Image Titles

[Shadowman]

Does the naming process follow the rules for film where year is attached. I often provide a title for a photograph and then find at least a hundred other images with the same title. Is the problem that I'm selecting boring titles or are we running out of words?

[Geoff F]

I always include the date and number of the photo (produced by the camera) in the title as well as a subject name. Then store them in a number of folders. For example a different folder each month for a number of different subjects.

But yes, sometimes you have to be a little creative with the actual image names. Which is where some form of creating an additional search name in the exif data can be helpful. Also having some simple way of viewing thumbnails is very useful. For example, Adobe Bridge; or previously, I used ACDSee for locating required images from stored files.

[Mike Buckley]

If you're referring to the Title metadata field, the standard for using that field is that it should display the file name. The Headline metadata field would be used for displaying what you seem to be calling the title. In that case, it wouldn't matter that so many images have the same Headline. In fact, it could be desirable.

[Shadowman]

Geoff and Mike,

I was referring to photos that get displayed or selling through the Internet, I know this could be particularly frustrating if one is searching for an image by a particular photographer; especially if you don't have the correct spelling of their name. Or perhaps you want to find an exhibit of a particular photograph. If you know the photographer's name or their website then it's a bit easier, but if you only know the name of the photograph; how do you do a timely search when there could be hundred's of photos with the same name. A good example would be "The Falling Soldier".

[Mike Buckley]

if you only know the name of the photograph; how do you do a timely search when there could be hundred's of photos with the same name.

The amount of time required to accomplish a particular task is relative. Before the Internet, we would have spent a lot more time locating a particular photo. Using current technology allows us to find a photo far faster even if it's not as fast as we would like. Though future technologies will no doubt make it possible to find a photo faster than is possible today, we will no doubt be complaining that the process still isn't fast enough.

Cars made transportation faster than horses and buggies. Airplanes made transportation faster than cars and ships. Yet we complain about long airplane rides.

[mrinmoyvk]

I have windows 7 installed on my laptop and don't really care about the title/name of the image file.
I focus on naming the folders precisely. Like yyyy-mm-dd_Occassion
Maintaining date in yyyy-mm-dd format helps me to arrange folders by name and those are automatically sorted chronologically.

Also in windows 7 there is a feature to add tags for each image file. I generally add person names/landscapes/place names etc as tags which help to sort the images inside folder easily. and need not depend on any 3rd party software for maintaining meta data.

I know that this is very basic way of maintaining the images and might be difficult when there are 1000s of 100s of those to do but till now (in past 4 years of win 7 usage) I have not felt the requirement of 3rd party software.

Also I go through these images frequently just for fun, it also helps to give a second thought how it could have been done better...
So if someone asks me where is that particular image of mine which you shot at so and so place ... I exactly know in which drive in which folder it is.

Basic folder structure that I maintain is

1. Folder with name "yyyy-mm-dd_Occassion"
2. Under that 2 folders "Original" and "Edited" (there might not be original folder everywhere)
3. Under "Edited" there are 2 folders "Selected" and "All"
"Selected" folder contains images which I like which are really few.
"All" folder contains all the images that other people may like

[IzzieK]

I do not think of a name for my images until I decide to upload it or print it -- naming a shot is a very creative process that hurts my brain... -- I am serious!

[Shadowman]

I do not think of a name for my images until I decide to upload it or print it -- naming a shot is a very creative process that hurts my brain... -- I am serious!

I agree, even when I take a lengthy time to conjure up a good one, it usually turns out to be not so unique after all.