Since it is the start of a new year I thought I would talk a little about my file organization. Just to note I use Lightroom for the majority of my edits and for its cataloging capabilities. I was a hard core Bridge/PS user until I started teaching my workshops. While I still prefer Bridge to resize/rename images and browse folders for images that are already exported from Lightroom, my basic organization begins in Lightroom.
At the start of each year I start two new catalogs: 2017 Personal and 2017 Client. Why? Because I take a lot of pictures and in 2016 I just found it less messy to keep them separate. I plan to continue this in 2017.
At the start of each year I also start a new hard drive. Again, I take a lot of pictures and with images + file back-ups my 2016 5TB drive ended the year with less than 100GB available. I create two new folders, you guessed it, Personal and Client.
The personal folder is organized by Date. When I import my personal images they are added into subfolders in the Personal folder by date. Why? This makes it easy for me to organize for my Project 365 for Slackers. I don’t need there to be any other identifying info in the folder name because that is what keywords are for.
The client folder is organized by Client. Each client for the year gets their own folder. For baby/family plan clients they get subfolders with the session month or other appropriate name for each session. Organizing these by Date, as I do the personal images, would be meaningless if I was searching for a particular image. I do not recall what date I shot this cutie’s hospital session on from last year, which brings me around to keywords.
The most important thing I use in Lightroom are keywords. Everyone needs a different organization that suits their needs, but here is the quick and dirty on mine.
What type of session? So a hospital newborn session would get tagged with “newborn” and “hospital”.
Where did the session take place? Any session at a client’s home is just tagged “at-home”. Hospital sessions are tagged with the particular hospital they delivered at.
Did I travel for the session? Any session where I left my general service area is tagged “travel” as well as the city/state where the session took place.
Are the clients on a Yearbook plan? If yes I tag it with “Yearbook”.
The first four above are session-wide keyword tags. Then subsets of images get tagged appropriately as well. “Nursery, grandparents, dogs, backyard, siblings, baking” are just a few I used in 2016.
I have been really lax on adding keywords to personal images in the past. Then I pay for it when I can’t find an image I am looking for. In general if we go somewhere, visit someone, or if she is wearing one of her FAVORITE outfits I tag them. Otherwise my favorites are just flagged.
Why is organization important? Well if you are actively posting to social media and your blog finding images you need to go along with your words is important. When you don’t keep up with your Project 365 on a daily, weekly, or even monthly basis the more organized you are the easier it is to go back and pick a few favorite images. For client work organization is important when you are ready to blog sessions, but even more important when blogging a content post for which you need to locate accompanying images.
Examples of Keywords
Hospital, Newborn, Good Sam, Siblings, CJP Sibling
Travel, DITL, State College, Siblings, Backyard, Water
Yearbook, 1 Year, CJP Sibling, Nursery
Disney, Halloween, All in the Frame, Costume, Anna Dress