You are right about being able to locate something in the 1990's. It is difficult sometime. Often I add some word of identify into the directory name or the file name such as 20101013.dime. That way it sorts by date and I can glance at the months in the 1990's or search for dime. If something from early 1990's for graduation first I would assume it was in may or June of some year and that would narrow it down, even if the directory were not named. I have the same problem with word documents and never figured out best way to file them. I like a title for them and a date in it but I never can conclude which is best - date first or title. Long ago, however, I concluded I liked my system best with date first for pictures.
I spent many hours re naming the pictures I had scanned from roll film. I of course had to guess at the dates. It makes it easier now when I search for them as I already narrowed down the year somewhat.
Speaking of searching, I find the vista search is intolerable. I never figured out how to do it fast. I found a neat free program (Everything or Search Everything) that is fast for searching and I use it for 90% of my directory and file searches. Fast after a couple of minutes of searching first time to build a database and occasionally thereafter but nowhere as slow as Vista. Found at http://www.voidtools.com/
If you know how to speed up vista search , please help me!
Look forward to class tomorrow. I agree with you Picasa is a great program. Although I use it regularly, I learned a lot about Picasa from you .
- I did not understand the star system.
- I did not understand the difference in saving or not as I always right clicked a picture after editing and saved.
- I was using the "Scan always" and "scan once" wrong and wondered why my pictures were not showing up in Picasa sometime.
- I found I did not have the latest version of Picasa and I updated and got Picnik.
- It does have an add in for Smugmug but I find it does not keep one informed of progress so I use it only for single pictures.
- I do use the face recognition and have been able to make a Coliage of a friend for a mouse pad with hundreds of pictures of him and family. It takes too long to scan all pictures but good it does not run scan if program closed so one can control when it scans. Takes hours to get all.
- I just looked at the Picasa import from memory card process and it looks good. I notice it creates and numbers the directory similar to the way I do but the pictures are not automatically renumbered and I hate the old dscn at front of title/name. My Nikon program makes it hard to select what one wants as I never am sure how to turn off import new and let me pick and chose;
- I use a free (pay to avoid advertising when closing) program Polyview for many things I do with picture directory management as I find I can make and move directories easily in it than Picasa. The program is at http://www.polybytes.com/. Picasa has gotten better with this lately and I am learning more about how it does it.
don 10/13/2010 12:20 p.m.
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On 10/13/2010 9:45 AM, Marshall wrote:
Don, I find this very interesting. I'm not sure I understand how you go about finding exactly what you are looking for if you don't know the exact date and time of the event. ie: How would you find Susan's grammar school graduation if you can't remember the exact date back in the early 1990's?Having a usable file system is important....but I am still trying to come to grips with what works for me. Of course I don't have 196,000 photos to keep track of either.Smugmug appears to be a beautiful site. I want to play around with it some more. In class I will show Picasa Web Albums and mention other free web album sites the students can use. Of course they are not as powerful as Smugmug.I appreciate your input during class. It's really nice to have someone that can see what I am missing at the moment.See you tomorrow.Marshall----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2010 7:29 PMSubject: my file system for naming photos and directories Email #1 from donHi
I am enjoying your class so much. Thank you.
I wish it would last longer! I have learned a lot about Picasa and xp handling of photos.
I want to mention two subjects to you
1> my file system for naming photos and directories
2> Smugmug, the best online site I have ever found for images. About $40 for an entirely satisfactory basic subscription and $149 for the pro edition.
I will discuss #1 below and #2 in a separate email. Also you may find on one of my blogs this email at the following addresses.
http://instructionsbydon.blogspot.com/2010/10/hi-i-am-enjoying-your-class-so-much.html
I will send the Smugmug email in a minute or two
DonRedding
7:30 p.m.
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Below is my file naming system.
- I found the best way to name files to make them sort easily and to locate them is put year first, then month, then, day, then hour, then second.
- My Nikon program lets me pick how to name incoming files and it creates appropriate directory for them automatically
- in other words a picture I took today on class is below:
the year is 2010, the month is 10, the day is 12, the hour is 10, the minute is 32,
and the second is 06. The 2 is because I copied the picture to make it smaller and needed to distinguish from original. Of course I could add a period and other description such as dimeclass, etc, or tag it to help find- I name my directories for pictures by year (2010), then in each year I name a directory for the each month (201008 for August 2010),
then a directory for the day (20100801) in below example, then the pictures are number as20100801-093223.jpg etc. I also might name a directory 20101012.dimeclass,
and I usually do something like that though I note none in the example below (except for some year).
3. I once numbered, for example, 96 . . . . for 1996 and then 10 . . . for 2010 but then they would not sort the correct way
and I went to putting in the full year. I still am finding some oldie pictures numbered the old way or not numbered. I have 196,000 pictures and this is about only way I found to arrange it.
I have never seen anyone discuss a directory system and I would be interested in others, though I am not inclined to redo all these years of work.
Of course some input programs will not number by year date time and then I use a batch renumber.
4> Linda and I have the same type camera and we both can take pictures of an event and then put in the same folder and they will be in order. We also can send up to Smugmug and they will be in order.
It took me a long time to figure that out and get time on both cameras exact.
5. I used a scanning service to convert thousands of film pictures to digital , what a life saver as I was doing a scan one by one.
6. Hope this is of interest.
7. Link is to Blog
http://instructionsbydon.blogspot.com/2010/10/hi-i-am-enjoying-your-class-so-much.html
