out the 2nd edition next time I'm at the bookstore though. This task is daunting and there's no light at the end of the tunnel yet. It's also expensive. And after reading the first book I purchased my first OWC RAID drive, only to have it conk out within the first year. I never sent it in for repairs because it had sensitive information stored along with the photos. So since then I've stuck with regular drives.

Thanks for posting.

Linda

[BoglePhoto]

Linda,

The DAM book is more about the proicess than the current software or even hardware. I used the first book heavily. I thought the new book would update all of what I needed, but erally it is not software based. There weill always be new choices in software, each with a learning curve. I think the DAM Book 2nd edition is very relevant now, with the organiational ideas and processes to get to where you need to be. There are many options dependant on the size of your archive, and the size of your computer(s). It is a book, so it does take some time to digest, go back through, and digest again. The dpBestflow site has much good infoirmation and well, and videos. There are some basic videos up for Expression Media 2. If you look around and try out software, you can see how it can be intregrated. The book is a huge project. I thinkl Peter will have a bit of time before a third edition is thought about.

Bill

[PBCS]

Bill,

Thank you for the added input. I need this kind of encouragement because the task ahead of me is overwhelming. I'll try to pick up the 2nd book today. And thank you for suggestion to check http://www.dpbestflow.org/. I had visited this site recently, but didn't get too far. If there are videos, that should be helpful.

Linda

[PBCS]

Wow! Taking a closer look at http://www.dpbestflow.org/Start-here

What a wonderful service! Hats off to Peter Krogh and the ASMP for a tremendous resource. I need to learn this well, and pass the info onto others so they don't end up with the same kind of mess I'm in with my digital file system.

Thank you Peter Krogh!

[PBCS]

I decided to join the ASMP after seeing what a valuable service they provide.

[JARHTMD]

Like Linda, I haven't assigned keywords, etc.  It's been on my to-do list for some time now.

I haven't used Bridge much (I got CS3), so maybe I have a basic misunderstanding.  While using Bridge to segregate images by content (animals, birds, landscapes, portraits, whatever), isn't that an ideal time to also assign keywords?  It might not be a single-click process, but it seems to me that once identified & selected in Bridge (or any other tool with the capabilities), why not do both task in the same session?  Anyway, that is the rough plan that I have been tossing around in my head.

Jim