What I really want to ask about is workflow.

What do you do with your pictures, and how?

Here's what I do (currently), but it really needs some fixing:

1) Take pictures 2) Import pictures to Mac into folder named after current date, inside folder called "imported" 3) Burn said folder (the date one) to CD-R for backup of "digital negatives" 4) Open new folder in Adobe Bridge, and rate images (one star means "no good, delete, this is awful" and other ratings going up, etc) 5) Open top-rated photos one at a time in Photoshop and color-correct, or play with them further (if I am feeling especially creatively inspired) 6) Save PSD of image into another folder in Pictures folder named after current date 7) Save JPEG of image into same date folder inside Pictures folder 8) After done with all pictures, import JPEG files into iPhoto and place in appropriate albums, etc 9) Export new photos from iPhoto into Flickr

As you can see, there's something missing from this workflow - mostly the organization of the files. The steps I take are all fine (although there's some batching I could probably do in the Photoshop stages, but that's not my main concern right now).

I keep the iPhoto step in there for several reasons: first, I like the Flickr export tool better than the Uploadr. Secondly, there are quite a few things I do on my Mac that tie into iPhoto, so I want my "good" pictures in there. Third, your mom.

What I really want to hear about is how you guys organize your actual files, etc.

I used to be really, really organized. Then, I got a new computer and transferred photos from three different hard drives onto the new one. Plus, I got married, and a bunch of friends got married, and my SIL had a baby, and the resulting photo explosion threw everything out of whack.

Generally, I keep things in general categories. For example, I'll have a "dance" folder, a "youth" one for photos of me through high school, a "college" one, and so forth. Then, each folder would be broken down into sub-folders, such as by event or by local venue in the dance folder. Currently, I suspect that I have multiple copies of the same images scattered throughout "My Pictures" and I really should sort and categorize. Also, if I have a ton of photos from an event, such as SoFLeX, I'll try to do a batch rename, so that they are labeled "SoFleX 2005 001" "SoFLeX 2005 002" and so forth. I have the "to be sorted" folder happening too, and at least that gives me a place to look for newish photos.

I'm not so good with the whole backup thing, but I've shared so many of my photos with friends and family that I could probably recover a good percentage of them if anything ever happened to my current computer. That bad habit will need to change if/when I ever start doing stuff for paying customers other than my SIL. Of course, that would require organizing the office, and that's a whole 'nother thread.

Of course, I'm a folder whore, and Mugsy's a label slut, so I doubt the same organizing scheme would work for both of us. :D

I guess I left that part out - I tag my imported images with keywords in Bridge. And those keywords transfer over to the PSD files as well, which is pretty cool.

FYI Mugsy - Everything I've ever heard about bridge says it's a slow program to use for things like tagging and organizing images.

I'm still on Photoshop CS so I don't have bridge.

Well, thanks to my mother (a professional photographer and my photoshop mentor) and Frankyboy (believe it or not, he's actually useful at times) this is my method.

First a caveat - I'm not a keeper, if the photo sucks, it's gone; I have no need to keep bad digitial images (either poor composition, poor subject, or would require serious photoshopping to bring up to quality).

I upload all the photos into a folder containing a description and date of the event (S.F. 11/05, Cindy's B-day 12/05, etc.). Before doing any editing, I give all the photos a title (generic, such as CA trip 001, CA trip 002). It makes it easier for me to know which photo I'm working on because often I take mulitple photos of the same subject

When an item is edited, I first save a copy as a PSD (per Frankyboy). I also amend the title of the photo to "title(2)" to indicate that it is a copy.

Once I'm done editing, I save a copy as a JPEG, as well as TIFF (per my mother, because JPEG lose information, or something to that effect).

All PSD files go into a single folder. JPEG and TIFF (all titles appended with (2) indicating they are not the original) go back into the folder where the original is housed. (So I wind up with four versions of the picture: the origianl, a PSD, an edited JPeG and an edited TIFF; all but the PSD file are in the same folder, grouped by subject/event).

I keep JPEGs because I do use Snapfish for sharing photos and they don't recognize TIFFs. Flickr alllows TIFFs, so I upload TIFFs to Flickr.

I also keep a few generic files such as "cats," "Arthur and Dana," and "misc," to make it easier to locate pictures of a specific topic.

Ok, I'm sure none of that made sense as I'm not particularly up on the lingo. (I could show you what I do, but it's hard to describe it in a post).

If you're not doing it already, RubyMae, you can really easily automate your multiple saves - that is, have a little photoshop script that saves both your JPEG and TIFF automatically at once, rather than having to do all the manual saves.

Also, I picked up this book the other day, and it's been REALLY helpful. It's about CS2, but there's not too much in the book that doesn't also work in CS.

Quoted from "RubyMae"
Flickr alllows TIFFs, so I upload TIFFs to Flickr.

...which are then converted to JPEG by Flickr.

Flickr only serves up JPEG, GIF, and PNG. So if the Uploadr is letting you upload TIFF, it's converting them to JPEG.

Plus, looking at the photos in your photostream, they're all low-resolution JPEG.

Quoted from "Marcelo"
I would love to tag, keyword, all my photos and organize them well. The problem is I already have a few thousand photos already taken over the years and untagged. Tips?

Make an Automator Application?

Not sure if you can tag each one individually, but at the very least you can group stuff by using Spotlight comments.

(Not that this is something I've done, but I've been recently thinking about this very subject with my old photos.)

RubyMae, I don't see a need to save your files as .psd, .tiff, and .jpg. If you're worried about file degradation, then just go back to the .psd file whenever you want to make changes, and then crop and save a .jpg for printing or posting or whatever. In PS CS (I'm not sure if this works in Elements, or if I just never bothered trying) you can crop a psd file with the layers intact, and you can then save it as a jpg without flattening/merging the layers first.

As for printing, I crop at whatever size I want, at 300dpi and save as a level 10 jpg. From what I've read/heard, a level 12 quality (the highest possible) will just make your filesize larger, but you won't see any difference in print quality. That 16"x20" I had printed of my dad's van looks wonderful.

Nowadays, the only time I use anything other than .psd or .jpg is .gif if I want the background to be invisible/transparent or whatever the term is, which .jpg doesn't support.

There's no advantage to using TIFF at all unless you're using an outboard RAW converter (like Capture One) on your way to Photoshop.

As for high-res prints, the L10 JPEG takes up far less space, transmits faster, and loads quicker than TIFF.

My point was that I don't see a need to ever use tiff. A high-level jpg will print just fine.

OK, so I tried the "PSD-into-iPhoto-to-Flickr" change, and that seems to help.

Bridge is slow and clunky, and I'd just as soon not use it. But I don't want all my pictures in iPhoto; just the "final" ones. I suppose I could just pick and choose from the Finder. Which is probably what I'll go back to doing.

Quoted from "tonibduguid"
Nowadays, the only time I use anything other than .psd or .jpg is .gif if I want the background to be invisible/transparent or whatever the term is, which .jpg doesn't support.

JPG and GIF have take very different approaches to compression. As a general rule, if your image is a photograph with lot's of colors and variations, then it's best to save as a JPG. If your image is more of a drawing, and has very few colors, then it is better to save as a GIF.

JPG is a form of "lossy" compression. It tends to change the actual images. With GIF, you can often dramatically reduce file size, and lose no image integrity.

These are general rules, and not absolutes. A functional understanding of how both JPG compression works, and how color palettes work will help you make the best decision on a case by case basis.

Quoted from "tonibduguid"
Nowadays, the only time I use anything other than .psd or .jpg is .gif if I want the background to be invisible/transparent or whatever the term is, which .jpg doesn't support.

You should consider .png as well. A superior alternative to GIF.