I am a really sentimental person and I know I would be gutted if I ever lost any of my precious photos. So, I have developed (what I consider) an efficient workflow and it works for me. However, I constantly see others who don’t have any sort of workflow and then get upset when they lose photos or can’t find them on their computer, etc.

When I say workflow, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s related to work, I am also talking about personal photos.

If your photos are important to you, I’d say taking simple measures and precautions would be wise.

Now I’m by no means the most organized person but I’m pretty meticulous when it comes to organizing my precious photos. These methods may not be the most efficient or may not work for you, but they work for me so I thought I’d share them. This guide is primarily mac-based though.

1. Set the clock

First things first – set the clock on your camera! I don’t know how many times I’ve used someone else’s camera, or downloaded someone else’s photos onto my computer to discover the photos were taken in 1999 when they were actually taken yesterday. What the-? How will you ever find your photos if the date (or time) is inaccurate?

If you have two or more cameras, sync their time so they match up.

While you’re at it, make sure the clock on your computer is set accurately too.

2. Take the photos

duh… no explanation necessary

3. Use a card reader

I would advise against using a USB cable to transfer your photos to your computer. Why? We all know how much digital cameras drain batteries and by doing so you are using and wearing down your battery even more. Not to mention it is slow, slow slow. Also, it means you cannot use your camera whilst you are doing this. Get a card reader pronto. You can find them cheaply on eBay. You can thank me for it later. It is quicker, easier, and erm better. I have a small SD card reader (a little beauty I got in Japan) which also doubles as a thumb drive. Yay for double usage! My previous one was a “21 in 1″ card reader which read all the different formats – CF, SD, XD, Sony Memory Stick, etc.

4. Charge up the battery

Whilst the card reader is doing the work, take this time to charge up the battery so it’s ready to go for next time.

5. Folders naming convention

Where do you put the pics? Do you have organized folders? I create folders with the name like this “yymmdd – subject (names) (place)”.

I use the Asian date format, that is ‘year-month-date’ as that’s the way to keep the folders in chronological order.

Once I’ve created the folder I transfer the photos from the card reader across to my hard drive.

Remember: Once you have copied all the photos over, delete them from the card so it can be re-used again, then eject it from the card reader, and put it straight back into your camera.

Please, do not store photos in your camera (or in your phone) unless they are backed-up on your computer as well! I have seen many people with photos that are more than a year old sitting in their camera or phone. I could never do that (not to mention my card would be filled long before that time period was up). How would you feel if you lost that camera or phone and lost over a year’s worth of photos? Yikes! Prevention is better than cure, people. Back up your photos!

6. To iPhoto or not?

On my previous mac I automatically dumped every single photo into iPhoto. Bad bad mistake! I ended up with 16,000+ photos in it and it would barely load and almost crash my computer.

I now use iPhoto Buddy and it has been a lifesaver. You create folders and only load the folder that you actually need. Say you had folders or events called ‘birthday party’, ‘christmas’, ‘vacation’ and ‘work conference’. With iPhoto, it’ll load all of them (not so bad if you only have 4 but a nightmare if you had 400) but with iPhoto Buddy it’ll only load the one that you select so instead of opening 16,000 photos I will only be opening 100 or 200 or whatever.

I’m sure Windows has an equivalent program to iPhoto, or you can use Picasa.

7. Putting photos into iPhoto (or equivalent)

Even with iPhoto Buddy I still don’t put every single photo in there. It’s just a waste of resources. What I do is, I open all the photos from a particular event in Preview. I’ve put Preview in my dock so I just drag the files over the icon which forces them to load in that program.

Then, I go through them all and choose the good ones to put either in iPhoto or Lightroom (I use Lightroom 2 to edit RAW/CRW files, for professional photos).

8. Photoshop

I actually rarely use Photoshop to edit photos. Batch editing is much much easier in iPhoto or Lightroom. However, Photoshop is great for editing single photos. And for doing super tricky stuff that involves layers, alpha channels, blending modes, actions, filters and whatnot. On the rare occasion I need to use it, I’ll open the photo up in Photoshop. Since I’ve created my easy-to-find-stuff folders, I should have no trouble finding the exact photo I want to edit in Photoshop (if I don’t/can’t see it in iPhoto/Lightroom).

9. Back up

Nothing is foolproof in life so additionally you should also back-up your photos. I use Apple’s Time Machine program to effortlessly back up all the files from my entire hard drive onto my external hard drive. You can also use burnt DVDs stored off-site. Photoshop Lightroom has its own backing up system which is quick and easy.

Finally

That’s pretty much it! Don’t forget to put the battery back into your camera once it’s done charging so next time you’re heading out, your camera ready and raring to go! No more dead batteries or full memory cards excuses.

Also, when I’m doing professional shoots, or travelling I always carry a spare battery and memory card as one or both is sure to die on me. It doesn’t hurt to carry a spare anyway, since they are small and light.

Have fun and happy shooting!