What Everybody Ought to Know When Naming Your Scanned Photos – Part 2
In Part 1 of this 3-part mini-series about naming your scanned digital master files, we discussed how important I feel it is to start your filenames with the date the photo was taken. And this date is most useful when placed in the 4-digit: Year – Month – Day format.
So now, with Part 2, we will cover adding a description to your photo right in the middle of your filename.
Part 2 – Add a Description to Your Photo
In many ways, the point of a good filename is double duty. First, it allows you to organize and search for your photos on the “folder level.” So without even seeing the image loaded (previewed) on your screen, you are able to sort and find particular files in either Windows Explorer in Microsoft Windows 
or Finder windows 
if you are using a Mac.
Additionally, a filename can permanently replace much of the handwritten “caption” information you may or may not already have on the back or even front (sometimes) of your photographs.
Where I don't believe there is any room to budge on how you format the date field we covered in part 1, I believe you can experiment with the description – how you describe what you see in your photograph.
For this, I think you should devise a method that works best for you. But do you and your photos a favor and make whatever method you choose be … (drum roll here) …. useful.
What's useful is adding a description that will mean something to someone unfamiliar with the photo.
This filename you give it – often hammered out in a hurry – may not seem very important to you when you type it in. Maybe it's because you are actually in the photograph and are completely familiar with everything about it – the time it took place, where it took place, and everyone in it. Or maybe it's a photograph cherished by someone else in your family where even though you weren't around to have lived it, you have heard the story about it many, many times through the years. In either case, you are taking for granted the knowledge you have stored up in that head of yours.
But someone in your family 60 years from now, possibly long after your passing, may have no memory of this particular photo – or many of them – heck, maybe even most of them!
If you are knowledgeable of how many of today's image managers operate, you might be thinking to yourself you are far more clever than I am because you know how you can type in all of this descriptive “caption” information right into the image manager – such as in the “caption” field for each photograph.
Why yes, smarty pants – you can! And in fact, I recommend you type it in there as well (but do so in its entirety). Having a caption in an image manager is fantastically useful and fun. But I don't feel it's in your and your photos' best interest to neglect the master filenames because that is what identifies the photo outside of your photo manager – such as when you export them to your desktop or email them.
To me that would be like someone feeling there is no reason to have their full name and social security number on every page of their tax return (for identification) when their name is already written once on the outside of the envelope they're mailing it in.
These image managers, like Picasa and Lightroom, are tremendous programs with almost rock-solid databases. But you don't want to assume your digital photos will always be accessed only within them. Your photos need this “descriptive tattoo” – this “birth certificate” – to be carried along with them for when they are alone, “naked” without any proprietary database attached to them.
So What Should Go In Your Description?
I say make it easy on yourself. All you have to do is list what someone unfamiliar with your photo would want to know. Simply tell us “who” or “what” is in the photo, “where” it was taken, and “why” (what's going on in it that was important enough for a frame of film to be developed).
Though not all photos will have all of the “w's” to list. For example, some photos don't have a special occasion to be your “why” – like a wedding shower or a school play. Sometimes it's just a picture of the front of your home and the front lawn. That person wanted to remember how it looked at that point in time, so they took a snapshot of it. But if there was a significant reason the photo was taken it would be worth mentioning.
Here are seven additional tips that should help you out even more with your descriptions:
1. Don’t Write Overly Wordy Descriptions
Even though you probably are technically capable of typing in many characters, this really isn't the place to write everything there is to say about the photograph. Try and resist the urge if you have it. Just keep it to what's important – what's unique.
2. Add Useful Keywords
Another way to keep the filename shorter is to avoid using words like “to, the, went, we,” etc. Instead, just use specific keywords that you might use if you were using a search engine like Google or Bing. You want to be able to search your images' filenames to find your photographs.
For example, using the photograph above, I made part 1 and part 2 of its filename:
“1978-02-xx Blanket Tent Tunnel Winter Snow Day”
3. Make Your Descriptions Unique
Try not to use a description like “Moms Birthday.” Yes, it is better than no description at all, so pat yourself on the back if you at least get this much typed in.
But the thing is, your Mom probably had LOTS of birthdays photographed through her years, so using “Mom's Birthday” isn't very unique. Now “Moms 40th Outback Steakhouse Birthday” … now that is unique, and that is useful! Pat yourself on the back at least three or four times for that one!
Same with “Dad Fishing.” Unless you can honestly say this is the first, best, and last time he has ever fished, this is not a unique enough description to be useful. Call your Dad by his real name and type in what really happened:
“1970-07-xx Ronald Catching 7 pound Bass Montgomery Lake GA”
4. Give Attention to the Unfamiliar
You can't possibly list everyone's name in your description for a large group shot. So don't beat yourself up when you can't. But when only a half dozen or fewer people are in the photo, it's useful to have this information recorded.
Also, I find it really helpful to make sure I list the names of less familiar people in my collection – like your “cousin Eddie” that made his presence known just a couple of times over a twenty-year span. And if I have too many “unfamiliar” people in a picture, I try to just list the people that mean something to the family – the ones I might actually do a search for someday.
5. Don’t Guess With Anything
Like in Part 1, when adding the shoot date, it’s very important you don’t guess with any piece of information. If you aren’t 100% sure that this is your cousin “Rita Mae Lynn” in the photo, don’t type in that it is.
Why?
The reason I have found is that you don’t want to be in a position later where you are second-guessing your own information as reliable or not. And especially after you have passed on (yes, that time will eventually come), you certainly don't want anyone else doubting your accuracy (read as “really long and hard work”).
Like using “x's” with the date field, there is a way around this problem. I use a “?” next to names and keywords when I'm not absolutely positive about someone or something. For example:
“196x-10-31 Alices Halloween Party – Houston TX – Randy Tom? Mark”
6. Be Consistent
Consistency is always important when it comes to the filename.
If your method is to build your description like this: [event] + [location] + [people] … then try and stick with it. Try not to have seven photos in this manner and then have 3 with [location] + [people] + [event].
Also, if you call your father “Dad,” stay consistent and always use “Dad.” If someone unfamiliar with your collection gets used to you identifying your father as “Dad,” then you suddenly label him in one of your filenames by his real name, “Jim,” it could get really confusing quickly.
Additionally, if you are doing a hard drive search in folders full of your photos for all the photos your Dad is prominently in, the photo with your Dad labeled as “Jim” won't come up if you are searching for the keyword “Dad.” And by the way, given a choice, I recommend using someone's real name.
7. End a Series with an Additional Word or Number
Invariably, you will have many photos taken at once — for example, at a wedding or your daughter's soccer game. On multiple shots where I use the same description for similar shots, I simply add a number or a word or two to differentiate the shots. For example:
“1986-10-14 Andys Soccer Game Chipmunks vs Otters – 1”
“1986-10-14 Andys Soccer Game Chipmunks vs Otters – 2”
“1986-10-14 Andys Soccer Game Chipmunks vs Otters – 3”
“1983-07-xx – Moms 40th Outback Steakhouse Birthday_wide”
“1983-07-xx – Moms 40th Outback Steakhouse Birthday_closeup”
“1983-07-xx – Moms 40th Outback Steakhouse Birthday_smiling”
“1983-07-xx – Moms 40th Outback Steakhouse Birthday_cutting cake”
So that's all there is to add a description with my naming formula. That wasn't that hard – was it?
Let me know in the comments below what you think of how I write my descriptions, or tell me how you write yours. I would love to know.
In Part 3, the last part of this series, I'll show you how to end your filename with a handy technique enabling you to simply glance at it and know exactly what scanner settings you used to scan in that photo. Very helpful! Skeptics… you might be surprised.
I have a suggestion to your convention where you add the number in a series at the end of your photos. Rather than 1, 2, 3; perhaps 0010, 0020 (or 10, 20, 30). I learned this when I was designing online learning. The reason you might consider this method is because, let’s say, you are numbering them sequentially, say, the first photo is of the interior of the church (1), the next photo is Jane entering the church(2), then Jane walking down the aisle (3), etc. But, suddenly, you found the photo of the little flower girl… It should go before Jane entering the the church! Now you have to renumber them all! If you used 0010, 0020, then when you found the flower girl photo, you could make it 0015, leaving numbering room on either side in case you encounter, say, the ring-bearer photo, which could now be 0017. It saves renumbering all the items. Hope this helps! 🙂
Hi, and thank you for your detailed posts. One thing I might change in your naming system is I would avoid using “Mom” or “Alice,” etc., as an identifier. While it makes sense to you, later genealogists will be forced to decipher who that person is. Maybe something such as: 1962-01-31_SMITH_Arthur-John_Masonic-Award_Bosworth-MO… Or, if the full name is too long, perhaps: 1962-01-31_SMITH-AJ_Masonic- Award_Bosworth-MO…
P.S. I don’t like all the dashes and underlines, but I am reading that we should do that for programs to read the info… You could do the same thing without them…
Thanks for your very useful article. Formatting is a bit of an art and there are some characters that are best avoided. First up is a space. Common practice is to use a dash, as-in, instead. Here’s a list of dodgy characters:
Loved this 3 part series!!!
Please recommend some free photo editing soft ware.
(I was directed to GIMP – but way too sophisticated for me.)
Thanks!
I’ve read and reread your 3 part naming convention probably about 30 times.
My question is this: When you are doing your naming (which I’m in the process of organizing and renaming things now). Do you list everyone in the picture in the filename if you can? I know if it’s a big group that would be a long file name and I probably shouldn’t do that but if there’s like 5-6 or less people do you name them in the file name?
I’m trying to figure out the easiest process. Right now I’m just putting the date (ex: 2009-08-14) the event (Mom’s birthday) and then I thought I’d go back through all of the pictures and put in the names of people I can identify. I’m just wondering if that’s worth the effort.
I’m trying to learn and understand Picasa as well. I know it has face recognition but I don’t believe that adds it to your photo so unless you have that program I’m not sure what that does for adding the “people” to the photos.
I think I’m finding a happy medium for myself that’s not including everything in a photo, but then again, not so little that this information isn’t useful later.
I think it’s totally worth the time adding people’s names when you can. Finding photos with certain people in them is very important to all of us.
I think what’s important is creating a system for yourself and stay nearly 100% consistent. For example, make sure you use the exact same keyword for each person each time. If you have a sibling named Emily and her middle name is Roseanne, don’t use “Emily R.” in one photo and then next week add “EmilyR” “Emily_R” or “Emily” to another file name. This is being able to search and narrow down photos in the future is key, and if you do a search for “Emily R.” a year from now, photos labeled in a different way won’t show up.
Create a legend — a cheat sheet — that lists people and what you used for them, or anything else you’ve “abbreviated” (places, objects etc) This can also be printed out, or digitally archived with your collection so that it gets handed down to family members to help them out with less familiar family members they are trying to locate in photos if you aren’t around.
Including a middle initial might really be useful when considering families that have members with the same first name. This should reduce confusion (at least a lot) later and in searches.
And I think 5-6 people or less like you suggested is a good rule of thumb. I think that’s about what I do. I also label objects sometimes if they are important in the photo, and are something I might want to search for some day. For example, I had a favorite stuffed kangaroo I got when I was really young, and this became my favorite animal. Adding the keyword “kangaroo” in any photo with me in it could be very useful when trying to isolate photos that mean a lot to me.
FACE RECOGNITION IN PICASA:
Yeah, I think the face recognition features are a bit too “basic” and “gimmicky” to really be taken seriously for a serious archiver. You’re right, they are very software specific, so I can see where if someone is determined to use a program like Picasa for the rest of their lives (if that’s even possible), then trying to make that feature pay off could be advantageous. Unless this feature for sure writes these “tagged” people’s names as metadata that is stored in your master images.
KEYWORDS:
Keywords in metadata is what’s important. My goal is to “tag” or “keyword” (these terms are the same but different programs call them different things) each photo with the important words I would like to search for later. A good image managing program will also write these tags BACK into the master image file as well so that if you take this photo to another program, the new program will pull this keyword from the embedded IPTC metadata field and allow you to search for the keywords as well.
So, a good rule of thumb when thinking about your filenames and keywords is to almost think of both of them as being the same — same important key information to search with. The file name keywords will be helpful when searching and reading photos without being able to see/read the embedded metadata. And the metadata keywords are great once in a great photo managing program to search and filter photos. You could stick with just using one and save yourself time, but having both is always better.
Think how useful it will be for me to be able to search for my name, my brother’s name, and “kangaroo” some day and every photo my brother and I are both in AND with a kangaroo in the shot (including at a zoo too!) would come up. That’s power! That’s what I want. 😉
I think the Face recognition feature could help you get a start isolating groups of photos with certain people in them, and then you could do a “select-all” type highlighting of them all and then batch-keyword them. Time-saving tricks like this could be useful for you.
Thank you so much for this site, Curtis. So much great information here!
Re: identifying people in the photos, I would strongly suggest using first and last names, rather than “Mom”, “Grandpa”, “Joe”, “Cousin Adelaide”, etc. Yes, it feels weird and formal, but your heirs will thank you. Remember that your familial relationship to the person in the photo will differ from that of whoever is viewing it 50 or 100 years from now, so it’s best to keep identities generic and viewer-agnostic.
I recently inherited some boxes of old photographs of my ancestors, dating back to the 1860s. Thankfully, many of them are carefully labelled on the back with the subject’s full name and age and the name of the studio or photographer where the portrait was taken (photography was a big deal back then). However, my great-great grandmother’s photo album has a lot of cabinet cards simply labeled “Grandmother” or “Cousin”, which means doing some detective work to figure out who’s who.
Using full names is also helpful if the same 2 or 3 first names tend to recur in your family over the generations.
Another thing I’ve learned, from sorting through my late mother’s photos: when you go on a trip, try to include yourself and your companions in some of the photographs. Even if you don’t like being photographed, your children and grandchildren won’t care. They want to see you. Photos of empty scenery won’t mean anything to them. I sorted through about 40 rolls of Cornwall landscapes and London streets, hoping for a glimpse of my mom, but she wasn’t in any of them.
I have plenty of vacation prints of my own, but I’m realizing now that they only matter to me (and whoever was also on the trip). Unless it’s a truly amazing and unique shot, has an interesting story to go with it, or includes family and friends, I probably won’t bother to scan those for the archive. They might be useful as part of a digital travelogue or scrapbook, but I don’t think they’ll become part of family lore.
Anyway, some food for thought. Thank you again for all your great tips and insights! This blog is exactly what I needed.
For complicated photos, say a crowd of relatives after a funeral: I add a white border around the photo, or just at the bottom, where I type in the filename as title, followed by full names of the people, left to right, occasion, etc. When coupled with genealogy work, this is most helpful. Also, when there are cryptic or important notes on the backs of photos, I use the bottom border (it can be made as large as necessary) to type: Back of photo: Winnie Smith wrote: “Harry was valedictorian 1923.” Appreciate all your great ideas. Thank you.
That sounds like a great solution Bonnie. What program are you using to add the border? Is it a quick process or does it take a bit of time for each photo?
I just had someone submit a guest-post to me where he explains a similar workflow that he uses to add a caption below a photo (in lieu of just using IPTC metadata fields like “Caption”). I would be interested in knowing how yours might be different. 🙂
“5. Don’t Guess With Anything…..Like using “x’s” with the date field, there is a way around this problem. I use a “?” next to names and keywords when I’m not absolutely positive of someone or something. For example:
“196x-10-31 Alices Halloween Party – Houston TX – Randy Tom? Mark””
Curtis, your suggestion from above about not guessing does not work for file names in the Windows universe; a ? is a reserved character and they won’t let you put it in a file name. Sometimes I add a [Q] in lieu of a ?, but mostly I indicate my uncertainty in the relevant IPTC field.
John, thank you for pointing that out for people reading this. I do forget sometimes how forgiving OSX on Macs is. I need to do a better job sometimes of remembering to put an alternative for Windows users if it’s not possible to do so.
“[q]” is a great idea to use instead. In fact, off the top of my head I can’t think of anything better that stands a chance of someone later down the line being able to see the “symbol” and know what you mean by that without a translation (legend) to explain it. Thanks for the tip! :beer:
I see that in your examples you used both “TX” and “Illinois.” I use iPhoto and have encountered search issues with both abbreviations and full names. For example, if you used abbreviations, searching for “IL” would find all the photos of “BILL.” If you used full names, searching for photos of your friend “Carol” would find all the photos taken in “South Carolina.” I know I can create Smart Albums (title includes Carol AND location does not equal North/South Carolina). But before I proceed I just wondered if you had settled on one or the other, or had any other insight. Thanks!
Astute observation there Bill. 🙂
I think I tend to create various examples for people in my articles so that different types of readers can latch onto a “concept” that might suit them best. So, as you noticed, I didn’t really pick one to show it’s the best choice or even my choice.
Apple hasn’t addressed this problem you brought up in either iPhoto or Aperture. It’s frustrating. One would hope you could enter “Carol” in a search and then filter “contains exact” or something like it, since putting Carol in quotes doesn’t rule out Carolina (as you pointed out). Doesn’t work in Aperture either.
If you can’t tell from my writing, I fancy myself as an optimistic guy, and iPhoto 11 and Aperture 4 are just around the bend. And it’s very possible this was on their todo list of minor features to add, or is on the list for a minor update later.
Point being, one insight I would suggest is to pick a workflow that would be your choice if these two programs didn’t currently limit you. Because, one day, the limitation may no longer be in place.
Additionally, I try and think towards the future with most everything I do. Even though it feels like iPhoto or Aperture is everything to us right now, 10, 20, 30 years from now, it may not be. You or I, or whomever inherits our collection, may not be using either one of them and will be on to a new piece of software.
Another thing to keep in mind, if you were to export out of a managed library or locate the master file on your hard drive from a referenced library, having ‘IL’ vs ‘Illinois’ may not pose any problems to you because in the finder application, you seem to be able to search for “IL” (with the quotes) and it will choose only ‘IL’ and not Illinois. So, sometimes it’s important to make decisions based on what’s best for the master image file name or title (if you export it from iPhoto) because of where these files may end up later for other uses by other people.
I tend to abbreviate when I can in a filename — like states because some states are LOOOONG when you write them out. And I know this isn’t fair for iPhoto users, but I then make up for it by relying on using full names using IPTC metadata fields in Aperture. I have a field for “State” where the photo was taken and I can then write out the full “Massachusetts.”
You never know. iPhoto may include access to IPTC fields someday, or you can always upgrade to Aperture whenever you feel you want that extra power.
Hope this helps!
Your optimism definitely shines in an Internet full of people complaining about tech limitations. I have seen your posts about Aperture as well and have considered upgrading, so I will look at the IPTC route if I do. Thanks for your well-thought, thorough answer. -B(IL)L
ok.ok.ok.
thank you for reminding me to breath!
I read your helpful comments and calmed down and tried a few things. I think I was mainly freaked out when I thought there would be 1 picture with 2 names…but then realized that the original will be updated (name wise) eventually.
I imported some digital shots and relaxed!
I’m now swimming in figuring out the difference between projects/folders/albums. oh. my!
I had my digital pics…nicely organized in folders by year.month.date…
so I imported “folders as projects” and it has line them up very similar to the way they live in the external hard drive.
I’m really unsure as how to import the scans tho…as they are less organized…and much like yours are a “work in progress” as far as re-naming and sorting into folders. maybe a “to be sorted project” and when named…moved to a different project?
so, how do you organize your pics once imported? projects? albums? folders?
thanks again…for the reassurance that all will be well!!
You really did break it down and make it easier to understand!!
especially the breathing part : )
Nancy, so glad to hear things are coming along a little better for you in Aperture. : )
That’s a great question about where to put your scanned images inside of Aperture once you import them. So really are a lot of different ways to do it.
What I do may not be best for everyone, but for my workflow, I created a folder that’s basically labeled “Scanning Work.” Then every day that I do a new batch of scanning, I create a new project and put all of that day’s scans in there. The advantage for me is that if I need to find the original print for whatever reason in the near future, I could more easily trace it back to a stack or bag or box etc of prints that I did that day.
Another way I do it sometimes is to start moving them into a chronological order more quickly.
I have a folder for every decade — “1970’s”, “1980’s” etc. Then I have a Folder inside of each of those for each year. Then I put a project called “Unsorted” for example inside of each year and for those photos that I don’t know where they go in say a specific event project like “30th Birthday Party” or “Christmas” etc, I will place them in each of the unsorted folders.
This gets me going in the process of chronologically organizing them because it gets them in the correct year, but it doesn’t put the pressure on me to sort them any further until I know more about them.
I’ve been away for quite a bit recently, swallowed alive with my full-time relentless line of work I am in. But, I think I am back finally!