Are your digital images a hot mess? Can you never find the image you are looking for? I totally get that!
If you read this post, you will remember my great shame – that I used to just drop my iPhone photos in folders called “iPhone dump” and never see them again. Don’t be like old me. Let’s get you organized.
Photo organization is vital for any artist’s sanity but it can feel very overwhelming. Especially if you are trying to back track and reorganize years of old work. Don’t despair. I have 2 ways of organizing my photos that I’ll share with you today that you are welcome to copy and we will eliminate the overwhelm of, “Where do I even start”?
Organizing on Your iPhone First
If you are going to commit to being organized then you should be organized from the start! Camera+ 2’s Lightbox feature is going to be helpful here.
The lightbox does some automatic organizing for you. You can see in the image that Camera+2 will put your images into some categories like: edited, raw, and portrait. To access these, click on “Lightbox” and the menu will open. Then choose which album you’d like to access. From here you can select (in the upper right corner) which images you are ready to transfer to your computer. This will be helpful if you only want to save your edits or only your raw files for instance.
Transfer your Images to Your Computer
Moving your images from Camera+2 to your computer is so simple using our share feature. Choose the image (or images) you want to transfer and click the share icon. Choose your share method and send away! You can also move your images to the photo library and transfer like you normally would from your phone. Learn more about transfering files in this blog post.
Examples of How to Organize
Here is the potentially daunting part: How to keep your images clutter free and easy to find.
There are a number of different ways you can do this. I am sure all photographers have their preferred method and they swear by it. Organizing your files is definitely a “do what works for you” kinda process. That being said, if you have never been organized or are just starting, I’ll show you how I do it so you have something to get you started.
I am going to show you how I organize both my client work and my personal work. These methods can be used however fits your workflow. Like the look of my client saving conventions but don’t do client work? Use this method for your landscapes. Just switch out “client work” for something like “Big Cottonwood Landscape Shoot”.
Neither are a perfect fit? Mix them together or modify as needed.
- Client Work
Here is how I organize my client work:
Let me show you a real-life look into my folders.
- Personal Images
I don’t always name my personal, everyday photos. I take a lot of photos of my kiddo and don’t feel the need to spend time naming every one. So skip that step if you wanna. BUT, naming these can help you search for them later so that’s a good reason to, if you think that would be helpful to you.
Now that I have given you some outlines for how to organize your work, it is time to get started. Again, don’t get overwhelmed. If you have a lot to organize, start small. Just organize the photos from last month or last client. And adopt the practice of doing it that way for all incoming work or upcoming months.
Then you can chip away at the older work a little at a time if you need/want to.
Download Camera+ 2 today to help you keep those photos organized from the start!
Stay organized!