How do you manage your files?

[JohnT]

After every processed image for web only, here is what I end up with:

• The original raw file
• The converted, full-size PSD file from raw
• The processed PSD file
• The converted JPG file from PSD

That's a lot of disk space for one image. What do you keep at the end of your processing?

[Daniel Bates]

I have a folder hierarchy on my PC... each shoot goes into a folder by date, and then is subdivided into subject. Example: "...\23 Aug 2006\Plants". All the RAW images (or JPEGS if I'm shooting JPEG mode) get dumped into that folder. I then go through, find the good photos, and put them in a folder inside the main folder (so \Plants\Best", for example). Those I PP and put into a folder called "Large". Then I save for web and put those in "Small".

It's clunky, but it works... so far... :)

--Daniel

[jeffkohn]

I use folder structure too, which is part of why I haven't embraced some of these "catalog" type DAM's such as Lightroom. Basically each shoot will get its own folder under the "year" folder, and will be named with a combination of shoot date and subject. Under that there are sub-folders for the original NEF's, the edited PSD's, web JPG's, and possibly print files. For instance here's the folder structure for my nephew's birthday party which I shot last month:

2006\2006_07_01 - Thomas 2nd Birthday\NEF
2006\2006_07_01 - Thomas 2nd Birthday\PSD
2006\2006_07_01 - Thomas 2nd Birthday\Web

[merock]

Originally Posted by JohnT

After every processed image for web only, here is what I end up with:

• The converted, full-size PSD file from raw

That's a lot of disk space for one image. What do you keep at the end of your processing?

If I may ask, why do you keep those? I keep all the others that you mentioned, just not that one.

My web URL's also match my desktop directory for easy findings too.

[beetleman]

Folder structure. Usually categorized by type of photos/events.

Example

Vacation/SeaWorld/2006/Originals
Vacation/SeaWorld/2006/Edits

All raw images intially go into the "root" folder (2006 in this case) as I make any edits that I would like the JPEG is saved in the Edits and the raw image is placed in the Originals. This way anything left in the 2006 folder has not been edited or saved as a JPEG. If I resize for web I just run a photoshop action that puts my border and signature on it, resized and saves for web in a generic Pbase folder. After I upload I usually delete the web versions and I rarely save the PSD file. It's get tricky coming up with new "categories" at times.

[merock]

My categories will include description and the date:

Air plane shots I took on August 21, 2006 = 082106

/plane082106
/plane082106/edited (these are my highres edited images)
/plane082106/plane082106 (these are my web images)

The URL matches:

http://www.merrickales.com/plane082106/galleryb.php

If someone wants an image its always easy to find

[JohnT]

Originally Posted by merock

If I may ask, why do you keep those? I keep all the others that you mentioned, just not that one.

Because I've never been sure what to do with it. The fact that they take up so much space is the reason for my post. It's a good question, though, and is leading me towards dumping them.

[d2creative]

Originally Posted by jeffkohn

I use folder structure too, which is part of why I haven't embraced some of these "catalog" type DAM's such as Lightroom.

I use Lightroom and everything is very organized, similiar to what's been said by others.

Here's my structure...

I have a Lightroom folder on my hardrive. Inside is a folder called "2006". Inside that is the name of each shoot. The shoot names start with the date. Example: 2006-08-23_Flowers. This way they all stay in chronilogical order. Inside the "shoot" folder are all my NEFs. Up till this point, Lightroom has set all this up for me automatically. All i had to do upon disk insertion is add "_Flowers" to folder name when the dialog pops up.
Now I go ahead and make two more folders inside the "shoot" folder called "PSDs" and "JPGs". Each time I use lightroom to convert my raw file, I open it in photoshop and save-as into the PSD folder. If I want to make sure I keep a version of the converted raw file before any photoshop tweaks are applied, I just save it on its own layer. That way I can just turn off all the tweak layers and I can see my original. (plus, if I ever need the original processed raw file I can always just go back into lightroom and reopen into photoshop since lightroom saves your tweaks.) When my photoshopping is done, i downsize and save a jpg in the "JPGs" folder. That's it!
Then that evening, everything is automatically backed up onto my external Lacie drive.

[jeffkohn]

Originally Posted by JohnT

Because I've never been sure what to do with it. The fact that they take up so much space is the reason for my post. It's a good question, though, and is leading me towards dumping them.

I see no reason to keep the original, unedited PSD. You can always generate one of those from the NEF in just a few seconds.

[JohnT]

Originally Posted by jeffkohn

I see no reason to keep the original, unedited PSD. You can always generate one of those from the NEF in just a few seconds.

Right. That makes perfect sense. I've gone through my folders and deleted all of them. One less file to have to fool with, making things simpler. :-)

Thanks.