simple name system in photgraphy files

Names ll- simple name system in photgraphy files

There are simple ways of building the image collection and take in account the old films too.

For this sake we will start by giving the hard disk, that we intend to keep our images on a name. To help in organizing and to avoid confusion we are going to use separate disk for scanned films and an other for digital capture.
To ensure backwards compatibility we use 8.3 naming code. As this is a hard disk it does not need the ending so we stay with the 8 digits naming.

image usa02267 Storm on Lake superior, USA 2006

We got scanned films so we give the disk the name film0001. When the first one is full we will use film0002 and so on. This way we can have 9999 hard disks numbered.

For digital we use dig00001. When the first one is full we will use dig00002. so we have space for 99999 hard disks with digital images. taken in account the price and size of disks this should be enough for our lifetime. If needed it is easy to move things to bigger disks and reorganize.
If we are going to take backup on hard disks we can use digb0001 and so on.

As we are mainly thinking about our digital files at the moment we forget that we ever used this old school film stuff and turn to how we are going to organize the images on the disks. The films are any way well organized on the shelfs.

We have a small problem if we have taken lot of digital images and not sorted them out . They even could have all kinds of strange names. On top of that they could be on CD or DVD or god knows where. So we have to collect them first. Here it is necessary to have an DAM software like Portfolio or IviewMediaPro.

We use the database to rearrange the images according to time taken. Here the exif file helps (more on that later) This is some thing the software dose once we have gotten the images in there.

Now we need to change the names according to what we have decided and organize the images. It is not easy organizing things but with some handwork and the help of the dam software we can do this.

We have decided what the hard disk is to be called. Now for starters we are going to decide how we organize the images on the hard disk. We need to decide on the folder structure.

Today we might put all images into import folder on the computer. From there they go to developed folder and get some names like joeandsuebytheharborewiththeboatintheback.jpg
From there they go on CD an from there they get lost..
This cant go on like this. Not if you are going to shoot thousands of images.

We need a name. Simple name that even our simple mind can remember.

read more in raw pipeline by Ted dillard

Moving images into the computer

We still need first to organize the importing of the images. Why? To avoid the terrible accident of overwriting a file because of same names. Names of image files become in the camera and there are not endless ways of new names. In some cases you only have 9999 as a variant. Believe me that goes quickly.

So to organize things we need an import folder. In that folder we make an other folder that is based on the month and then an other based on the day. So we now have a folder called 07070701. Hmmmmmmm What is this 01 I under stand seventh of july two-thousand and seven but not this 01. This 01 stands for the first import of the first card this day. The next folder that day would get 07070702.
Very simple and gets us out of trouble. We do not override any thing. If there is a mix up we might get things two folded but no overwrite.

Now again we need a database software that we can use to sort out images. We want before going any further to throw out those ugly ones that we took. Yepp we do take some ugly ones once in a while. Not many just few. Why throw these out now? to save space and keep us from making gaps in the system. It can be confusing if lot of numbers are missing from the system. We might think we have lost some images.

When we are done with the difficult task of throwing out our images, then at last we can rename the image files. Wy do I want to rename the original. That is to have a constants in the system. If we soot in raw, we can have the developed image as mex00001.tif and the web version as mex00001.jpg, still find the original mex00001.dng to redevelop quickly if needed.

If we are using jpg this is also easy it just is done.

Simple naming

We have few options for naming the folders. The easiest one is to keep the one that we already have for importing files. We want though to organize the collection a little bit better for every thing to work out, if we are taking lot of pictures many days in a row.

We start by making a folder on the hard-disk we intend to keep the images on.
The disk has already been named dig00001
So we make a folder that gets the name 2007. We do not need any longer name this one is to be understood by every body.

Then we make a folder and call it 0707 or 072007. We could even call it july2007.

So now every thing is ready to import the folder from our computer. The folder has its name 07070701.

We got fine structure now.

First the disk dig00001
Then folder 2007
again a folder 072007
and her is the last one 07070701.

Some body might ask how this is going to help us find the images. In a way it is not going to help but it is going to help the database system and the computer and speed up things on the long run. It will also keep your files away from the over rite ghost.

At last we are getting ready for the name.