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Image Control
Daily Ink
Stored in: Tools
Posted On: January 25 2008
By: Brittney Bush
Photo © erin gonzalez
The current issue of Blueprint magazine has a great primer on how to tackle one of the toughest photo problems out there: keeping the darned things organized.
The tips they offer are mostly very simple and straightforward, but combined, they lay out a disciplined and effective system for sorting your photos. Here are the basics:
1) Get a good piece of organzation software.
Blueprint recommends Windows Photo Gallery or iPhoto, mostly because they are probably already on your computer. Picasa is another popular (and free) choice.
2) Keyword.
When you transfer your photos from your camera to your computer, assign tags to each one based on whatever you're likely to search by later: event name, people in the photos, location, etc. Some programs allow you to do this in such a manner that the tags will stay with the photo when it's uploaded to flickr.
3) Rate
Assigning quality ratings to your photos makes it easier to decide which to edit and which to trash, and makes searching even more effective by giving you the tools to find not only a conglomeration of photos of, say, your dog, but to create a best-to-worst list.
4) Trash
Every hard drive has a capacity limit. Keeping too many images around will slow down your organization software and your computer. Set general guidelines for what stays and what goes; the article recommends automatically trashing any photos that are completely blurry, massively over- or under-exposed, or extremely unflattering.
5) Backup!
The article doesn't actually mention this one, but I think we all know: Back. Those. Photos. Up. All the keywords in the world won't help you pull a photo off of a ruined computer. Buy an external hard drive, burn to DVD, or use a professional backup service. (Speaking of which, I think I hear the kettle calling....)
Unfortunately, the article is not available online, but the January / February 2008 issue of Blueprint should be available on store shelves until March 2.
1 comments on this Ink
On January 31, 2008, chuck norris said ...
I never considered tagging my photos for my computer, but that's a great idea!
I like the pic paired with the article. ;)
Otherwise, in Tools:
- Previously: Keep That Camera Cozy
Utata Ink is a daily publication edited by Bryan Partington (striatic). Photos used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and obtained via the flickr API unless otherwise noted. To make a contribution to Ink, please visit Ink Me.
