Managing Image Files

Once you begin to get more than a few images stored on your computer, it can become difficult to find a particular image again, either because you can't remember where you stored it or because there are a lot of images to scroll through. This section gives some ideas of ways that you can organise your image files so that you can find them again more easily.

Using filenames and folders

This is the simplest method of organising your image files and may be all you need if your collection is never going to be very large. A system of descriptive filenames and hierarchical folders is easy to set up and maintain for a small number of images. Follow this link to see how Using filenames and folders can help you keep track of your images.

Using software

Once your image collection begins to get larger, you may need to find more sophisticated methods of organising the images. Rather than just relying on the file or folder name to identify your images, image organisation software can be used to add some basic metadata to your images (metadata is information that describes your images, such as keywords). You can then search for all images that have, for instance, a certain keyword, regardless of where they are stored on your computer. As each image can have multiple keywords, this gives a lot of flexibility in finding your images, although the trick is to ensure that you are consistent in how you keyword your images!

Some systems will also allow you to create 'virtual albums' – collections of images that share a common theme. This allows you to put an image into multiple sets without having to actually duplicate the image on your hard drive, thereby saving you valuable storage space.

There are lots of software options available, from free software to more expensive packages, including some that also offer basic image editing tools. What's right for you will depend on your needs, but the following pages will give you a basic overview of some of the options.

• Free image organisation software
• Online photo management services
• Commercial image management systems

One thing to watch out for when choosing a system is whether it will allow you to save the keywords you assign if you move to another system in the future. Some systems will write the information directly into the image file, but others don't have this facility and so you may lose any keywords you have applied.

Further information

Further advice on managing image collections is given on the JISC Digital Media web site: Systems for managing image collections.

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