Better way to organize my images?

That depends on the options you choose.

I have been struggling with Mac photo organisation for a couple of years now.

My windows and filing cabinet based brain, likes to sort things hierarchically -

Work > photos of things that need recording

> things that need doing

Personal > Kids

> Dog

> Holidays > France

> Italy

and so on. The only way I could fathom following this method, was to store them in files in finder - which meant transferring everything methodically over and - because I like most people - am very busy. I end up not knowing which photos have been filed and which haven't. Add to that two or three devices feeding in from the rest of the family via photostream and this is the worst set of photos ever because it's just a great big jumble.

Granted that Apple does help by creating events by date, allowing us to search by device and finding some people for us using face recognition, but it's no replacement for a decent system. Albums are ok, but it's a flat system, so that there is no grouping that is visible to the naked eye. If I want a document, i go simply to the work folder and from there I can find the relevant sub-folder I want. With photos, I have to search through all the folders which are of equal importance. With a hierarchy, if I'm not sure which subfolder to file something in, at least I can bung it somewhere generic for the time being - such as 'work'.

Does anyoen have any answers to these problems? I sit down periodically to sort out the mess but can't fathom where to start.

Answer - learn to use iPhoto

The hierarchy you are looking for uses albums and folders - folders hold other folders of albums - albums hold photos - so you can build a "virturial" Hierachy that matches your desires (althpugh I personally believe that there is no point - but you do what you want_

Re-read TD's initial post and my suggestions below

I organize on the old 5 Ws plan, Who, What, When, When and Why

I use faces for Who

The EXIF time stamp from the camera for When

Places (I use a GPS Camera) for Where

That leaves What and Why to add - Keywords do that

With the 5Ws smart albums or searchs can find a photo or group of photos instantly

LN

The problem with organising files in the Finder is that it's limited. In your example above, what do you do with a photo that has a shot of your kid and your dog, taken on holiday in Italy? In iPhoto the same shot can be in all albums, and use no extra disk space.

Second, Albums are not a flat system.

How about:

Folder: Holidays

--> Contains another Folder: Italy

-----> Contains an album for each differnet day of the holiday

And, an album of the 50 best shots from the Holiday.

How flat is that?

After that, filing is, to crack and ancient joke, like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it. The more granular you work the faster your searching and finding will be.

You can do that with iPhoto:

And supplement that with keywords, smart albums, titles, descriptions, etc. as already been suggested.

OT

I got that you can do hierarchies eventually - only took me two years! And that although iphoto is only a view system, not a physical storage, you can still have folders.

The problem I am having now, is that if I use iPhoto as the storage system, I can't isolate the photos in one place (and yes I get that having multiple flags for the same photo has its uses). The problem with having a system that you can 'view' your files from all angles, is that you don't know what you've filed and dealt with, and what is still left to sort out, because you can't physically move them. Unless you have ANOTHER category called 'filed'. Which means an extra tag for every single photo.

The problem with having a system that you can 'view' your files from all angles, is that you don't know what you've filed and dealt with, and what is still left to sort out, because you can't physically move them. Unless you have ANOTHER category called 'filed'. Which means an extra tag for every single photo.

What do you mean by filed and delt with?

I have two years plus photos to organise. Every time I sit down calmly to try and do this I end up in tears. I patiently flag, tag or add to an album the first half an hour or so. Sometimes I try and go methodically through looking for say, house photos. But then I become overwhelmed by the enormity of the task and there is no way of knowing which ones I have already processed in earlier attempts.

Previously (after an Apple store appointment), I was taught to import the photos using iTunes and now I'm totally confused about where they go and what I'm doing. And I'm reading blogs that say I have to sync back to successfully delete photos...

I have private naked photos from an operation I've had interspersed in my photostream that have appeared on the TV when I've been trying to do a work presentation and spread around on the house iPads for my daughter's friends to gawp at. I can tag them all I like, but I can't successfully delete them. I have to turn photostream off and render it useless until I get this sorted out. It is all very distressing.

And when I look at my phone I find another plethora of categories ... collections... moments!!

Arghh!!

What I want to do, is put a photo in a place where I can find it on my mac. Then delete it from other devices for once and for all.

And I want to be able to organise batches of photos in whatever way I choose and know that they have been dealt with without still being interspersed in all my other photos that still need sorting out.

I have almost 41,000 photos.

Once in iphoto, I delete pictures from wherever they were, whether on the camera, hard drive, etc.

I have some specific "albums" that I like to have on my iphone and ipad. I drag the pictures I want into those albums and let them sync.

Of course, as mentioned above, you can also put them in albulms just to organize them and then search through them.

Throughout the rest, although I haven't done enough yet, I put keywords. you have have a lot of keywords with a picture, and when you search for a key word, all photos with that word in it will show. And you can add a keyword to as many pictures as you want at a time, just having them all highlighted.

Couple of Smart ALbums might help.

File -> New Smart ALbum

Album -> Is not -> Any

will find all the images not in an Album. As you add them to albums they'll be deleted from the Smart Album.

You can do a similar one for keywords.

But honestly, the problem here isn't iPhoto. It has the tools you need to do a job that, bluntly, you don't want to do.

Ha I think you only go on this forum to have a pop at people!

As I said above, I have set down many weary times to do this job, but without the know how, it's a mountain of a task - which of course it shouldn't be (if it was a box of photos, you'd simply sort them into folders and one evening- job done - yes I know what you're going to say - hold your breath.)

But despite your arrogant and condescening comments which are totally unnecessary (don't give it if you can't take it), the smart album is one of the key things that I've been looking for, so thank you. Now what I need is a way to delete photos from where I don't want them and stop them being photstreamed to every device on the planet, while still being able to upload photos I have taken recently and are ready to sort.

Well gee, other folks manage this without so many weary times, and you know, manage with my tone too. Enough of them have done so that more than 10,000 of them have taken the time to rate my answers as helpful - so, you'll understand if I feel there's some chance I'm doing something right.

But there you go. Turn off Photostream. You can do it in the SystemPreferences. on your Mac and on the devices as well, in their settings. That's the one solved. What do you mean by "delete photos from where I don't want them" if you can bear to answer perhaps I can help you with that too. Or not. Whatever.

Whatever (in the strongest Caribean accent you can muster). Now I know about smart albums I have managed to sensibly structure my unsorted photos into years ready to sort in the time between our spats. Begrudging thanks for that. At least you respond quickly!

If I turn off phototstream, I turn off photostream. No more photostream. Point being I want photostram - but only for selected photos.

I mean delete photos from appearing on every device (without turning off photostream) but have them saved e.g. on iPhoto on my mac for viewing in a sensible manner when I do want to look at them.

In other words I want to understan how to have photos in photostream that have just been taken so that I can access them on my mac for sorting. Then once sorted, only put them back into photostream when I need them back on a device. I don't want all my sordid photos pushing around, nor my backcatalogue of holiday snaps (or ex boyfriends for that matter) that I only want to refer to on rainy days. (I have found 'hide photos' but yet to explore exactly what this means.)