Giving your photographs the right name.
Giving your photographs the right name.
One very important aspect you have to look at before advancing further and that is names of photographic files.
File names can be of grate variety but one of the most common that people should recognize is based on the Ms-dos system and called 8-3 naming. it is so called because the files get names based on 8 signs (letters or numbers) and then the dot . and in the end 3 letters that indicate of what kind the file is.
Image klbw0171 church and field, Burgundy, France.
Therefore file name 00000001. tif is a file that has 8-3.
The reason one should look at this system when thinking about name giving is that its been here for a long time and should therefore be compatible with all systems and computers. It also has backwards compatibility. Some thing that long names do not have.
If you look at the filenames that com standard in digital cameras from the manufacturers you can see that they still are holding on to that system. Thus my Canon Camera has the file-naming of __X8R0589.cr2 This is 8.3
Organizing.
It is good when you start to organize your image collection to talk to a librarian or some one that is used to handle lot of documents. Basic organization has to be well thought of and not only set up so the owner of the system understands it but also others that might need to work on it. It is not bad if it is made such that is compatible both forth and back in time as the 8.3 name giving is.
When you give your hard disks name it is good to have in mind that it should be simple, easy to remember and has a serial number. It is simpler and better to sort your library that way. For compatibility it is wise not to use any special characters like Icelandic letters or other such. For easy access it is better to use names and serial number rather than just serial number. It is easier to remember where Trigger01 is than 99456956. It also easier to sort them out on the shelfs and find them again. On the disk you can have numbers if you choose so or just letters. The database system is what you are going to use any way to find the files.
read more in raw pipeline by Ted dillard
The names
When we get to the names there are lots of ways we could go but the simpler is the better. Just use some thing that works and you your self can understand
It is important that you sketch up how you want your system to be and work. You do not only want to build the system based on images you have still to take but also based on the older digitized images and even your film collection to.
It is therefor important to think about the whole collection before starting.
The possibilities.
Even though the possibilities are endless it is important that you understand the names and the name-giving. Keep it simple. It also has to be simple for your employes or others that might need to search the collection. Think of the future librarians at the museum that will have to go through it.
Few years ago I looked at a library in a publishing company. They had intended to digitize the whole system and wanted me to make an analysis on the system and what they needed to do. Amongst other things I did make some remarks regarding the library and how difficult it was to find any thing in there. The main Photographer was not happy with this and said it was very easy to find images. He could find any photograph right away. I new it was right, but when I asked him if any one else could find them, there was no answer. So what if he was shooting in Greenland and the magazine needed images they new they had in stock. No one could find it. This is what the company wanted to prevent because they knew they where sitting on a gold mine, but no one could find the gold in there.
Its the same way with many Photographers. The have a lot of gold laying around but they just don''''t know where it is.
This is something you do not want to happen to you and your gold.
