I am declaring photo bankruptcy.
You know what? I am sooo behind on my Flickr page, that there are entire months with no pictures. Because I'm pretty OCD about my photo organization, which is great for finding photos and knowing where things are, but it can make the process of uploading them potentially daunting. My software of choice is Adobe Bridge (currently, I use CS5), and Adobe Camara Raw. Sometimes, if necessary, I'll bust out the Photoshop, but usually Camera Raw does the trick.
For all that want to know, this is my process
- Folders - Photos are organized by Windows folders. Folder for each calendar year, and then subfolders for each month. Naming system is Year - Month number and Name (example, 2013_03March), because that way the folders can be easily sorted by name. All photos that were taken within a specific month go on that folder in one huge photo dump.
- Delete - I go through all the photos and delete all the ones that are obviously wrong - blank shots, mistakes where the shutter didn't focus, all shots where nothing is clearly visible. At this point, all the photos left have passed the minimum photography muster. But there may be some that are clear repeats, or group shots where someone's eyes are shut, items where the wrong subject is in focus, etc. Those stay, because they need closer scrutiny. I fear accidentally deleting something that might be inadvertently wonderful if I'd only taken a second look.
- Rename - I rename the files left by date taken (year)_(month)_(Date)_(Location)_(sequence#), for example: 2013_03_24_Austin_082. This way, once again, the photos can sorted easily by date/name, and I have a quick hint of where the photo took place.
- Remove "bad" pictures - This is the where the fun starts. I create a new sub-folder within the month folder named "Unused Photos". Here is where all the "extra" photos end up. You know, those pictures that are okay, technically fine, but not the ones you would choose to display on your album. Yeah, those where someone is making a slight face but everyone else looks okay. The ones where you took 5 photos of the same thing to make sure you capture the moment, and you have to choose one? The other 4 go to the unused photos folder. It's basically a redundant folder for all the photos that I'm too chicken to delete, even though I'll probably never look at them again.
- Edit photos - Even more fun stuff. The photos that are left on the main folder are now the display photos. These are the ones that will be printed someday, sent out to family, or uploaded to Flickr. I batch open them on Adobe Camara Raw, and adjust the light levels, crop as needed, etc. On some, I might even go a bit nuts and start playing with filters, light intensity levels, or rotations. I then make sure I do a SAVE AS and rename them as the original name with a dash at the end, as in 2013_03_24_Austin_082-
- File away the originals - The last housekeeping step is making sure the edited photos are separated from the unedited ones. I create a new sub-folder named "Original Photos". This is where the unedited photo go. This step is very important to me, because there's always a risk associated when you edit a photo. Maybe the lighting on your monitor wasn't right, or you were tired and brightened it too much without and didn't notice till the next day. It's important to have the originals, should you want to make another stab at editing them.
The final result should be a Folder for the month, with all the good edited display photos directly on it, and 2 sub-folders with the originals and unused photos. The good edited photos are now ready to use, send, upload, as needed without needing to think about them again.
So, as part of my official declaration of photo bankruptcy, photos prior to this week are no longer an issue. I can't do the whole process for my whole backlog. So instead I will declare one day a week my photo day, and I will download and organize only a week's worth of pictures. If that week was a particularly slow one, then I can start, slowly catching up with previous months. But I need the pressure off my back to be caught up, it's just not a good look for me
