Brandon Holden Photography

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What to do with all those digital pictures?

While out in the field, one of the most frequent casual questions I encounter is how to deal with the thousands of digital pictures a wildlife photographer can accumulate in a short period of time. This question sometimes comes from a non-photographer, however often comes from people planning to start, or just starting to become involved in digital photography.

 

“I have 1000 pictures taken this month, but how do I find that one favourite image of a Common Loon quickly?”

 

This is justs a note about what I do with my images, and not a researched article. I have not tried and tested the dozens of possibilities a person can use store and organize digital pictures or explored the various programs that are available to the public. This is just my personal method for photo storage.

 

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A lot of hard work (or a lucky break) has resulted in you getting close to a photogenic and cooperative subject while out in the field. A recent example of this for me, was finding a Northern Saw-whet Owl that was the most “in the open” of any I had seen. I was able to get an almost clear shot of the bird, and because they do not easily flush, I was able to take many dozens of pictures in order to make sure I achieved the results I wanted.

 

Upon returning home, I download the images onto my computer and arrive at an all too familiar situation. I now have close to 100 images of this same bird, sitting on the same branch. What am I going to do with them all?

A screen shot of the Saw-whet Owl images

The first step in my photo storage system is to decide which pictures to actually keep, and which to discard. I would probably be able to turn the 100 images of the owl, down to 10 or less (for this situation). How you decide which images to keep is up to you, however I often look for images with the best colour, sharpness, exposure as well as the best of a few different compositions.

 

Deleting images largely depends on the situation. If you have 30 images of a bird in flight (with different postures/composition for each) then they each might have distinctive qualities. This would be a situation where you might keep a high percentage of those images. If you have 30 pictures of the same bird on the same branch in the same posture, you should be able to delete a few more. Each way, make sure you keep a few images of each of the best postures and compositions.

 

Now that you know which images you want to keep, what do you actually do with them? My photo storage system is as simple as it gets, and is also easy to create. I simply use the folder system that is a part of every windows operating system. I start with one folder on my desktop called “My Pictures” and everything is inside that one folder. In order to show how it works, I will continue to use the example of the Northern Saw-whet Owl images.

 

Inside the “My Pictures” folder, I would have a folder called “Bird Pictures”.

 

To break it down further, I have folders that are named for many of the large families of birds (eg, Warblers, Shorebirds, Owls). The Owls folder would be the one I want, so I can click and open that folder.

 

A sceen shot of my "Bird Pictures" Folder with "Owls" highlighted.

 

Now inside the Owls folder, I find the list of owl species I have photographed. I click the Northern Saw-whet Owl folder, and inside there I can store the original files of my Northern Saw-whet Owl pictures. Now if I need to find the images again in the future, I can quickly follow my folder system to find those pictures!

 

The "Owls" folder opens to the individual species, with the "Saw whet" folder highlighted.

 

Sometimes I find that I still end up with too many images of a single species for quick access (often with gulls). I solve this problem by separating them by year (so Glaucous Gull opens to 2005, 2006, 2007) And then I can find the images by species as well as date. In a few cases, I break it down even farther, separating the gulls by age. However I find I have not had to do this for any other family of birds.

An example of more complex storage. "Bird Pictures" leads to "Gulls, Jaegers, Terns" leads to "Large Gulls" to "Great Black-backed Gull" to images from "2000-2005" to "2nd Winter" aged birds.
You can create any systen that works for you and allows you to easily find your images.

 

How you arrange the folders is up to you. I have the family groups listed in taxonomical order, and then inside there the individual species folders are often in alphabetical order. This system is used for my images of Dragonflies, Butterflies as well as animals and plants. Scenic images can be arranged in alphabetical order by location. (eg// Canada opens to Ontario , to Niagara Falls , to The Whirlpool, to 2006 and your images from that year)

 

While explaining this method to people in the field, I often find that the long explanation becomes confusing. The method sounds fine and dandy, but who has the time to set up all those folders before they start taking pictures? The simple answer is that you don’t!

 

You may notice that in the “Owls” folder mentioned above, I did not have a folder for every owl species in North America . I only had folders for the species I had taken pictures of. This storage system grows as you take the images. Once you get your first warbler species, you can add the Warbler folder. When you get your first image of a Blue-winged Warbler, you can add a species folder for “Blue-winged Warbler” and store your images.

This storage system grows with a simple right click, and a few seconds to properly name the new folder.

 

By making new folders as you get your new images, it only takes you a few seconds of work for each new species to be, but you will have a large and effective storage system that is easily used by most programs available on your average PC.

 

 

Northern Saw-whet Owl with small mammal. Fifty Point Conservation Area. December 2006

 

 

 

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