After a bit of research into suggested photo storage programs like Picasa and Smugmug, I have decided to "do what I can with what I have" - one of my sticking points, after all, was getting to grips with something new. At least I have some experience of using the Windows and Bridge systems - though obviously not to their capacity. So now I'm "looking" at them both.
Here's the familiary view of any file of imported photos - the folders arranged by date, eg 2011-09-03. I've been adding keywords to this title (sometimes) - eg, camberwellMAshow - but that may apply to just some of the pix.
But what's this at the bottom of the screen - something I've not noticed before - when a photo is highlighted, it appears -
and it has an option to "add title" ... but ... if the title is visible only when the photo is selected, that's not much good for my current purposes. I want to change the filename so it's visible among gazillions of similar pix on screen.
Will going back to the folder and renaming it help at all? no, unfortunately. Is there a "batch rename"? no, selecting a batch and using "rename" still affects just one pic at a time.
Looks like the easiest way forward with this system - though possibly not the best way - would be to move files to folders and then sort out what's what within the new folders. After all, the pix are named by date (something I do on importing).
Speaking of importing, perhaps there's more can be done at that point - adding keywords, perhaps ... something to investigate next time I import pix, later today or tomorrow. Hardly a day goes by that I don't take, and download, a few photos.
Now, Bridge - I've not really used Bridge, which makes some people incredulous - "oh I use it ALL the time," they say; "it's SO useful" - and indeed, you can do things with "batches" ... but what, exactly - there seem to be too many options!
Done - the filename of the selected photos is now more helpful - a keyword, the date, and a sequence number, eg v&a20110903_36 - ah, I don't want the date cluttering up the filename ... but it's not in the metadata, hmm ... well it's in the "sep5" tag that I added when importing. A check of the folder in Windows (in extra-large icon mode) shows the renaming (v&a_36), and hovering the cursor over the photo shows the date and time, should that ever be needed.
Bridge looks like Photoshop Elements, the organizing applet within the program. Personally I don't use it. It was far more trouble to tag photos with keywords, even batches at one time, than to just put them in the folders that make sense to me. Too many images had multiple tags, making that system rather a worthless effort. Then you have to remember your own keywords!
ReplyDeleteMy folders, and by image number is fine for most things for me. If I need to name an image for some reason, then I'll do so, but not on the original version. So, I might have an image of a quilt from mid-2010 in the Art Quilts 2010 folder arranged chronologically (i.e. by image number), a version of the image that's been P'shopped in a separate subfolder if I intended to use the image on a quilt, and another version in a specific Exhibit folder at a higher resolution if it's a piece I'll enter into a show -- and this last image will get renamed something like Rose_Beyond Boundaries_2010.jpg.
Forget keywords, it's a big hassle!
Thanks, Connie - I'll keep those thoughts in mind during my pilot study, to see whether keywords really are useful in helping organise the folders once they get very full of files!
ReplyDeleteIt seems with Bridge there's no need to remember keywords, as they are listed in the panel on the right, and it's just a matter of clicking the ones you want - or making up new ones.
They might prove useful in that any pix that don't get keywords might as well be deleted.