How do you organize your photos?

[DoesNotFollow]

Myra- Thanks! I hadn't had the chance to figure out how to tag photos with keywords in Adobe Bridge. Certainly saved me the trouble of figuring it out.

In the post above, I was actually wondering if there was any way to view photos with specific star ratings across multiple folders simultaneously without having to open each folder separately. I was hoping for a method to view all favorite photos at once without delving into their respective folders (especially since I can't always remember the date of each).

[lenelg]

I just make a folder with year/months. But sometimes it can hold quite a lot and the date is the date of processing, not the original date. So it can take a while to find things since I have near on 500GB of images, mostly crap.

I don´t kinow what operating system you are using, but at least for Windows 7 you can choose whether a folder should display/sort by "date created" or "date last edited"

[shreds]

I think the date system works, as it remains a constant. I then use a location and a key word. (no doubt that will all change when I go over to GPS as no doubt most people will as technology advances). I try to keep all shots together, although inevitably using an older shot for a specific reason some years later, can mean it gets orphaned until it gets sent back to its original folder. By working on date shot, rather than processed works well for me, its amazing how my mind tends to recall things in that way too!

Everything backed up to a battery of large (1.5Tb) frequently (12-24 months) changed HDDs, some kept at a different location off site for security purposes, but the problem of co-ordination then becomes a nightmare. Using a VPN is one way, although I too remain wary of cloud servers that I cannot control. I have seen a few examples of folk losing everything. Couldnt tolerate that. (obviously I am some sort of control freak!)