Sell Stock Photos

If you’ve been shooting digital stock photos for any length of time, the chances are good that you’re already suffering from too many images with meaningless filenames, packed into a massive directory structure that makes finding any given image fast a total nightmare.

When you consider most of us also have to handlemultiple versions of every single image we shoot, it’s little wonder that Digital Asset Management (DAM) has become such a growth industry.

Well if you’re ready to bring it all under control, the ’system’ that follows should be a useful starting point. Hopefully it might give you a few simple ideas that you can use to set up your own  naming & filing system, and if necessary, one you can eventually plug-in to a serious DAM workflow.

It is simple, repeatable, very fast to implement and the bulk of the ‘work’ is automated.

DAM for photographers is all about being able to find a specific version of a specific image fast. For that to happen you basically need three things …

This doesn’t take into account ‘backups’ and ‘master copies’ etc, but that’s outside the scope of this article. Anything discussed here is talking about your working versions of each image… and assumes that the originals are already safely filed away elsewhere!

Unfortunately most digital cameras seem to come with software that is designed for amateurs shooting holiday snaps, so if you rely on that, the image files are named and stored entirely by date. That works for OK when an amateur photographer just needs to locate images of a certain event or a visit to a certain location … they can usually remember ‘when’ it was without too much trouble.

That just doesn’t work for pros … they soon end up with hundreds or even thousands of separate image folders only identified by the date the images were downloaded from the camera. Then when they open the folder, the files are assigned a simple serial number s oagain, the content of each image is still a total mystery.

Some photographers will start out renaming folders, or even files, but it’s a huge job and it’s easy to miss a few when you’re in a hurry. Even worse, you can create a bigger mess if you start worknig at it without a plan.

So what I’m going to outline for you is a simple system that handfles al lthis and one you can easily adapt to your own workflow.

File Naming

This has become a bit of a ’cause’ for me recently because there is some really BAD software out there that’s causing so many unnecessary headaches … simply by trying to do too much.

Your file names should be a unique identifier that lets you find specific content … nothing more.

If you’re using any photo-organizer software that encourages you to write a detailed caption as a filename, throw it away now! Sooner or later it will cause you grief and it will probably cost you money!

Long filenames can be incompatible with some computer systems and regularly ‘break’ in emails. If you send a Client an image with a file name that’s too long and there is a very real chance that they simply won’t be able to open it. If they have other images to choose from, they probably won’t even tell you.

Likewise if you’re emailing images: spaces in the filename will often ‘break’ the local link and again, the Client won’t be able to open it. And a lot of them won’t bother telling you they never even saw your image!

If you’re burning images to disc, there is a real chance the software will have problems with long filenames, spaces and special characters. Even if you manage to get the job done at your end, there is no guarantee it will work for your buyer.

Spaces and special characters … especially commas, quotes and apostrophes … also cause problems with databases, ie. any time you’re sharing images online, so again, best practice is simply not to use them.

The solution so is ridiculously simple I’m amazed so many people just don’t get it …

Name your image files with letters and number only, no spaces.

You want to keep them short as well, so there is nothing to be
gained by using hyphens or underscores instead of spaces.

The trick is to do it in a way that is easy and still tells you what
the image is of without you having to open it.

So what I do is based on a system I first found on the Controlled Vocabulary website quite some time back. (The original article is gone now, but it still has some very good info on keywording your images if you’re interested).

The original system was ‘created’ when most archives were film based and used a two-letter category identifier, a two-letter subject identifier, a unique identifier based on the date the image was shot and a couple of optional letter-codes on the end to identify any pertinent format information.

I find most photographers tend to specialiase enough that they don’t actually need that many options and these days any commercial image is usually going to be in digital format, so that makes it easier too.

So what I use instead looks something like this …

ABB1234X

A = a one-letter code for main category. These will vary depending on the kinds of subjects you shoot, but I’d expect most people could categorise their work into 10-20 broad Fields, Subjects or Locations?

BB = a two letter code for a subject. You can usually work these out as-you-go, just keep a list handy when you’re renaming files.

1234 = a serial number, usually applied automatically by filenaming software. Some people migth use date/time information, but to be truly unique that requires more digits.

X = a formatting code to indicate whether it’s your master file (M), a working copy(W), a Digital Manipulation(D), a Scanned Film Original(F) or a low res preview (P).

The result, an 8 character filename that is unique and tells you enough about the content of the image to be able to locate the images you need quickly and easily.

Putting It Into Practice

The primary goal with any of this is to keep it manageable and efficient. And the trick to that is to automate as much as possible.

There are a lot of free and cheap File-Renaming applications available. I use & recommend the free File Renamer Basic for PC users, and I’m sure there’ll be plenty of similar options for Mac users.

The other real secret is to do your renaming as soon as possible after any shoot.As soon as you download the files to your computer, make it a habit to open the folder of new images in your file renaming software, and convert the file names to something usable before you forget the details.

As an example, in FileRenamer here’s what I do …

1. Select the image folder …check rename ‘Files’

2. Select a new image folder … check ‘Enable’ and ‘Move’

3. Select Display As Thumbnails

It might be that all the images are going to have the same letter-codes, or there might be a dozen different subjects … since you’re working with thumbnails it doesn’t matter. You just select batches of similar images and rename them accordingly and move on to the next batch.

In the FileName Properties tab set the following …

Prefix:
Check Include. Then enter your category & subject codes, as appropriate for this batch of images (not the whole folder!)

Filename:
Uncheck Include. This wipes the camera assigned filename.

Separator:
Uncheck Include. We’re aiming for short-as-possible, and separators serve no useful purpose.

Unique Parameter:
Check Include. Select Numbers, Increment 1, Mask 0000. Start from one the first time you batch this subject. For future batches we’ll make a note of the starting number.

Suffix:
At this stage, this is usually my master file, so I add an M.

Extension:
Usually you’ll leave this unchanged, probably TIF or JPG

Then it’s just a matter of clicking Apply. The files are renamed and moved, so you just select the next batch of images, change the Prefix and run it again.

A couple of steps to make it simple and repeatable …

I use the same destination folder every time. As I rename each batch of images I  drag-and-drop the files to an appropriate place in my Storage Directory.

The Storage Directory structure is simple … a folder for each Category code, and a Sub-Folder for each ‘child’ Subject code. The file names are unique and ordered, so I can just drop the files into the appropriate folder and the job’s done.

I keep a list of my Category/Subject codes on the wall beside my computer for easy reference.

I check the final Unique Identifier number from each ‘batch’ and make a note on the list of the next number … so I know where to start from ‘next time’.

Locating for a file is just as simple!

Anytime I ‘publish’ a photo online, I include my assigned filename in the caption or keyword details, so any time I get a query I can easily check it for my filename and locate  the image on my computer in seconds.

This system is extremely simple and super efficient once you get set up.

The software is simple — and most other renaming programs will work much the same — and I’ve ’sorted, renamed and filed’ hundreds of images at a time in a matter of minutes.

So if you’re struggling to manage your image collection, I’d really recommend you do something about it now! It will only get worse until you do.

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