If you’re a TidBITS Member, head over to read the latest chapter of my book-in-progress Take Control of Your Digital Photos, “Organize Photos into (Smart) Albums.” In this installment, I assemble all the work we’ve put into tagging and rating photos to quickly locate images. I also explain why I rarely use regular albums, opting instead for smart albums that pull together images based on criteria you specify. We’re almost at the end—my outline originally called for eight chapters (but a ninth, based on great reader feedback, may happen too).
So much of the information about photography out there focuses (pun intended) on the art and practice of capturing images, but very little addresses what to do with the shots once they’re in captivity. The whole point of taking control of your digital photos is to not just find a place for them on your hard disk, but to work with them later—whether that’s editing a group of promising images the day they’re shot or assembling a slide show three years later.
This is where the work you’ve done so far pays off. Armed with a photo library chock-full of metadata, you can locate images in a fraction of the time it would take to scan through them visually. I’ll show you how to search for specific metadata—such as keywords and ratings, and even camera-generated data such as aperture, shutter speed, and camera model—to track down shots. Then I’ll cover how to make that search capability work in your favor by building smart albums whose contents can change based on criteria you specify.
To recap, we’re publishing my ebook one chapter at a time for TidBITS members only; when it’s done, it will be bundled into a proper ebook (PDF, EPUB, Kindle) and sold as a complete book. If you’re not yet a TidBITS member, you can sign up here (and view all of the other member benefits). For more information about Take Control of Your Digital Photos, read my earlier post, “New Book! With a Twist: Take Control of Your Digital Photos.”
Jeff Carlson | Never Enough Coffee Creations 