Organising your Mac photos

[Sahara]

This is a kind of silly question but I'm sure I'm not the only one with hundreds of Mac photos in a giant mess on her hard-drive!

I've tried numerous times to put manners on them all and organise them by band member, by era, by whether they're from live concerts or studio sessions, but I end up with a mass of folders with overlapping files and dozens of photos that don't fit the system (not to mention ones I can't date), and I need to go and have a bit of a lie-down.

So, how do you keep your collection under control? I'd particularly love to hear suggestions from SortaSavageLike, Sanne2 and holidayroad, whose collections are enormous and always a joy Any advice would be very much appreciated!


Mods: I put this thread in the Stevie forum because lots of photos are shared here. If it belongs in Chit Chat, please go ahead and move it there

[vermicious knid]

My Stevie pictures folder is 85.4 MB. I have gif files separated, and magazine covers also have their own folder.

Other than that, I just try to keep them organized by naming them according to some distinguishing characteristic. Like, whenever she is wearing a beret, I begin the file name with that word.

[Sanne2]

I organized everything by era with sub-folders.
The folder for each era opens with live (colour)pictures and has four sub-folders: live b& w pics, photoshoots, and candids. Very often the "candids" folder also has sub-folders, if there are a whole lot of pics from one occassion, for instance the Hollywood Star ceremony from 1979, the Rock 'N Run concert in 1983 or the awardshows from 1977 all have their own folder.
Most pictures in the candids and photoshoot sub-forums are labeled as, for instance, "set1-pic 1", or "set4 -pic 8", pics from the same photoshoot are organized like that as well as candid pictures that "belong together". I put extra info in the comment (like photographer, or event, or who she's photographed with).
All the main folders are for pics that include Stevie. I have another folder that's labelled "Fleetwood Mac" with subfolders for the pictures of the other members sans Stevie. There's also a large "unsorted" folder for everything that hasn't found it's right folder yet.
I hope this makes sense. It takes a lot of time to organize a large number of pics but it really helps you to easily find a certain pic, or to check if a pic is already somewhere in your folders. I currently have 14.840 pictures organized in a total of 160 folders.
I find organizing my pics strangely relaxing.

[Sahara]

Originally Posted by Sanne2

I organized everything by era with sub-folders.
The folder for each era opens with live (colour)pictures and has four sub-folders: live b& w pics, photoshoots, and candids. Very often the "candids" folder also has sub-folders, if there are a whole lot of pics from one occassion, for instance the Hollywood Star ceremony from 1979, the Rock 'N Run concert in 1983 or the awardshows from 1977 all have their own folder.
Most pictures in the candids and photoshoot sub-forums are labeled as, for instance, "set1-pic 1", or "set4 -pic 8", pics from the same photoshoot are organized like that as well as candid pictures that "belong together". I put extra info in the comment (like photographer, or event, or who she's photographed with).
All the main folders are for pics that include Stevie. I have another folder that's labelled "Fleetwood Mac" with subfolders for the pictures of the other members sans Stevie. There's also a large "unsorted" folder for everything that hasn't found it's right folder yet.
I hope this makes sense. It takes a lot of time to organize a large number of pics but it really helps you to easily find a certain pic, or to check if a pic is already somewhere in your folders. I currently have 14.840 pictures organized in a total of 160 folders.
I find organizing my pics strangely relaxing.

This is helpful, thank you!
My main problem comes from separating eras that overlap between the Mac and solo ventures. For instance, I find it hard to distinguish Lindsey's Law and Order pics from his Mirage pics, or Stevie's Enchanted pics from her Dance pics. Sometimes even Bella Donna and Wild Heart get me mixed up. Maybe the answer is to organise by blocks, e.g. 1981-1983 for different members? How do you get around this?

[Sanne2]

Originally Posted by Sahara

This is helpful, thank you!
My main problem comes from separating eras that overlap between the Mac and solo ventures. For instance, I find it hard to distinguish Lindsey's Law and Order pics from his Mirage pics, or Stevie's Enchanted pics from her Dance pics. Sometimes even Bella Donna and Wild Heart get me mixed up. Maybe the answer is to organise by blocks, e.g. 1981-1983 for different members? How do you get around this?

Lindsey (and Christine) folders are organized by 70's, 80's, 90's and 00's (with sub-folders for live, candid and photoshoot pics), much easier that way, it saves you the trouble of seperating Law and Order pics from Mirage.
I personally don't have much trouble identifiying Stevies pictures (altough I used to have some trouble with the '88-'91 years). When you organize everything by album/era you also learn to recognize a Wild Heart pic, and you can even tell if it's early in the tour or later, you recognize the hair, shawls, band members and stage. I must admit everything post-The Dance is a bit more difficult because of her damn hair :P If you have questions about pictures just start a thread or pm me!

[holidayroad]

I put mine in sub-folders. I have two seperate folders for Lindsey's pics. One folder has pictures I've already posted. I have those grouped by year. Another has pictures that I intend to post at some time. I have 4 folders for Fleetwood Mac. Two folders have pics that have all members in the photo according to era (5 for Rumours era, 4 for SYW era, etc) and 2 have pics with a member or two missing (such as a pic of LB and SN or SN and CM together). Again, these are one folder for pics I have posted, another for pics I will post in the future.

[vivfox]

Originally Posted by Sahara

Sometimes even Bella Donna and Wild Heart get me mixed up.

Stevie used the square microphone on the Bella Donna Tour but not on The Wild Heart Tour.

How about organizing one's room!!!???? Need tips on collection display and proper storage. I've decided to try to do the articles and paraphenalia by decade, but wish I could display things more professionally. It's also hard to find the right storage containers to do it justice.