Hard drive chaos due to huge ammount of files (alot of files from M8, post processing

[ruslan]

"Trash" is a good place for iPhoto.

 

[sepiareverb]

"Trash" is a good place for iPhoto.

😀 I'm with you.

 

[not_in_good_order]

Here's another suggestion for Lightroom

 

[Brian Puccio]

And another for Aperture (no proprietary database there, the "library" is really just a package/folder that you can browse like any other). Download the demo, try it out.

At least you've got EXIF so you know when each photo was taken.

I organize by event and group similar events. Here's a small sample of my library:

Family
--Birthdays
----Dad
------2007
------2008
------2009
----Mom
------2008
------2009
--Holidays
----Christmas
------2008
------2009
----Fourth of July
------2008
------2009
----New Years
------2008/09
------2009/10
Parks
--Central
----2008
----2010
--Eisenhower
----2008
----2009
Vacations
--Hawaii
--Colorado
--Puerto Rico

 

[Gadge]

Interesting thread.

I don't use any programs to organise files.
I just have a folder called Pictures.

In there I make as sub folder for each year e.g. Pictures 2010

In these I place a folder for each event occuring in that year with a description for whatever it is e.g. Africa September 2010

In there I may have further sub folders for specific place visited containing shot images then final sub folders for Colour and Black and White Images containing adjusted final images post processing.

For more simple ocassions. I just have a single sub folder eg London Eye 29 April 2010 containing images and and any post processed images from that day.

Every so often I back it all up to an external hard drive

This works OK for me so far but I am planning on doing more digital work. This could cause me to get trigger happy which may require me to rethink my filing/backup processes.

Gadge

 

[flip]

As it appears that the most relevant advice has been provided, I'll toss in something else.

You will probably import from one location to another. Maybe even to another drive. When you set up the new drive, take care to organize it well. Unfortunately, Apple provides some pretty poor file system options that are not particularly optimized for massive storage requirements. So, it may be worth it to consider partitioning the drive into smaller chunks - by catalog or even by year. Or it may be a PITA. But it will make any search faster.

 

[naruto]

I would suggest Lightroom/Aperture too.

I rarely ever organize by event. My favourite is to use tags:

M8->
---> Date

This is the organization for the files. Keep adding whatever useful tags, that will allow you to filter. Once you sync the metadata into the files, it's very easy for spotlight to also search the files.

As for "developed" photos, I rarely save a version. I upload to flickr and delete the JPEG. Lightroom preserves a history of my changes.