Am i missing something DAM

[Photofarmer]

Gday All.

Bumbling along ok with my photographic journey.

Enjoying it obviously.

Using photolab 7 dont get into editing software arguments by the way.

Anyway DXO PL doesnt have a DAM.

I use a folder structure on mac book.

Go out shoot lightning for instance 50 photos good or bad.

All downloaded on external hard drive. Photo type "lightning" then goes into year then month and if more than one photo shoot in a month location. Same for family pics or farm pics.

Then whilst card is in computer will edit say 7 or 8 keepers and they will be then used wherever, forums such as this and editd photos also stored on external drive in similar structure as mentioned but will be in a "edited" photos file structure.

As i rarely take more than say 100 phtos in a session, am i missing anything by not having a dedicated DAM?
Such as mylio or photosupreme or photomechanic etc etc.

Any help advice welcomed

 

[David Berry]

PF…

Individual photos could be given filenames that describe what/who/when, rather than leaving them with camera-generated filenames.

… David

 

[miuzi]

I don't think there's a "correct" way to store or organize your files. If what you do now works for you, and you're able to navigate it and find what you're looking for, then great. I've changed my approach several times over the years, with tens of thousands of images now, learning what I like to do as I go. The backbone of my file management is simply a folder for every month, and chronology is the most important and useful organizing principle for me. I do use an app called PhotoOrganista, have for a little under a year now, which I was excited about at first but then found that importing and tagging all my photos just felt like work. I still do it, but with like a month of photos at a time while watching a movie or something, and my tags have gotten simpler, so rather than tagging for individual friends' names, all friends just get tagged "Friends." I quickly found that a high level of precision had no utility for me, and I'd find myself photographing a party or something and then dreading the prospect of accurately tagging all the photos later, so I've simplified. The exception is my wife and kids, they each get individual tags.

 

[MikeZ]

I, too, use DxO PhotoLab and an OS based (Windows in my case) file structure similar to yours. I appreciate the fact I don't need to open my image editor to access a photo, and can easily access any photo similarly to any other file. I find that to be an advantage.

As for data management, DxO does provide for keywords and IPTC (International Press Telecommunications Council) meta data entries which allow you to "tag" photos with any descriptor that you prefer. Each of these tools is accessible while in the DxO Photo Library. You can also just search for keywords or IPTC in DxO for further guidance.

 

[David Berry]

PF…

Adobe Bridge is an outstanding program for renaming and organising photos.

It’s free.

… David