What this is
This is a fixed system for storing and naming every photo you take, so you can find a picture quickly, even years after the shoot. You use the same folder layout, the same renaming pattern and the same storage routine every time. Files stop piling up on the desktop or sitting forgotten on memory cards.
What you need
- Main drive. A hard drive or solid-state drive (SSD) with enough space for your raw files, the unprocessed files your camera records.
- Backup drive. At least 1 external drive used only to hold a full copy of your photo folders.
- Card reader. A reliable memory card reader to copy files from your camera cards to your computer.
- Software. Photo management software, or your computer’s own file manager, with a batch renaming tool that renames many files at once.
- Off-site copy. Cloud storage or a drive kept in another place, so a fire, theft or drive failure at home does not wipe out everything.
- Cheat sheet. A written note of your folder layout and naming pattern, so you name things the same way every time.
Step by step
- Make a master folder. Create 1 main photo archive folder on your main drive, separate from downloads and other documents.
- Add date folders. Inside it, make a folder for each year, then a folder for each shoot date.
- Name the shoot. Add a short title after the date on each folder, such as the event, client or place, so you can recognise it at a glance.
- Copy the files. Insert your card into the reader and copy the raw files into the new shoot folder, leaving the file extensions unchanged.
- Rename in bulk. Use a batch renaming tool to replace the camera’s generic names with your pattern of date, subject tag and a 4-digit sequence number.
- Cull the shoot. Delete technical failures such as blurry frames, closed eyes and lens-cap shots before you start editing.
- Add metadata. Use your photo software to add metadata, the information stored inside each file, such as location, your copyright details and subject keywords, to the images you keep.
- Separate your exports. Save finished edits in their own subfolder for final files or web images, so they never mix with the raw files.
- Back up. Mirror the whole master folder, including the new raw files, onto your external backup drive.
Tips
- Year first. Write dates as a 4-digit year, then a 2-digit month and a 2-digit day, so your folders sort in true date order.
- Simple characters. Use only letters, numbers, hyphens and underscores in file names to avoid errors when you move files between Windows, Mac and other systems.
- Padded numbers. Start sequence numbers at 0001 so that file 10 does not sort before file 2 in simple alphabetical sorting.
- Keep the camera number. Add the camera’s original 4-digit frame number to the end of your new file name, so you can always trace a file back to the original.
- Wait before formatting. Keep the photos on your memory card until you have checked they are in both your main folder and your backup.