Organizing Photos

[Jackel]

I've recently started taking a lot more photos since I bought myself a new camera and installed chdk on it.

As such I'm finding that my previous methods of organizing my photos just aren't adequate.

What methods do you folks use for organizing them? Date? Subject?

Also, I'm having trouble deciding on an online sharing site. Right now I've been using flickr however I'm now starting to run into its limitations for the free account (only 3 sets? whats with that). So what do the rest of you use.

Mainly I'm wanting to store my photos logically online and allow me to share ones of my new daughter with family. I've noticed that a lot of photos I've seen on flickr (that my contacts post) are mainly scenery. Should I not be using flickr for my family photos?

Is it worth upgrading to the pro version of flickr? or should I find a free alternative?

Thanks for the help.

[pomeroy]

I'm so bad at this. I honestly throw them all in one big folder on my computer after I upload them to their respective albums on Facebook.

That's right. I use Facebook. The privacy settings for the photos are really, really nice.

[digitalErich]

You could try Zooomr...it's a relatively new site gunning for Flickr. It's notable here because Zooomr allows for some pretty nice organizational features if you are into tagging. Basically, you can create what they call Smart Sets just by doing what amounts to a saved search of your photos' tags (Zooomr calls them Labels, I think). It allows for easy creation of sets/albums and allows photos to be in multiple sets.

I've only messed around with Zooomr, but I've seen how people can use their Smart Set feature to great effect.

I think they also allow for larger and more photos on their free account when compared to Flickr. The look and feel of the site is pretty close to Flickr, too.

[Rogue_hunter]

On my desktop, it's all by Subject Matter, then date. I have my folder view options set to date created, so it shows when stuff was created in chronological order.

As for a photo service, I have Flickr pro for free because of AT&T Yahoo! DSL. I upload everything in sets, and have started to tag the hell out of everything. Dunno what the free version is like, but is probably limiting. I used to use Imageshack.us, but it was hard to organize stuff properly.

[Doctor Setebos]

My wife and I use Flickr. We have a pro account - it's only $25/year, so average that out per month, and it's pretty damned cheap. With that you get unlimited hosting and unlimited bandwidth. Which is good because apparently we have about 3,500 photos on there (checked the number just now).

The best part about Flickr is the auto multi-sizing of photos. You upload your largest sizes (using a handy downloadable piece of software that integrates with your Flickr account) and Flickr will automatically create 6 different sizes of every uploaded photo.

If you can't tell, we love Flickr. :D

[Bingley Joe]

I use Aperture (http://www.apple.com/aperture/whatisaperture/) on my desktop (which is a brilliant piece of software from an asset-management point of view), and Flickr for sharing. I use the FlickrExport (http://connectedflow.com/flickrexport/) plugin for Aperture, which handles uploads to flickr seamlessly.

I've never had a need for it, but tons of people absolutely LOVE Picasa, (http://picasa.google.com/) so you might want to look into that. Here's an easy step-by-step guide to a Picasa-to-Flickr workflow (http://lifehacker.com/362889/perfect-your-picasa-to-flickr-workflow) (can you tell I'm a fan of Flickr as well?)

[carnage11]

All my pics are categorized by date or sometimes subject matter. I used to use CompuPic which is a pretty good program. I never really found a better program I liked better. Check it out if ya want.

[rifter]

So, I got into this late. What I do for sharing pictures of my daughter is use Picasa. It is the simplest. I use Picasa to look at pictures (well, at times, when I run it, it usually takes a while to update the catalog). Then I right-click, and load to web in the 1024 range. I upload it to a group that is "private", so I have to give out the key to get into it. I send the link to the family, and they can use it. I have also created a simple web page that has the links built in. It works well.

As for my "sharing" stuff, other than family, I use Flickr. It is a better community.

[VerseD]

I sort them into folders by date with a little note for the event or place, and I use Adobe Bridge to rename or edit. I only update the few best ones to Flickr or Facebook.