File Management

I am now the proud owner of a full sized western saddle. I picked it up at a garage sale for $25 with nothing more than a significant coating of dust. I cleaned it up and took a plethora of useful photos that I'm uploading to Picasa as I type, but goodness they're large.

So while those upload, here's a quick post on file management.

Sounds ominous, doesn't it? But trust me, it's not.

When you start collecting reference photos, and it will happen, you need a way to keep them all straight. Sometimes photos of the same saddle are obvious, sometimes not so much. Sometimes its easy to remember the make of  a saddle, sometimes not. So here's what I do.

I have two reference folders, one for finish work and one for tack. We're focusing on tack today.

Within that folder...are sub folders. Lots of sub folders.

I find it extremely helpful to include the name, maker, type of tack and date in the folder name. "Stubben Roxanne", for instance, probably doesn't require a date because it's modern. If it's antique or historical, I'd include it.

In those sub folders, I take advantage of Win8's handy author feature thingy. I'm really sure it was there in previous versions, I've just now noticed it.

I really, really like crediting photographers where possible. It also makes it easier to track them down later if I want to get permission to post the photos or use them in a publication.

At some point, I will probably find it necessary to split my subfolders out. How to split is tough...english saddles don't always fall into clearly defined categories, and neither do western. What I will most likely do is a 'generic' split into english, western, gaited, fantasy, and "other".

You might ask where I get these reference photos...well, I'll cover that next.