How do you manage your photo library?
I'm getting to the point where I need a better method to manage my photo library!
Currently, I have:
- Photos on both internal and external hard drives, some in cloud storage, some not.
- Photos are viewed and edited in Darktable.
- My folder structure is Year > Month > Day.
My goals are:
- Having my library available to view & edit on both my windows desktop and mac laptop.
- Backed up in two places
Not sure what type of storage and sync solution would be best 🤷♂️ As you can see, this is hodgepodge at best.
Any advice would be appreciated!
I'm not sure how Darktable handles files and catalogues. I use Lightroom Classic and what I do for file storage can be a little tricky but it seems to work well enough so far.
I use Dropbox and save my photos to the Dropbox folder on my laptop when I import them. Periodically I backup to two external drives. Import, they upload to Dropbox, I copy to the external drives.
A problem is running out of hard drive space, but I can un-sync folders to free up space, and plug in the external drive when I want access to all my photos. Nice thing is Dropbox can be used if you don't have the drives, or the drives can be used if you don't have internet.
When a folder is removed from my laptop's hard drive, Lightroom will notice it is missing and just put a question mark next to it. When I have a drive plugged in or redownload the folder, Lightroom will find it or I can tell it where it is. Darktable may work that way too, not sure.
Quote from Beau Carpenter on August 8, 2022, 11:47 pmI'm getting to the point where I need a better method to manage my photo library!
Currently, I have:
- Photos on both internal and external hard drives, some in cloud storage, some not.
- Photos are viewed and edited in Darktable.
- My folder structure is Year > Month > Day.
My goals are:
- Having my library available to view & edit on both my windows desktop and mac laptop.
- Backed up in two places
Not sure what type of storage and sync solution would be best
As you can see, this is hodgepodge at best.
Any advice would be appreciated!
I have both internal and external hard drives. Replied in almost every drive. (i lost one from 2019 where I had ONLY the 2019 files), Plus I have two OS systems, MAC and Windows. And it's a pain.
Then some photos are in Flickr, some others are on Google Photos and some go to my website.
Names are "Event Year". Then inside the folder the structure is " Name of the Day and DATE" and then all the photos of that day. So if it is a 3 days event (Friday to Sunday let's say) it'd go like
"RACE XXX 2022" --> "Friday DDMMYY" / "Saturday DDMMYY" / "SUNDAY DDMMYY".
Probably could be better.
I need to create a RAI system but to be honest I don't have quite the money for it xD
Edition: LR3 or LR5 (usually LR3).
I use the external HDD/cloud backup approach as well. Only recent photos are on my laptop, or projects I'm working on.
As far as organization, I've found something that works for me but is still not perfect. I use two different approaches depending on the type of photo. For family trips and outings, it's:
year->mm/dd name of trip -> camera name (because I often take multiple cameras, it's just easier for me to find stuff this way)
For just for fun photography I do year->camera name->lens name
Now that I'm saying it out loud it does seem a little chaotic, but it works for me. I'm able to find stuff really quickly. I don't rely on Lightroom's catalog, because I don't like to stick to one device and keep that in sync. Though it is a nifty tool for quickly navigating photos.
Oh, one last thing. I have a folder for finished photos by year. These are photos I've edited and deemed worthy to be remembered, not just archived to go back to. So I'm often referencing that folder.
That's a great tip for categorizing finished photos separately. Thank you everyone for the write-ups and ideas!
