If your photos are organized to perfection, with a dedicated structure that you conform to religiously, never losing a photo and always being able to find every image within moments of thinking about it… just stop reading now. Seriously, I mean, who does that?! Sure we all think we do… or wish we did… or pretend that we do… but most of us aren’t that dedicated.

If you are, congratulations. In fact, even if you’re not perfect about it, but you do a good job of managing photos in Adobe Lightroom or Capture One or Apple Photos, then there may not be much for you here. This article is written for those who’ve yet to get organized. The photographer who has hundreds, or thousands, or tens of thousands of photos on their hard drive, “organized” in some way that almost sort of makes sense but not really, and “oh yeah I’ll get to that soon, like… when I retire”.

When it comes to getting your photos organized, there are two steps

1. Come up with a system that works for you.
2. Stick to that system.

Sounds easy… but we know it isn’t. So in this article I’ll outline some ideas that might help you find a system that works for you. Part of the challenge is that there is no one single way. There is no right way, and some methodologies that make perfect sense for one photographer may make zero sense for another. It goes beyond what type of photography you do, too. You have to consider the way you mentally think about and remember your photos, the way you want to find them later on. These are all components that make this a very personal journey, and ultimately a very personal system. So I can’t tell you the “right” or “best” way to do this. I can only share methods and ideas that I’ve learned over the years, then it’s up to you to adopt or adapt to a system that’s right for you.

With all that said, let’s get into the very basics. Here are the most important things to consider — file naming, and folder structure. (post continued on DxO's Blog; link below…)

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