The other day, I was talking about organizing libraries of original photos. Today, it’s about the good photos—the photos I print.
- 1. Editing a Bit at a Time—I keep a folder of photos that need to be edited on my desktop at all times. This way if I have the inspiration and the time, I can quickly edit a batch. I usually edit one event at a time so I can keep track of the photos, and almost ‘preplan’ the layout in my head. I know how my style works. 1-page layouts will have 1-3 photos (using 1 or 2 7×5s) and 2-page layouts will have 7 or so photos (using 2 or 3 7×5s), so I tend to keep this in mind when I do my editing. Let your personal style dictate how you select your photos. I usually pull far more photos than I will actually print, but I find it easier to select the ‘finals’ in PhotoShop because I can see large versions side by side.
- 2. Classifying Photos—When I edit them (which can be as simple as just cropping them), I save them with their original image name, and a size suffix. Each size I regularily print has a letter code. 6×4 = a, 7×5 = b, 9×6 = c, 10×8 = d, 12×10 = e. Therefore if my original file was IMG_9876.jpg and was cropped to 7×5, then it’s new name is IMG_9876b.jpg. This means I know which photo is the original, should I ever need to dig it out of the archives. This also means I know what size I plan to print it.
- 3. Archiving the Good Photos—Once the photos are edited, I make a single folder for that event (I make a folder for each event, but you could do this by month, as well). All the edited photos and any .psd files I want to keep go into this folder (I only keep .psd files for photos I’ve done a fair amount of editing to, not everyone of them). I burn these folders of ‘Printed Photos’ to CDs in batches, generally in chronological order. By doing so, it means that I have an extra back up of all my good photos, should anything happen to my library archives. (This saved my hide once, so I think it’s good practice. I may have lost 25,000 photos when my backups went belly up, but I still had all my GOOD photos archived separately.)
- 4. Holding for Print—I then copy the edited photos into a “To Print” folder on my desktop. This folder has a seperate folder within it for each of the sizes I regularly print. I separate the photos into their respective folders by size (using the size suffix makes this nice and easy). Once a month or so, I will take my photos to the photo lab to be printed, although this system could work just as well if you just printed what you needed when you wanted them. Personally, however, I take upwards of 40,000 photos a year, and have several hundred photos printed a month, so I find taking them to the lab easier and more cost effective. Once printed, I simply delete them off my desktop.