It makes no sense for the thousands of pictures that you all make to keep

Compared to, say, ten years ago we are now madly photos. Not only with a compact or SLR, but also with a smartphone. How do you keep your photo collection in order? Not? Then it is high time to take these tips while.

Tip 01: Bad photos
The first step? You select photos. It makes no sense for the thousands of pictures that you all make to keep. Take a critical selection and remove blurry, failed or silly pictures immediately. Bad pictures indeed eaten nothing but space and make unnecessarily extensive collection. Remove them directly from your camera or smartphone. Read also: As you edit photos you doing with this free 20 photo programs.

Like too much hassle? Clear the photos then right after you've imported them on your computer. That can in Explorer or via the preview photos. Do you have many pictures that look alike? There are handy free tools you (almost) detects identical pictures. dupeGuru Picture Edition, Image Comparer or Fast Duplicate File Finder are a couple of them.

Tip 01 Single-click on the trash bucket in the standard Photos app to delete a bad photo.
Tip 02: Directory Structure
All pictures drop one folder? Then it may go quickly wrong. Still, you have absolutely no special software is required to archive your images in a clear manner. That is, if you keep a clear folder structure. A good archive is organized in a systematic and orderly manner in different folders and subfolders. An example that works well for most people is a breakdown by year and issue number.

Get through Explorer in the Pictures folder, the "2016" folder. Place it to the folder "001 Anniversary Lucas. The exact file location for your pictures will look like this: Graphics / 2016/001 Birthday Lucas. Stop herein all your photos from the birthday party of Lucas and give the image as the file name jaar_mapnr_ (c) yournick (Picture no) .jpg. For example 2016_001_ (c) janjans (023) .jpg. In this way, each photo in your archive anyway a unique file name. Moreover, you name as a photographer remains visible if you send the photos to friends, colleagues or family members. A second series of photos you archive the same way, for example, in the Images / 2016/002 Summer Barcelona. Note, this is an example of a pattern. Of course, you choose your own layout, but try to get there or to keep.


Tip 02 A clear folder structure allows easier to find photos.
Tip 03: Change Names
Your new pictures from today archiving in this way is a piece of cake. You have to do it consistently. But what do you do with your old images? Ideally, you also give this same folder structure and file names. That requires some work, but it does offer added value. Creating folders is probably not much work that can quickly in Explorer with the key combination Ctrl + Shift + N . Rename is time consuming. In one folder photos and then choose Rename in the right click menu. Type (in our example) jaar_mapnr_ (c) yournick (eg 2016_003_ (c) janjans) and press Enter. All selected images change at once by name and get a number in brackets. Like too much hassle? The freeware Bulk Rename Utility you get a lot of opportunities. The tool makes it possible to carry out in batch rapid adjustments.

After you install the software and open, navigate in the left margin to the desired folder. Select the photos you want to rename. Using the different courses you can keep or remove old file names, insert a date, add serial numbers and so on. At the top you get in the open preview the new names. Click Rename to make the changes.

Tip 03 Bulk Rename Utility allows you to change quickly and easily hundreds of photos of name.
OS X
We focus in this article on Windows , but still give quick note how you photos on a Mac changes its name. In Finder, select some photos, and then choose File / Rename x parts . Sort by Name format for name and index and adjust Custom Format a file. Standard start number 1, but have the option to change over Start numbering . Want more options? Then you create a recipe using Automator.

On a Mac is very easy to take pictures quickly to rename.
Tip 04: EXIF ​​data
Each photograph hangs a lot of invisible information you can call at any time. For example, the date and time of the recording, the camera model, the aperture, shutter speed, ISO and focal length. This so-called EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) can be viewed in Windows tab Details on the menu Properties . Make an adjustment is not possible. In some photo-editing programs such as EXIF data can be used to filter images.

That way you find very quickly recover photos you've taken on a particular day with a particular camera. It is for this very important that you have properly set the date and time of your camera. Another focus: pictures can lose metadata when you edit or publish on social media. Want some reason you remove metadata itself? Then click on the tab Details in the menu Properties on Properties and delete personal data . After you've checked the metadata you want to delete, confirm the action with OK . The freeware XnView (see tip 9) is a great application to find photos based on metadata.

Tip 05: IPTC
Another meta-form IPTC (International Press Telecommunications Council). This is data you can set itself, such as the name and contact details of the photographer, caption, any copyright information and so on. You can enter this information manually on the tab Details in the menu Properties , but this is a very time consuming task. Some cameras allow us immediately to recording already set some data but it can also batch when you import the images into specific (usually paid) software such as Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop (Elements) .