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Has anyone found a solution for sorting and tagging images most efficiently? I have a one-year-old daughter and need to do it already. Main goals: - Tags like

Has anyone found a solution for sorting and tagging images most efficiently? I have a one-year-old daughter and need to do it already. Main goals: - Tags like "2019", "3 weeks", "first step" etc - I also take 3-4 pictures right one after another and would like to keep the best and delete the others - Best of pictures.. choose a couple of pictures to summarize an event/vacations I looked at different software but didn't find anything satisfying my needs. Maybe adding the tags in the metadata would be the best options so they are not software dependent?

mceachen 7y ago
When you add tags, make sure you do it to the file (or a sidecar). Don't store it in a proprietary library format, because failed photo software is so common now as to be cliche, and you'll lose all that work. PhotoStructure[1] works like this: it reads from the keywords and tags added to either files directly or to sidecars. [1] https://blog.photostructure.com/introducing-photostructure/ https://blog.photostructure.com/introducing-photostructure/
- patatino 7y ago
  looks interesting. "PhotoStructure tags all your photos and videos automatically with paths, like When/2019/January, and Camera/Apple/iPhone XS, and Where/France/Paris/Musée d'Orsay." Is this a standard way to save tags with a path? Or just the way your software does it?
  - mceachen 7y ago
    Those hierarchical tags are actually automatically applied by PhotoStructure based on metadata your phone or camera stores. If you add keywords, like "first step" to a photo (by using the Windows file information dialog, for example), PhotoStructure would add "Keywords/first step" to that asset. Most keywords I've seen in the wild are just a word or words, much like a hashtag, separated by comma or semicolon. There are hierarchical metadata fields, but they seem to be used only by professional media services, not consumer applications.
brudgers 7y ago
Naming files by date solves the "2019" problem. It helps with the "three weeks" problem...just some math in the head. My advice is don't delete pictures. At the base level it's work and everyone is fallible. Photographically, the reason is that your opinion about better and worse photographs will evolve over time. You will learn from your mistakes. But you can't learn from the mistake of mistakenly deleting and image. Just file everything. All things being equal, tags are beneficial. But time spent getting good at tagging comes at the expense of time spent getting better at making better pictures. In terms of tagging, give yourself years to get better at it. Five years from now, going back and sorting through pictures of your child won't be a horrible chore. It will be a joy. I strongly recommend getting a printer and printing your best pictures. Printing will help you take better pictures. And even mediocre prints are better than anything on a screen.
- mceachen 7y ago
  No commercial ties to them, but if you're in the US, Costco does prints that are cheap, and (as a former digital pre-press nerd, I can attest to) reasonably accurate color reproduction. The nice 7-color inkjet I've got under my desk has been unused for years and years. Good riddance to fiddling with that ink-sucking, nozzle-coughing, fiddly beast.
  - brudgers 7y ago
    I tried the Costco route for exactly the reasons you mention. The technical qualities of the prints are better than what my inkjet produces. But in terms of what I am looking for, my inkjet produces prints I prefer because rapid feedback lets me iterate the image editing and my goals are orthogonal to prepress values. These days, most photographic tools are oriented toward prepress because there is real money in B2B. I don't really care that much about accurate color reproduction between the real world and the print. I care about predictable correlation between what's on my screen and the print. I'm not aghast that tungsten lights produce warm images (thogh sometimes fluorescent lights are a problem). Like you I forswore printers. Casual printing would often be a multi-hour or multi-day process because the printer demanded a new cartridge. And two days or two weeks later I would go to print and it would demand another. About a year and a half ago, I broke down and bought a Canon Pro 100. After the gift card it was $99 and came with 50 13x19 sheets. I print frequently enough that I don't get clogged nozzles. I generally print 4x6. The paper is cheap. It uses less ink. The prints don't take much space. A few months ago, I switched to third party ink. It might not be as good as the OEM. Refilling is more fiddly than disposable cartridges, but it's way more under my control: no trip to the camera store or waiting for UPS. There's a guy on Youtube. Costco printing made me see the value of printing. But in terms of what I do, it's like outsourcing to the lab back in the film days. The printer in my office is like having my own darkroom. But faster, cheaper, and easier. I can print iteratively at 10pm Sunday and into a Monday morning. I'm thinking about adding a dye-sublimation printer: Canon Selphy. No fiddly bits, portable, and can run off battery. Somewhat like a Polaroid in terms of producing quick prints in the field. It costs out to around $0.30/4x6 print. Cheaper than a B&W 120 negative.
amerkhalid 7y ago
I loved using Lightroom for photos organization but lately I am just too lazy to organize photos. With LR6, you can add tags during import. Then you can use keyboard shortcuts like letter P to pick and X to reject photos. This makes culling and choosing best photos very fast. There is also a VS mode where you can compare 2 photos side by side and pick one, then it compares it with next photo. Then you can rate each photo by press number 1-5. I rarely did this.

mceachen 7y ago

When you add tags, make sure you do it to the file (or a sidecar). Don't store it in a proprietary library format, because failed photo software is so common now as to be cliche, and you'll lose all that work. PhotoStructure[1] works like this: it reads from the keywords and tags added to either files directly or to sidecars. [1] https://blog.photostructure.com/introducing-photostructure/ https://blog.photostructure.com/introducing-photostructure/

patatino 7y ago
looks interesting. "PhotoStructure tags all your photos and videos automatically with paths, like When/2019/January, and Camera/Apple/iPhone XS, and Where/France/Paris/Musée d'Orsay." Is this a standard way to save tags with a path? Or just the way your software does it?
- mceachen 7y ago
  Those hierarchical tags are actually automatically applied by PhotoStructure based on metadata your phone or camera stores. If you add keywords, like "first step" to a photo (by using the Windows file information dialog, for example), PhotoStructure would add "Keywords/first step" to that asset. Most keywords I've seen in the wild are just a word or words, much like a hashtag, separated by comma or semicolon. There are hierarchical metadata fields, but they seem to be used only by professional media services, not consumer applications.

brudgers 7y ago

Naming files by date solves the "2019" problem. It helps with the "three weeks" problem...just some math in the head. My advice is don't delete pictures. At the base level it's work and everyone is fallible. Photographically, the reason is that your opinion about better and worse photographs will evolve over time. You will learn from your mistakes. But you can't learn from the mistake of mistakenly deleting and image. Just file everything. All things being equal, tags are beneficial. But time spent getting good at tagging comes at the expense of time spent getting better at making better pictures. In terms of tagging, give yourself years to get better at it. Five years from now, going back and sorting through pictures of your child won't be a horrible chore. It will be a joy. I strongly recommend getting a printer and printing your best pictures. Printing will help you take better pictures. And even mediocre prints are better than anything on a screen.

mceachen 7y ago
No commercial ties to them, but if you're in the US, Costco does prints that are cheap, and (as a former digital pre-press nerd, I can attest to) reasonably accurate color reproduction. The nice 7-color inkjet I've got under my desk has been unused for years and years. Good riddance to fiddling with that ink-sucking, nozzle-coughing, fiddly beast.
- brudgers 7y ago
  I tried the Costco route for exactly the reasons you mention. The technical qualities of the prints are better than what my inkjet produces. But in terms of what I am looking for, my inkjet produces prints I prefer because rapid feedback lets me iterate the image editing and my goals are orthogonal to prepress values. These days, most photographic tools are oriented toward prepress because there is real money in B2B. I don't really care that much about accurate color reproduction between the real world and the print. I care about predictable correlation between what's on my screen and the print. I'm not aghast that tungsten lights produce warm images (thogh sometimes fluorescent lights are a problem). Like you I forswore printers. Casual printing would often be a multi-hour or multi-day process because the printer demanded a new cartridge. And two days or two weeks later I would go to print and it would demand another. About a year and a half ago, I broke down and bought a Canon Pro 100. After the gift card it was $99 and came with 50 13x19 sheets. I print frequently enough that I don't get clogged nozzles. I generally print 4x6. The paper is cheap. It uses less ink. The prints don't take much space. A few months ago, I switched to third party ink. It might not be as good as the OEM. Refilling is more fiddly than disposable cartridges, but it's way more under my control: no trip to the camera store or waiting for UPS. There's a guy on Youtube. Costco printing made me see the value of printing. But in terms of what I do, it's like outsourcing to the lab back in the film days. The printer in my office is like having my own darkroom. But faster, cheaper, and easier. I can print iteratively at 10pm Sunday and into a Monday morning. I'm thinking about adding a dye-sublimation printer: Canon Selphy. No fiddly bits, portable, and can run off battery. Somewhat like a Polaroid in terms of producing quick prints in the field. It costs out to around $0.30/4x6 print. Cheaper than a B&W 120 negative.

amerkhalid 7y ago

I loved using Lightroom for photos organization but lately I am just too lazy to organize photos. With LR6, you can add tags during import. Then you can use keyboard shortcuts like letter P to pick and X to reject photos. This makes culling and choosing best photos very fast. There is also a VS mode where you can compare 2 photos side by side and pick one, then it compares it with next photo. Then you can rate each photo by press number 1-5. I rarely did this.