Need help with photo organization...

[Don.]

whatever

I certainally don't want to create any unrest with readers here, but
need some fresh ideas how to organize my many genealogy photos.

I started into my genealogy research back in 1992 and have been very
fortunate in making contacts with people that are no longer with us. One
result is a large collection of photos over the years. My first attemps
were with the descendants of my gGfather. By 1994 I had about of his
descendats names, vitals, stories, etc. and upward of 60 photos. I have
those photos in *C:\GenBook\Reports\Nickell*. (Remember good ole
GenBook for PAF from those days?)

In 1996 I put up a Web Page on the NICKELL lines in America and today
have about 500 photos from all family branches of my Nickell branch
exclusive of those noted above. But they are in a separate folder,
*C:\Photos\Nickell*, for lack of imagination.

Today I received an e-mail that caused me to realize what a mess I had
and want to re-orgainize all those photos. I've a new computer with a
160G HD so disk space is no longer an issue.

I'd really appreciate any workable ideas on "how to organize ancestral
photos."

Thanks,
Don.




----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

[Hugh Watkins]

I have just been giving that thought

starting a site for that purpose

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~hugh/

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com ... temap.html



this morning my plans became clear

in the images folder
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~hugh/images/

I made a start with descriptive naming and dating

date_name_place is the plan


or
name_yyyymmdd_place


then I think I will create folders
for each individual
or
pair
or
group

thumbnails to be auto generated
may be photoshop elements if I can I can find out how to change the template

Hugh W

On 4/17/05, Don. <[email protected]> wrote:

whatever

I certainally don't want to create any unrest with readers here, but
need some fresh ideas how to organize my many genealogy photos.

I started into my genealogy research back in 1992 and have been very
fortunate in making contacts with people that are no longer with us. One
result is a large collection of photos over the years. My first attemps
were with the descendants of my gGfather. By 1994 I had about of his
descendats names, vitals, stories, etc. and upward of 60 photos. I have
those photos in *C:\GenBook\Reports\Nickell*. (Remember good ole
GenBook for PAF from those days?)

In 1996 I put up a Web Page on the NICKELL lines in America and today
have about 500 photos from all family branches of my Nickell branch
exclusive of those noted above. But they are in a separate folder,
*C:\Photos\Nickell*, for lack of imagination.

Today I received an e-mail that caused me to realize what a mess I had
and want to re-orgainize all those photos. I've a new computer with a
160G HD so disk space is no longer an issue.

I'd really appreciate any workable ideas on "how to organize ancestral
photos."

Thanks,
Don.

----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

--
My Blogs
GENEALOGE http://hughw36.blogspot.com/

search my sites
http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id ... query=&t=s

[Paul Blair]

Don. wrote:

whatever

I certainally don't want to create any unrest with readers here, but
need some fresh ideas how to organize my many genealogy photos.

I started into my genealogy research back in 1992 and have been very
fortunate in making contacts with people that are no longer with us. One
result is a large collection of photos over the years. My first attemps
were with the descendants of my gGfather. By 1994 I had about of his
descendats names, vitals, stories, etc. and upward of 60 photos. I have
those photos in *C:\GenBook\Reports\Nickell*. (Remember good ole
GenBook for PAF from those days?)

In 1996 I put up a Web Page on the NICKELL lines in America and today
have about 500 photos from all family branches of my Nickell branch
exclusive of those noted above. But they are in a separate folder,
*C:\Photos\Nickell*, for lack of imagination.

Today I received an e-mail that caused me to realize what a mess I had
and want to re-orgainize all those photos. I've a new computer with a
160G HD so disk space is no longer an issue.

I'd really appreciate any workable ideas on "how to organize ancestral
photos."

Thanks,
Don.




----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet
News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+
Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

Jog along to http://www.picasa.com, and get a copy of Picasa (ver.2 is current)

From there, you can organise your pics on your home computer, and it
will give you ideas/assistance with storing pictures on CD etc. There is
also a useful blog...

Paul Blair
Australia

[John Ellingsworth]

Try ThumbsPlus from http://cerious.com

It allows you to organize the photos, keyword them, annotate them, etc.
- I use it for my photo needs. It has a flexible database backend that
allows you to connect with your other genealogy work if you use a
database for that.

You can download a free demo and try it out first.

John

[Henri Roodveldt]

You can try JAlbum. Its good and its free.

regards,
henri roodveldt

"Hugh Watkins" <[email protected]> schreef in bericht
news:[email protected]...

I have just been giving that thought

starting a site for that purpose

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~hugh/

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com ... temap.html



this morning my plans became clear

in the images folder
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~hugh/images/

I made a start with descriptive naming and dating

date_name_place is the plan


or
name_yyyymmdd_place


then I think I will create folders
for each individual
or
pair
or
group

thumbnails to be auto generated
may be photoshop elements if I can I can find out how to change the
template

Hugh W

On 4/17/05, Don. <[email protected]> wrote:
whatever

I certainally don't want to create any unrest with readers here, but
need some fresh ideas how to organize my many genealogy photos.

I started into my genealogy research back in 1992 and have been very
fortunate in making contacts with people that are no longer with us. One
result is a large collection of photos over the years. My first attemps
were with the descendants of my gGfather. By 1994 I had about of his
descendats names, vitals, stories, etc. and upward of 60 photos. I have
those photos in *C:\GenBook\Reports\Nickell*. (Remember good ole
GenBook for PAF from those days?)

In 1996 I put up a Web Page on the NICKELL lines in America and today
have about 500 photos from all family branches of my Nickell branch
exclusive of those noted above. But they are in a separate folder,
*C:\Photos\Nickell*, for lack of imagination.

Today I received an e-mail that caused me to realize what a mess I had
and want to re-orgainize all those photos. I've a new computer with a
160G HD so disk space is no longer an issue.

I'd really appreciate any workable ideas on "how to organize ancestral
photos."

Thanks,
Don.

----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet
News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+
Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption
=----




--
My Blogs
GENEALOGE http://hughw36.blogspot.com/

search my sites
http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id ... query=&t=s

[singhals]

Don. wrote:

whatever

I certainally don't want to create any unrest with readers here, but
need some fresh ideas how to organize my many genealogy photos.

I started into my genealogy research back in 1992 and have been very
fortunate in making contacts with people that are no longer with us. One
result is a large collection of photos over the years. My first attemps
were with the descendants of my gGfather. By 1994 I had about of his
descendats names, vitals, stories, etc. and upward of 60 photos. I have
those photos in *C:\GenBook\Reports\Nickell*. (Remember good ole
GenBook for PAF from those days?)

In 1996 I put up a Web Page on the NICKELL lines in America and today
have about 500 photos from all family branches of my Nickell branch
exclusive of those noted above. But they are in a separate folder,
*C:\Photos\Nickell*, for lack of imagination.

Today I received an e-mail that caused me to realize what a mess I had
and want to re-orgainize all those photos. I've a new computer with a
160G HD so disk space is no longer an issue.

I'd really appreciate any workable ideas on "how to organize ancestral
photos."

Are you organizing the photos themselves, or organizing the digital
copies, or are you just looking for an "index" to 'em?

When I brought home my GM's albums (including the two from my GF's side
of the family) I sat down and numbered every page in each album. Then I
created a spread sheet: Col A was album [orange, black, brown, Daddy's,
etc]; Col B was page #; Col C was quarter [dividing each page into
quarters, a, b, c, d]; and Col D was WHO/where [5 persons got an entry each]

I printed that off, as is; then I copied the entire file and resorted by
WHO/where and printed that.

Then I went back and added Col E, Ahnentafel with me as #1 [hey, it's MY
spreadsheet! (g)]

*THEN* I went into PAF and entered all the photo IDs into the NOTES for
each person. "Brown 4B"

The photos themselves I left in the original albums.

One day real soon I need to get around to scanning those in ...

Frankly, it seemed to me that trying to "organize" them again was
pointless. GM had gone through them and sorted them into stacks one
stack per child; that lost the relational value and no way was I going
to try recreate it. At all events, the way you got them -- in packets,
or albums or even developer sleeves -- is part of the historical value
and you may as well go with the flow.

Cheryl

[Don.]

singhals wrote:

Don. wrote:

whatever

I certainally don't want to create any unrest with readers here, but
need some fresh ideas how to organize my many genealogy photos.

I started into my genealogy research back in 1992 and have been very
fortunate in making contacts with people that are no longer with us. One
result is a large collection of photos over the years. My first attemps
were with the descendants of my gGfather. By 1994 I had about of his
descendats names, vitals, stories, etc. and upward of 60 photos. I have
those photos in *C:\GenBook\Reports\Nickell*. (Remember good ole
GenBook for PAF from those days?)

In 1996 I put up a Web Page on the NICKELL lines in America and today
have about 500 photos from all family branches of my Nickell branch
exclusive of those noted above. But they are in a separate folder,
*C:\Photos\Nickell*, for lack of imagination.

Today I received an e-mail that caused me to realize what a mess I had
and want to re-orgainize all those photos. I've a new computer with a
160G HD so disk space is no longer an issue.

I'd really appreciate any workable ideas on "how to organize ancestral
photos."


Are you organizing the photos themselves, or organizing the digital
copies, or are you just looking for an "index" to 'em?

When I brought home my GM's albums (including the two from my GF's side
of the family) I sat down and numbered every page in each album. Then I
created a spread sheet: Col A was album [orange, black, brown, Daddy's,
etc]; Col B was page #; Col C was quarter [dividing each page into
quarters, a, b, c, d]; and Col D was WHO/where [5 persons got an entry
each]

I printed that off, as is; then I copied the entire file and resorted by
WHO/where and printed that.

Then I went back and added Col E, Ahnentafel with me as #1 [hey, it's MY
spreadsheet! (g)]

*THEN* I went into PAF and entered all the photo IDs into the NOTES for
each person. "Brown 4B"

The photos themselves I left in the original albums.

One day real soon I need to get around to scanning those in ...

Frankly, it seemed to me that trying to "organize" them again was
pointless. GM had gone through them and sorted them into stacks one
stack per child; that lost the relational value and no way was I going
to try recreate it. At all events, the way you got them -- in packets,
or albums or even developer sleeves -- is part of the historical value
and you may as well go with the flow.

Cheryl


These are *images*. I doubt there's enough room for that many actual

photographs, much less starting to make an index now.

I've enough HD space that I may just simply put them all together,
sorted by filename. My database contains 24,000+ individuals and it's
hard to really ID the photo images so that someone could really know
who, when, etc. a photo was taken. Especially when many were obtained
during the days of DOS and 8.3 filename formats.

That's another "someday" project, renaming them with first/middle/last
name and date. (Big sigh...)

But, thanks to you and *all the others* that joined to to help on this
thread. I'll do something, but who know what?

"Not I", said the little red hen.

----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

[Kurt F]

"Don." <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
big snip

These are *images*. I doubt there's enough room for that many actual
photographs, much less starting to make an index now.

I've enough HD space that I may just simply put them all together,
sorted by filename. My database contains 24,000+ individuals and it's
hard to really ID the photo images so that someone could really know
who, when, etc. a photo was taken. Especially when many were obtained
during the days of DOS and 8.3 filename formats.

That's another "someday" project, renaming them with first/middle/last
name and date. (Big sigh...)

I think it would be a good idea to put the year first. That means you easily
can sort pictures of an individual i cronological order.
Besides albums, I have the unfortune to have my fathers negatives. And
that means at least 10000 negatives. To identify the valuable pictures is
somewhat a nightmare. I have to scan them, number the negatives, and
then identifying the persons (if any) on the pictures and put that
information
in a database.
Needless to say, I won´t be able to do all of them.

But, thanks to you and *all the others* that joined to to help on this
thread. I'll do something, but who know what?

"Not I", said the little red hen.

Kurt F

[Don.]

Kurt F wrote:

"Don." <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
big snip


These are *images*. I doubt there's enough room for that many actual
photographs, much less starting to make an index now.

I've enough HD space that I may just simply put them all together,
sorted by filename. My database contains 24,000+ individuals and it's
hard to really ID the photo images so that someone could really know
who, when, etc. a photo was taken. Especially when many were obtained
during the days of DOS and 8.3 filename formats.

That's another "someday" project, renaming them with first/middle/last
name and date. (Big sigh...)


I think it would be a good idea to put the year first. That means you easily
can sort pictures of an individual i cronological order.
Besides albums, I have the unfortune to have my fathers negatives. And
that means at least 10000 negatives. To identify the valuable pictures is
somewhat a nightmare. I have to scan them, number the negatives, and
then identifying the persons (if any) on the pictures and put that
information
in a database.
Needless to say, I won´t be able to do all of them.

That sounds like a job for a super computer, Kurt. YYYY first is a good
idea with the Windows 64.64 file naming ability. I doubt I'll ever go
back to DOS in the future. And I'm complaining about a measly 300
someodd images, what a piker!

Kurt F

----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

[singhals]

Don. wrote:

Kurt F wrote:

"Don." <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
big snip


These are *images*. I doubt there's enough room for that many actual
photographs, much less starting to make an index now.

I've enough HD space that I may just simply put them all together,
sorted by filename. My database contains 24,000+ individuals and it's
hard to really ID the photo images so that someone could really know
who, when, etc. a photo was taken. Especially when many were obtained
during the days of DOS and 8.3 filename formats.

That's another "someday" project, renaming them with first/middle/last
name and date. (Big sigh...)



I think it would be a good idea to put the year first. That means you
easily
can sort pictures of an individual i cronological order.
Besides albums, I have the unfortune to have my fathers negatives. And
that means at least 10000 negatives. To identify the valuable pictures is
somewhat a nightmare. I have to scan them, number the negatives, and
then identifying the persons (if any) on the pictures and put that
information
in a database.
Needless to say, I won´t be able to do all of them.


That sounds like a job for a super computer, Kurt. YYYY first is a good
idea with the Windows 64.64 file naming ability. I doubt I'll ever go
back to DOS in the future. And I'm complaining about a measly 300
someodd images, what a piker!

I'm not a fan of 64.64 file names (g)

But, you might want to search the group archives -- as I recall past
discussions on this, every system going has a significant drawback (much
like genie programs?) and you have to pick your poison.

"1994 Aunt Dot and Uncle Fred at Reunion in Augusta.photo 74" may be a
descriptive file name, but outside WinExplorer, what're the chances
you'll be able to find ALL the pictures of Uncle Fred, or ALL the
pictures from Reunion in Augusta?

Meanwhile "Uncle Fred 1994 Reunion Augusta.photo 74" + "Aunt Dot 1994
Reunion Augusta.photo 74" + "Reunion Augusta 1994.photo xxx" + "1994
Aunt Dot and Uncle Fred at Reunion in Augusta.photo 74" + "Photo xxx
1994 Reunion Augusta." seems like overkill. (g)

Cheryl

[Doug]

Don. wrote:

whatever

I certainally don't want to create any unrest with readers here, but
need some fresh ideas how to organize my many genealogy photos.

I started into my genealogy research back in 1992 and have been very
fortunate in making contacts with people that are no longer with us. One
result is a large collection of photos over the years. My first attemps
were with the descendants of my gGfather. By 1994 I had about of his
descendats names, vitals, stories, etc. and upward of 60 photos. I have
those photos in *C:\GenBook\Reports\Nickell*. (Remember good ole
GenBook for PAF from those days?)

In 1996 I put up a Web Page on the NICKELL lines in America and today
have about 500 photos from all family branches of my Nickell branch
exclusive of those noted above. But they are in a separate folder,
*C:\Photos\Nickell*, for lack of imagination.

Today I received an e-mail that caused me to realize what a mess I had
and want to re-orgainize all those photos. I've a new computer with a
160G HD so disk space is no longer an issue.

I'd really appreciate any workable ideas on "how to organize ancestral
photos."

Thanks,
Don.
========================================================================

I decided to jump back to the original post to avoid having pages of
other responses to wade through. FWIW, I came up with a system that,
while still evolving to some extent, works fairly well for me (probably
similar to some of those already discussed).

Although I have tried a variety of file naming conventions, I now
generally try to go with the 4-digit year, month, day, short description
(e.g., "2002Jul18 Muskegon, Margaret Miller.jpg"). Of course I don't
always have all the information, so I use whatever is available. In
Windows, a longer description can go in the file properties summary tab
where there's room for Title, Subject, Author, Keywords, and Comments.
Not generally viewable without opening the file's properties, but a
convenient place to stash some additional info about the file none the
less. Unfortunately, updating filenames from older conventions to the
current one invariably results in broken links in my genealogy program
(which stores links to images, not the actual image), so I generally try
to make such brash changes only when (I think) I have time to clean up
such problems in relatively short order. (Actually, moving a folder from
one place to another is actually easier to fix than renaming a file ...
the program asks if you want to change all files from directory
"old_folder" to "new_folder" and the job is done quite easily.)

For filing, I first have a "Graphics" folder for most scanned,
photographed, or otherwise digitalized images. Under that I have
separate folders for such things as a 100-year-old photo album that was
my grandmother's (and, I suspect, her mother's before her), photos from
specific trips (usually coincident with 5-year high school reunions),
and other groups of photos from specific sources, etc.

Then I have a headstone photo set under a folder named "Graves" followed
by folders for county, then cemetery, then filename, again usually with
the date with 4-digit year first followed by a short description.

The "Photos" directory contains photos of people and places. Again I
have some folders for specific groupings of photos by place, event, etc.

Also, especially when I have a group of somehow related photos (or other
graphics), I will often make a "catalog" of the files in the directory
in the form of a Word file with thumbnails of the images and as much
description as I care to go into (e.g., the complete list of people in a
group photo, etc.).

It's not the best or most scientific, but it (usually) works for me.

Doug

[Joe Makowiec]

On 20 Apr 2005 in soc.genealogy.computing, Doug wrote:

Although I have tried a variety of file naming conventions, I now
generally try to go with the 4-digit year, month, day, short
description (e.g., "2002Jul18 Muskegon, Margaret Miller.jpg"). Of
course I don't always have all the information, so I use whatever is
available.

This is a decent idea. A couple of suggestions, though:
- Some file systems don't like spaces or punctuation in filenames. While
future systems may become more tolerant of it, it's still not a great
idea.
- Rather than using letters for the month, you might want to use numbers:
20020718Muskegon...
This allows items to sort correctly by date.
- JPEG files can have IPTC[1] information added to them - captions,
copyright, comments. There are a number of utilities out there which
will add and manipulate this information. IrfanView (Windows) does this
well - http://irfanview.com/

[1] International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC)
http://www.iptc.org/pages/index.php
--
Joe Makowiec
http://makowiec.org/
Email: http://makowiec.org/contact/?Joe

[Don.]

singhals wrote:

Don. wrote:

Kurt F wrote:

"Don." <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
big snip


These are *images*. I doubt there's enough room for that many actual
photographs, much less starting to make an index now.

I've enough HD space that I may just simply put them all together,
sorted by filename. My database contains 24,000+ individuals and it's
hard to really ID the photo images so that someone could really know
who, when, etc. a photo was taken. Especially when many were obtained
during the days of DOS and 8.3 filename formats.

That's another "someday" project, renaming them with first/middle/last
name and date. (Big sigh...)




I think it would be a good idea to put the year first. That means you
easily
can sort pictures of an individual i cronological order.
Besides albums, I have the unfortune to have my fathers negatives. And
that means at least 10000 negatives. To identify the valuable
pictures is
somewhat a nightmare. I have to scan them, number the negatives, and
then identifying the persons (if any) on the pictures and put that
information
in a database.
Needless to say, I won´t be able to do all of them.



That sounds like a job for a super computer, Kurt. YYYY first is a
good idea with the Windows 64.64 file naming ability. I doubt I'll
ever go back to DOS in the future. And I'm complaining about a measly
300 someodd images, what a piker!


I'm not a fan of 64.64 file names (g)

But, you might want to search the group archives -- as I recall past
discussions on this, every system going has a significant drawback (much
like genie programs?) and you have to pick your poison.

"1994 Aunt Dot and Uncle Fred at Reunion in Augusta.photo 74" may be a
descriptive file name, but outside WinExplorer, what're the chances
you'll be able to find ALL the pictures of Uncle Fred, or ALL the
pictures from Reunion in Augusta?

Meanwhile "Uncle Fred 1994 Reunion Augusta.photo 74" + "Aunt Dot 1994
Reunion Augusta.photo 74" + "Reunion Augusta 1994.photo xxx" + "1994
Aunt Dot and Uncle Fred at Reunion in Augusta.photo 74" + "Photo xxx
1994 Reunion Augusta." seems like overkill. (g)

Cheryl

Especially overkill when you can't get PSP or even IfranView to open a

file that doesn't have a JPG, etc., extension. My example of 64.64 was
a poor one and should have said 64.3. But some smart alec would have
jumped on me about that saying "the extension can be 64 bytes too.
Some days you can't win for losing.

Of course I'm being a smart alec even broaching the subject to you. I
know you didn't mean *exact* what you said and ignoring the JPG problem.

----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

[Don.]

Doug wrote:

Don. wrote:

whatever

I certainally don't want to create any unrest with readers here, but
need some fresh ideas how to organize my many genealogy photos.

I started into my genealogy research back in 1992 and have been very
fortunate in making contacts with people that are no longer with us. One
result is a large collection of photos over the years. My first attemps
were with the descendants of my gGfather. By 1994 I had about of his
descendats names, vitals, stories, etc. and upward of 60 photos. I have
those photos in *C:\GenBook\Reports\Nickell*. (Remember good ole
GenBook for PAF from those days?)

In 1996 I put up a Web Page on the NICKELL lines in America and today
have about 500 photos from all family branches of my Nickell branch
exclusive of those noted above. But they are in a separate folder,
*C:\Photos\Nickell*, for lack of imagination.

Today I received an e-mail that caused me to realize what a mess I had
and want to re-orgainize all those photos. I've a new computer with a
160G HD so disk space is no longer an issue.

I'd really appreciate any workable ideas on "how to organize ancestral
photos."

Thanks,
Don.

========================================================================
I decided to jump back to the original post to avoid having pages of
other responses to wade through. FWIW, I came up with a system that,
while still evolving to some extent, works fairly well for me (probably
similar to some of those already discussed).

Although I have tried a variety of file naming conventions, I now
generally try to go with the 4-digit year, month, day, short description
(e.g., "2002Jul18 Muskegon, Margaret Miller.jpg"). Of course I don't
always have all the information, so I use whatever is available. In
Windows, a longer description can go in the file properties summary tab
where there's room for Title, Subject, Author, Keywords, and Comments.
Not generally viewable without opening the file's properties, but a
convenient place to stash some additional info about the file none the
less. Unfortunately, updating filenames from older conventions to the
current one invariably results in broken links in my genealogy program
(which stores links to images, not the actual image), so I generally try
to make such brash changes only when (I think) I have time to clean up
such problems in relatively short order. (Actually, moving a folder from
one place to another is actually easier to fix than renaming a file ...
the program asks if you want to change all files from directory
"old_folder" to "new_folder" and the job is done quite easily.)

For filing, I first have a "Graphics" folder for most scanned,
photographed, or otherwise digitalized images. Under that I have
separate folders for such things as a 100-year-old photo album that was
my grandmother's (and, I suspect, her mother's before her), photos from
specific trips (usually coincident with 5-year high school reunions),
and other groups of photos from specific sources, etc.

Then I have a headstone photo set under a folder named "Graves" followed
by folders for county, then cemetery, then filename, again usually with
the date with 4-digit year first followed by a short description.

The "Photos" directory contains photos of people and places. Again I
have some folders for specific groupings of photos by place, event, etc.

Also, especially when I have a group of somehow related photos (or other
graphics), I will often make a "catalog" of the files in the directory
in the form of a Word file with thumbnails of the images and as much
description as I care to go into (e.g., the complete list of people in a
group photo, etc.).

It's not the best or most scientific, but it (usually) works for me.

Doug

Thanks Doug. I've got folders for mine but I've never gone to the
efforts you have, i.e., I have all my NICKELL photos in (guess what)
c:\nickell. And many were named during my DOS days so I've tried to
stick with 8.3 filenames, some almost unreadable today.

I guess I could think about going back and making subfolders under that
according to their branch from our progenitor. But in some cases I'd be
in trouble because many are cases where they happend to intermarry, he
from one branch, she from another.

----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

[Don.]

Joe Makowiec wrote:

On 20 Apr 2005 in soc.genealogy.computing, Doug wrote:


Although I have tried a variety of file naming conventions, I now
generally try to go with the 4-digit year, month, day, short
description (e.g., "2002Jul18 Muskegon, Margaret Miller.jpg"). Of
course I don't always have all the information, so I use whatever is
available.


This is a decent idea. A couple of suggestions, though:
- Some file systems don't like spaces or punctuation in filenames. While
future systems may become more tolerant of it, it's still not a great
idea.
- Rather than using letters for the month, you might want to use numbers:
20020718Muskegon...
This allows items to sort correctly by date.
- JPEG files can have IPTC[1] information added to them - captions,
copyright, comments. There are a number of utilities out there which
will add and manipulate this information. IrfanView (Windows) does this
well - http://irfanview.com/

Dates of that nature could work, 99% of my photos are from the 1800's

and early 1900's and I generally don't worry too much about the day of
the month. The more current ones might take a little more thought on my
part, even to using your technique above.

----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

[singhals]

Don. wrote:

singhals wrote:

Don. wrote:

Kurt F wrote:

"Don." <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
big snip


These are *images*. I doubt there's enough room for that many actual
photographs, much less starting to make an index now.

I've enough HD space that I may just simply put them all together,
sorted by filename. My database contains 24,000+ individuals and it's
hard to really ID the photo images so that someone could really know
who, when, etc. a photo was taken. Especially when many were obtained
during the days of DOS and 8.3 filename formats.

That's another "someday" project, renaming them with first/middle/last
name and date. (Big sigh...)





I think it would be a good idea to put the year first. That means
you easily
can sort pictures of an individual i cronological order.
Besides albums, I have the unfortune to have my fathers negatives. And
that means at least 10000 negatives. To identify the valuable
pictures is
somewhat a nightmare. I have to scan them, number the negatives, and
then identifying the persons (if any) on the pictures and put that
information
in a database.
Needless to say, I won´t be able to do all of them.




That sounds like a job for a super computer, Kurt. YYYY first is a
good idea with the Windows 64.64 file naming ability. I doubt I'll
ever go back to DOS in the future. And I'm complaining about a
measly 300 someodd images, what a piker!



I'm not a fan of 64.64 file names (g)

But, you might want to search the group archives -- as I recall past
discussions on this, every system going has a significant drawback
(much like genie programs?) and you have to pick your poison.

"1994 Aunt Dot and Uncle Fred at Reunion in Augusta.photo 74" may be a
descriptive file name, but outside WinExplorer, what're the chances
you'll be able to find ALL the pictures of Uncle Fred, or ALL the
pictures from Reunion in Augusta?

Meanwhile "Uncle Fred 1994 Reunion Augusta.photo 74" + "Aunt Dot 1994
Reunion Augusta.photo 74" + "Reunion Augusta 1994.photo xxx" + "1994
Aunt Dot and Uncle Fred at Reunion in Augusta.photo 74" + "Photo xxx
1994 Reunion Augusta." seems like overkill. (g)

Cheryl

Especially overkill when you can't get PSP or even IfranView to open a
file that doesn't have a JPG, etc., extension. My example of 64.64 was
a poor one and should have said 64.3. But some smart alec would have
jumped on me about that saying "the extension can be 64 bytes too.
Some days you can't win for losing.

Of course I'm being a smart alec even broaching the subject to you. I
know you didn't mean *exact* what you said and ignoring the JPG problem.

'Sokay, we're friens. (g)

C