Managing Picture Collection

[fluff]

Ok, I just switched from a PC to a new iMac....I have about 50GB worth of photos from the last 5 years that I want to start organizing in a logical manner...I was thinking of going ahead and purchasing Aperture and then start tagging from there and then using Aperture for new photos I take as well. Is this a good way to go?

Also, is it best to just import all 50GB of photos to the local computer or keep them on a external drive?

Thanks for any help....

 

[ChrisA]

...I was thinking of going ahead and purchasing Aperture and then start tagging from there and then using Aperture for new photos I take as well. Is this a good way to go?

Aperture is pretty general in that it does not impose an organization on you. You can make up your own system. It helps to write down your convention for assigning keywords and ratings and so on and then make up a set o folders, projects smart albums and so on.

Also, is it best to just import all 50GB of photos to the local computer or keep them on a external drive?

The short answer is "all of the above".

The longer answer is...
You are going to have to maintain a backup system. Youmight keep the Aperure library on the internal drive if there is room then keep another copy (what Aperure calls a "vault") on an external drive and then you might let Time Machine keep a backup on another external drive. You will likely need two "vaults" so you can rotate them to some off-site location

 

[fluff]

Thanks for the info, just started the daunting task of tagging all of my photos last night. If anyone has any good tagging conventions for keywords I would love to hear them...

 

[ChrisA]

Thanks for the info, just started the daunting task of tagging all of my photos last night. If anyone has any good tagging conventions for keywords I would love to hear them...

I use key words only to describe the type of photo. For example "landscape, macro, portrait, group, cityscape, wildlife, travel,... And I have a set of keywords to describe the general class of subject, birds, fish family, products,.. Most of my images have multiple keywords. For example I have many "underwater macros" taken of very small animals while diving. I use comments for specific names such as the name of the person in the shot or the location of the landscape. This way I don't have to many keywords but still get to put in full text descriptions. I started this when I was using iPhoto and it is now imported to Aperture. Also the ratings, I wrote a description of the criteria I use for each star. For example one star is "fair to poor, kept only because it records some event or might be the only photo of a subject., Five - Publishable, good even if you have not interest in the subject. I keep refining the rules as I go.