Earlier in March, I was muttering all kinds of stuff about organizing my photos.
I am quite happy to inform you that, despite all the kinks and imperfections, I have already come up with a working system since.
Armed with a new camera (which has created a super productive spawn of images in my library), a system is simply a necessary tool for survival.
So. Without further a due, let me share with you my system.
First stop, remember that my system is quite limited by both my hardware and software. My version of iPhoto ('08) does not come with all the nifty tools of its younger counterpart. No face recognition, for example. Just simply albums, tags, events. In any case, these 3 are the tools that I currently use to organize my collection.
Given an upgrade, most probably I would still stick to my system, only relying on the new tools (like face recognition) as a fall back or alternative searching method.
Second stop, events.
Event is my main tool for organization. You should know by now that when iPhoto imports your photos from your camera or your disk, you can either choose to have the pics automatically categorized into individual dates, or simply dumped into one single new event.
I find individual dates too cluttered for my taste, so unsorted pics would usually end up as a new event at the bottom of my display.
Many of my photos are basically of my Kid (I'm a relatively new Mom, sue me), so for these, they get categorized into 3 categories: at home, outdoor (for walkies and shoots from the garden) or outings. Every year I would make new event folders with similar titles.
The Dog has his own yearly event folder.
Should we have a special event like a trip somewhere, I might create a new event just for the duration of the trip, but increasingly I tend to stick to the original 3 categories.
For photos quite unrelated to the Kid, I would create separate events still, based on the subject of photograph (eg. flowers, macro, school, etc)
Third stop, album.
Albums are usually smaller than events (which are made on yearly basis), so basically they will contain a mini-event, a special occasion, or simply things I would like to group together for purposes such as posting in blog, printing, etc.
I only use this feature lightly so far. As for project, uhmm... haven't touched them, actually.
Fourth stop, tags or keyword.
I suppose tags (or key words) are really useful when you want to search for something specific in a large collection. However, I do find the manual tagging VERY inconvenient.
I do prefer flagging my photos temporarily, select all from the flagged folder, create an album from the selection, and voila! I'm done. I can always look up for the content through searching the title of the album.
This totally beats inserting keyword one by one on every photos.
If apparently there's a function to insert keywords on a batch of photos, I have not found it.
Online library
For my online library, which I basically use mostly for blogging purpose, I only use the simplest system, chronological. Basically I would have an album for each month of the calendar, consisting of all the photos that I include in my blog posts for that month.
There might be some extra photos uploaded that I eventually do not use.
These photos I usually delete around the end of the month.
They usually stand out due to the low view-count, haha.
Last note
This is a rough sketch of the system that currently works for me. May not be perfect, but it works so far. In the meantime, I am always on the lookout for better ways.
The system might not work for you, but I guess it can always be a starting point.
Rachel from the Small Notebook also reminds me that the delete button is one VERY important and useful tool in organizing photos. But I have not had the heart to delete most of my photos.
I do, however, select carefully the pics that I would post online as I do not have unlimited storage online AND I prefer to show off only the better ones. Ha!
I hope you'll find this useful.
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