PicaJet User Forum

[Ascaaear]

I used PicaJet for a little while, but I never actually get the hand on how to use categories. You use a lot of time organizing pictures into categories, and maybe you wonder if this these categories you choose to use are the most effective.

So I thought we could share our experiance with using cathegories.

What I do now is i have 2 main categories:

Internal pictures - my own pictures, images from my friends
External pictures - other pictures (like backgrounds, images from sites etc)

So here are the rest of my hiarchy:

Friends
---Fred
---Charles
...

Events
---Birthdayparty - George
---Trip Spring 2005
...

Flora
---Flowers
---Mushrom

People
---Familymembers
...

"Friends" are images I received from others I know
"Events" are groups of images with special occations or events
"Flora" are different kinds of images from nature
"People" are of people, so I can find all images with only "familymembers".

The sub-categoris are always growing, espacially in the "event" category.


So how do other categorize theyr pictures.

[Gomf1977]

Hi Ascaaear,

that´s funny, i´ve nearly the same way to categorize my pictures. What I don´t have is a difference between pictures which others made and pictures which i have shot, because 99% of the pictures are made by myself.

When you write the metadate in the picture files, all the categories are written in the keywords of IPTC.
I´am wondering at first, when i see this, but it works to reimport the pictures and the categories are re-created from the keywords.
First i thought the categories must be written in the IPTC addtional cateogries...

Cheers
Martin

[Mojzi]

Hi,

I write every data in EXIF & IPTC so these data always stay in the file and not depend on the viewer/cataloger software.

I only catalog pictures what I have taken, or pictures taken on an an event where I also participated or (rarely) pictures of my friends. I don't catalog every pictures downloaded from the net.
This is my workflow:
1. I upload files from the camera
2. Create a backup of them, if I want to return to them later. This files go to a DVD and I probably never see them again, but who knows?
3. Select the ones I want to keep, delete the others
4. Enhance them (color, brightness, white balance, red eye, etc)
5. Sort them to folders: 'date - event description'
6. Fill in metadata using Exifer
- IPTC Location: Where a picture was taken (Country, City)
- EXIF Description: e.g. 'Joe in the fountain'
- IPTC keywords: This is the most important part. My rules:
-- Since PicaJet does not support IPTC Location as keyword, I also write the city here
-- I write here the names of people who are on the picture. 'full name (nickname)'
-- I have some fixed keywords I use on the pictures, e.g. party, basketball, nature, building ...
7. Rename picture and set the file dates according to the EXIF dates. (Exifer) File name: 'original name - EXIF description' e.g. 'DSCN2345 - Joe in the fountain.jpg'
I leave the original name because if I have to go back to the backup, there is only this name.

I know it's a very complicated method, but will worth, when I want to find a picture 20 years after.
I work for the future.