Too many photos... Aagh!

[Sherlock77]

I mean related to my recent road trip, trying to blast through photo edits tonight, sorting through about 600 photos Only half way through and already it's getting late in the evening...

I did enjoy the trip thoroughly, so far have nibbled on the edge and done a few edits, now I want to be more comprehensive now, I create so much work for myself sometimes... I think it's worth it

The last photo I edited so far tonight:

 

[Judge]

Reminds me of how recently I decided to reorganize and rename my entire photo collection. A royal pain, but it was worth it after stewing about it for years.

 

[Forest Cat]

Reminds me of how recently I decided to reorganize and rename my entire photo collection. A royal pain, but it was worth it after stewing about it for years.

I have a lot of photos in random folders, I really want to organize it and I have tried several times but I have come the conclusion that it is impossible. I can't find a way to organize and store it that makes sense to me. If I have paper photos in albums it's easy, then I know where everything is, I remember it. But on a computer it just can't be done, I can't find anything. I was thinking about printing everything on photo paper but it's a big and very expensive job. So my pics are basically lost, I never look at it anymore. And it feels pointless to take pictures because they just disappear into folder hell. It really sucks.

 

[Judge]

I have a lot of photos in random folders, I really want to organize it and I have tried several times but I have come the conclusion that it is impossible. I can't find a way to organize and store it that makes sense to me.

I once had similar thoughts. But here is how I solved my dilemma. I simply make a folder for a particular subject, then apply a prefix and a number to each image. So if I take a new photo of that particular subject, I just add the latest number in numerical sequence to that folder. And if it is an entirely new subject, I make a new folder, apply a two-character prefix and use the number 001. So much simpler than what I used to do for years.

Here's my Virginia City (VC) folder. One of 28 total folders, automatically arranged alphabetically :

I know. Ain't Linux cool?

 

[Forest Cat]

I once had similar thoughts. But here is how I solved my dilemma. I simply make a folder for a particular subject, then apply a prefix and a number to each image. So if I take a new photo of that particular subject, I just add the latest number in numerical sequence to that folder. And if it is an entirely new subject, I make a new folder, apply a two-character prefix and use the number 001. So much simpler than what I used to do for years.

Here's my Virginia City (VC) folder:

View attachment 87249

I know. Ain't Linux cool?

View attachment 87252

Yeah but when the photos have numbers, how do you find anything? Lets say I have 1000 pictures of my dog, that's 1000 small thumbnails with just numbers. I tried that and ended up having to spend a lot of time searching for one spesific photo. Looking at hundreds of those annoying small thumbnails, trying to find a pic. And I accidentally ended up with several duplicates, two or more of the same photo.

But anyway, I don't think the photo Gods wants me to have a pictures. This is has been an ongoing problem for a long time, can't make sense of it.

 

[Judge]

Yeah but when the photos have numbers, how do you find anything? Lets say I have 1000 pictures of my dog, that's 1000 small thumbnails with just numbers. I tried that and ended up having to spend a lot of time searching for one spesific photo. Looking at hundreds of those annoying small thumbnails, trying to find a pic. And I accidentally ended up with several duplicates, two or more of the same photo.

But anyway, I don't think the photo Gods wants me to have a pictures. This is has been an ongoing problem for a long time, can't make sense of it.

Then separate the dog images with folder names in terms of context rather than to rely on a more generic animal reference. Just like I have multiple airshow folders. Each with a different location. Be specific...

Another thing to consider is to "cull" your photo collection. To take out anything that is visually duplicated or bracketed. This way I've cut my photo collection in half...taking out so many images that I really didn't need to archive. Came to the conclusion they were just taking up space needlessly on my hard drive.

You know, your OS generally allows you to increase the size of thumbnails if you are using a rather small size. The larger the thumbnail, the more system resources are taken up in the process. In Linux you can even use image viewing apps that allow you to infinitely control the size of a thumbnail. In my case I just use the Nemo file manager that came with Linux Mint.

Example: For my Hot August Nights (HAN) images, I separate their folders by the year of the event, but keep the image numbers sequentially. This way while I have some 567 images of cars over multiple years, the collection of them is still manageable.

 

[velociraptor]

I store stuff on Amazon Photos cloud backup as well as on hard drives. Amazon makes things very searchable, allowing me to find a filename on my hard drives.

 

[Judge]

I store stuff on Amazon Photos cloud backup as well as on hard drives. Amazon makes things very searchable, allowing me to find a filename on my hard drives.

Simple and practical. Though personally entrusting any of my digital/intellectual property to a third-party cloud server has always made me cringe. Stopped using Photobucket years ago. No thanks.

Then again with operating systems like Windows and search engines like Google, these days your data isn't particularly safe even on your own hard drive. Too much money to be made in selling harvested data to marketing firms.

 

[Metal316]

My last trip, last month. The Isle of Wight steam train and working museum.

 

[velociraptor]

Simple and practical. Though personally entrusting any of my digital/intellectual property to a third-party cloud server has always made me cringe. Stopped using Photobucket years ago. No thanks.

My home fileserver for my images is a Linux-based NAS. I'm not crazy about cloud-based storage (someone else's computer, really). Cheap and it works. I run an online radio station as a hobbyist and the back end for it is parked on the OneDrive subscription that came with Office. I also have local backups, but it's nice to know that I can get all of my work back in the event of a house fire. It would take years to get it back to where it is now if I started over.

 

[Metal316]

 

[Metal316]

Looking back towards Portsmouth from the island.
That's the hovercraft, on the sea, coming over.

 

[Judge]

My home fileserver for my images is a Linux-based NAS. I'm not crazy about cloud-based storage (someone else's computer, really). Cheap and it works. I run an online radio station as a hobbyist and the back end for it is parked on the OneDrive subscription that came with Office. I also have local backups, but it's nice to know that I can get all of my work back in the event of a house fire. It would take years to get it back to where it is now if I started over.

Understood. Off-premises data storage is a must for anyone operating on a more commercial basis. A requirement when I was an insurance underwriter writing EDP policies. Though back then we preferred to see such data stored in the custody of entities specializing in it who did no data harvesting. But in this era, granted that may be a tough sell.

But then I also keep flash drives in a safety deposit box in the bank as well.

 

[velociraptor]

Understood. Off-premises data storage is a must for anyone operating on a more commercial basis. A requirement when I was an insurance underwriter writing EDP policies. Though back then we preferred to see such data stored in the custody of entities specializing in it who did no data harvesting. But in this era, granted that may be a tough sell.

But then I also keep flash drives in a safety deposit box in the bank as well.

Anyone who harvests my data will learn that I'm a landscape photographer, I watch bad action movies, and I spend too much time surfing cat pictures. I'm down with that.

 

[Judge]

Anyone who harvests my data will learn that I'm a landscape photographer, I watch bad action movies, and I spend too much time surfing cat pictures. I'm down with that.

I suspect most people including my brother take that perspective. That if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. However in my own case I see my concern over eroding privacy as a matter of general principle. Where those powers that be won't stop any time soon trying to take away what little privacy we have left.

Something actress Jennifer Lawrence had to deal with, when she foolishly uploaded her nude selfies to a cloud platform that got hacked. Admittedly she should have known better. Oops...oh well.

Still it's odd to ponder that it's our private sector reflecting commerce that is far more guilty of routinely collecting data on us than government and law enforcement. Go figure. Reminds me of how Photobucket began to charge people for externally linking their image files. No end to their greed....

 

[Forest Cat]

Simple and practical. Though personally entrusting any of my digital/intellectual property to a third-party cloud server has always made me cringe. Stopped using Photobucket years ago. No thanks.

I have been wondering about that too, where to store photos. I don't like the thought of sending all my pics to for example Amazon. It's just nature and cats and stuff, but still. So I read that the next best thing after cloud services was hard drives. But I ran into a problem.

If I have my pics on a hard drive, I must of course take a backup of it, so I need two hard drives. But what if something happens to both? I need a third hard drive, to backup the backup. And what if something happens to that? I need four hard drives ....and so on. Hopeless. And then I have to put my new pictures on all those hard drives every time I have new pictures, I don't have enough time to do all that work.

 

[Judge]

I have been wondering about that too, where to store photos. I don't like the thought of sending all my pics to for example Amazon. It's just nature and cats and stuff, but still. So I read that the next best thing after cloud services was hard drives. But I ran into a problem.

If I have my pics on a hard drive, I must of course take a backup of it, so I need two hard drives. But what if something happens to both? I need a third hard drive, to backup the backup. And what if something happens to that? I need four hard drives ....and so on. Hopeless. And then I have to put my new pictures on all those hard drives every time I have new pictures, I don't have enough time to do all that work.

I use very large flash drives. Portable, and they can accommodate all the space graphics and other files take up. One goes into the desk, the other into a bank vault.

Funny now to think I once thought a 64GB flash drive was enormous.

 

[Forest Cat]

I use very large flash drives. Portable, and they can accommodate all the space graphics take up.

Sounds ok, but I think I would get the same problem with flashdrives, I need two and then a third to backup the backup and a fourth in case something happens to the first three and so on. These electronic devices are so fragile, I'll worry all the time. Just one little magnet accident or something and all my pics are gone. Or maybe I just worry too much and make it difficult.

 

[Judge]

Or maybe I just worry too much and make it difficult.

That's something most of us in this audience must deal with. But that in itself won't corrupt your data.

 

[velociraptor]

I use very large flash drives. Portable, and they can accommodate all the space graphics and other files take up.

My camera bodies generate 47 and 50 MP files. I'm also very active as a photographer. You should see how quickly I burn through storage.