17 replies to this topic

[Judi]

I was just wondering if anyone would be willing to share their secrets for organizing their birding pictures.  I keep trying to formulate a plan, but can't quite figure it out.  Is it best to separate pictures by date, location, or type of bird, or some combination of all of these?  Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[thekiwi]

I think it is all a matter of what suits each of us

For me I simply use the folders that are downloaded from the camera.

I set up a folder and then down load to that which means a folder for every day some times 2 aday. But then I am not a very orangised person but as i use adobe Bridge i use keywords and bridge knows where the images are so that helps me out

[lyceel]

I've been at this a year, and have tried a few different ideas.  I still just put them in folders arranged by place (Merritt_Island, Orlando_Wetlands_Park), then by date (2010_01_27, 2010_02_03).  I'd like a cross referencing system, so I could look them up by species, for example, but you have to be consistent with tagging them (the keywords that Kiwi mentioned) for that to work, and then you need software that can read and use those tags.

I bought Adobe Lightroom, which makes a lot of this easy (it also is a wizard with RAW processing, way better than Adobe Camera Raw), but I'm not really consistent about using it.  Lightroom can manage all of your images for you (you don't even have to know where you keep them, it'll do all that for you).  I prefer to keep them in my own folder structure, which is OK, as it'll work that way just as well.  It also can set up "virtual" folders by tags, or by certain EXIF data (origination date, focal length, etc.).  It can even sort by location if your photos are geotagged.

The only downside to Lightroom is that it's a bit expensive (though it's cheaper than Photoshop)

[sandylee]

I organize mine by (somewhat loosely) defined categories of birds.  Some birds get their own folder, like Loons, (because I can't stop taking pics of them!) and Woodpeckers (because that's the most prevalent bird in the yard) and Eagles (just because they are so cool and don't want to share a folder with other raptors!).  Other birds "share" a folder, like Chickadees/Nuthatches/Titmice  or Geese/Gulls.

After downloading the pics, I usually hold them just by date for a week or two till I decide which ones I really want to keep.  I'll often "date-tag" the photo in the title line, even tho this info is embedded in the pic's "properties".  Then they go in their respective folders.

I've found it VERY helpful to periodically review each folder and purge photos for which I have better ones with which to replace them.

I also have a folder on my Desktop for photo Favorites that I would absolutely SCREAM if I lost them in a puter crash.... so I can easily keep them on a separate disk.

[Judi]

Many thanks to all of you for the great ideas.

[lyceel]

sandylee:

I also have a folder on my Desktop for photo Favorites that I would absolutely SCREAM if I lost them in a puter crash.... so I can easily keep them on a separate disk.

Back-ups are tough when you start talking about thousands of high-res photos.  In my case, I just bought a Blu-Ray writer to help me with this.  With as many photos as I take and keep, DVD's just weren't cutting it.  Blu-Ray lets you write 25 GB to a disk (50 if you buy dual layer disks).  The writer wasn't too much ($150 or so), but the disks are still a bit pricey.  Definitely worth it, though, to avoid losing all the work I've done.

I've got an external hard drive with redundant disks, but that doesn't help in cases of fire or me just being dumb and deleting something.

[sandylee]

Wise move, Lyceel!

(my paltry little collection of photos obviously takes up MUCH less space than yours!)

[lyceel]

Well, when you start saving 12 megapixel RAW images (about 12MB each), it adds up quickly! 

[Alilo6]

I, myself, have only one folder on my desktop called for all bird pics. Within that folder is separate folders. One for specific birds I can't quit taking pics of (like bluebirds or shorebirds that are confusing so I need to keep all angles of). Also in that folder is an Excel spreadsheet that is a North American Bird list - which I make sure to check off new lifers, a folder of blurry pics (ones that ID a bird but is not good enough to put with others) and a folder of locations (some of the places are just as stunning as the birds and I can't help myself but to photograph them as well).

I also have a birding journal program that I treated myself to for my birthday. I LOVE IT! The journal records everything and spaces for -- date, weather conditions,  photographic notes, photos, species info. The program automatically melds all the info into graphs for me so I can see -- for example -- how many types of a certain species I have, how many birds spotted at a particular location, number of new birds in a particular month, etc.

I back-up my photos on an external hard drive, but should do more.

 

[mschelly]

would it work to:
use e-bird.com, which asks you for the number and species of birds you saw at a location on a particular day in a range of time
and then just keep all your photos on your computer and backups by date?
That way if you are looking for any bird species or any place you look it up in e-bird and then you find the date and then you look in your photos for that date.
You also are contributing to the world-wide bird count database and it also keeps your life list for you as well as various analysis functions (how often have you seen this bird, etc.).

[guy_incognito]

@mschelly - Yes, it could be helpful to crosscheck your findings with eBird. I think everyone should use eBird whether you take pictures or not.

I just use Picasa to organize my photos. I download my photos to different folders, usually based on location or by a trip. Some of the places I go to a lot get their own folder each year, because I might end up with around 500 photos from that location for the year. I then add the species name as a caption to the photo. It is really easy to search in Picasa, so I could find any "tern" from all my photos, no matter what folder it is in.

Picasa also allows you to create different albums. This doesn't actually duplicate any folders or images, but is just another way of viewing photos in groups within Picasa. I have a folder called "birds" that has one photo of each of the species I have captured.

Of course, Picasa has simple editing tools, and makes it really easy to upload pictures to the web, create web albums, and email pictures. You can also do other simple edits like adjust time and date, and you can manually geotag your photos as well. You can see a map of your photo locations, which is kind of cool.

Here is a screen capture of what it looks like inside of Picasa for me:

[Benjamin DeHaven]

My solution is similar to guy_incognito except I use Adobe Lightroom for my organization. It can do light editing but I only use it for organization as all my real editing is done in Photoshop.

So I import the pictures off the card and apply keywords that I want to be able to search on (or be searched on if later uploaded to my site). I then use the various flags, colors, and stars to indicate what I want to happen to the picture. While sorting I am also IDing and adding more keywords specific to the picture. After deleting what I want to I move the remaining RAW files to whatever folder I want (and my process moves on...). But Lightroom allows really nice collections and smart collections based on many aspects from embedded EXIF data to user entered keywords. It isn't free but its what I have been using and barring something very odd happening I figure I always will use it.

Benjamin

[Muskokan in Mexico]

I use Photoshop Elements Organizer and create tags for each group with subgroups as i find specific species. I always tag for location and file my originals by date. I add a word descriptor to the date for the file title to help me remember. both Lightroom and PSE Organizer create thumbnails that are linked to your originals. this requires an additional back up of the catalog and therefore more memory.

I am generally satisfied with the system and appreciate being able to call up all my shots of say Elegant Trogon, and choose one or delete some as required.

[grandpawrichard]

I use Lightroom to edit all of my CR2 files. When I am done editing each photo I use Lightrooms great little feature of assigning the photo of a Star (1-5 stars). That way I can search Lightroom for say 5 star photos and it will bring all of them up. Normally when I am saving the photos I have a specific folder for "The Best of 2013 photos" and I only put the 5 star photos in it. It has subfolders for each day and month for both my photos and my wife's photos. That way we can easily find the photos we want.

Dick

[RocknRobin]

I have folders and subfolders.

For example, "Birds of Prey" ....then the subfolders Hawks, Owls, Eagles.....then I will have subfolders for the different species of hawks, owls, etc.

I have two portable external hard drives, with storage only. The WD Elements SE in the 1TB size. Stores up to 200,000 jpeg files. After I edit, I copy them to both of the portable hard drives. If something happens to one of them, I'll still have the other one. I do not store them on my computer. If I want to get one of my pics, I plug the device in and go right to the folder to get the file I want. Super easy and saves room on your computer. The only time mine are kept on my computer is during the time I am editing a batch.

[IndigoBunting]

I organize them by species.

[Deven Bhandari]

I often use www.birderz.com to organize photographs by species. It is online only service though.

[BirdMan0325]

I use a location/date folder structure for my bird photographs - it matches what I use for my non-bird photography.

Folder for the location, with a year-monthday subfolder for that location. Inside the date folder I have folders for the original files, ones to edit, ones to post to eBird, and any final processed photos.

Any folders I have added to since the last backup I label with green - The folder also contains a map of the location if applicable (like trail maps)