How to file images

[Allan Hobbs]

Hello everyone,
I've been taking digital photos for about a year now, and even though most of them are rubbish (I'm a newbie but trying to learn :t:), I have still managed to get a large number of shots to keep.
The big question is how to file them. At the moment I file them by date (most are taken during my visits to South Africa), but this is obviously not the only way.
How do some of you much more experienced people, with possibly thousands of images, file them?

Thanks
Allan
ps I'll post a few onto the website in a few days time for some expert opinion:king:

[IanF]

I suppose it really depends on how you want to organise your photos.

Mine are organised by bird species in sub folders created in My Pictures with a folder for each species. There are other folders and subfolders for animals, insects, holidays etc.

Organising by date is all well and good but if you're looking for a particular folder it can be difficult to locate. As I retain Exif info dates can always be check if need be.

An alternate method is to use photo album software such as that built into Adobe PS Elements - though there are many others - that way you can organise them however you wish and add meta data such as location, date, subject so that they can be catalogued by the software.

[Allan Hobbs]

Thanks Ian, useful reply.
Date was good enough at first as we had lots of other photos as well - family, wildlife, scenery etc, and it was nice to see all the photos from each trip together, but I'm trying to get organised now before I get totally swamped with images.
I'm also still in the "it's all new and exciting" phase, so I'm probably keeping lots of images that I don't need. Do I feel a new year resolution to be more ruthless coming on?
Allan

[Roy C]

Alan, take a look at Adobe Lightroom it was created primarily for cataloging images.