Saving Your Images

One of the greatest challenges in the digital world of photography is managing all your images. Here are a few tips.

Shoot Raw

Always shoot in raw. Raw images contain the image data plus image information such as shutter speed, aperture settings, and ISO. Jpegs files only contain image data. Also, raw files have more image data than a Jpeg. Raw files allow expanded image manipulation techniques. I never shoot Raw and Jpeg images at the same time. I only shoot raw images. When I have raw and jpeg images in the same folder it is too confusing.

One Event, One Folder

Import your images into a single folder for that collection of images. Don’t mix image from multiple in events into the same folder. If you do you will end up with big mess.

Name the Folder

Name the folder with a date and descriptive name. For example “20120214_Valentines Party” Start your folder name with the four digit year followed by two digit month and day and then the title. This will help you sort your images by year, month, and day. If you don’t do this you will have a mess. I know I have tried it.

Name the Images

Name the image files with the same naming convention and a sequential number after the descriptive name. For example “20120214_Valentines Party.nef.” Depending on your camera your raw file will have a different file extension (suffix). Nikon uses .nef. Canon uses CRW or CR2.

Final Thought

This technique of folder creation and folder naming has made my life a lot easier. If you have any questions about these four steps please call, email, or contact me on Facebook. To get my contact information please go to my website.