Labeling pictures in a photo program

Trying to remember where photos are or what I called them can be confusing.

How do you label yours to be able to find them instantly?

If I label by name and then can't think of the name but know the garden it's easier if every plant in that particular garden is in its own folder.

Do you label as to the garden it's in first, then the plant or what?

Good grief - you are talking about serious organization! I just label by date and have to search! Organizing by garden is a brilliant idea!

Every month I create a new folder. In that folder are two sub-folders titled Garden and Other. (Other includes kids and family!!). So I will search based upon my best recollection of when the plant is in bloom or is interesting, etc. It's a lousy system. I often go crazy looking for photos. But I have so many photos - thousands - that I just could not go back and give each one a title.

Mine's still a mess right now, but I will create folders for plant type(coneflowers,dahlias,etc) although a folder for each plant would be ideal it seems. Then I try to name them without duplicating names.

I have names for each of the 30 gardens but it's when one plant is in multiple gardens that can get confusing.

At least now I don't feel so all alone.

Who said you weren't alone ;)~

Sounds like a tag line from a movie, Al.

30 gardens???

We have four, and I find it hard to keep up with just those four. I can't imagine trying to keep up with 30, or even ten!!

My sunhat's off to you!!

Seriously, though. I take tons of photos. I began to take them mainly so that Anna and I can identify what may (or may not!) be coming up next spring, and also to remember just 'where' in the garden we planted things. I have even been known to hang out of a second story window to get an aerial shot - still didn't get the whole garden in the same shot though!

When I download the photos, it is always to a sub-folder of a sub-folder. I have the main folder with the name of 2007. Then a sub-folder of that is 'how does our garden grow?'. A sub-folder of THAT is a monthly folder. And still even more 'sub' is a folder marked 'downloads'. So if I was to have taken photos today they would have been downloaded into the 'July downloads' folder of the 'July' folder of the 'Garden' folder of the parent '2007' folder.

It sounds like a lot of work, but it isn't, initially. What is the real work is then going through the downloads photo by photo and re-naming them and saving them to other folders. THAT work I save for rainy days.

There's only 30 gardens because the old word processor couldn't fit as many names on the graph pages as I had without obfuscating the entire garden. There's really just 15 and one super long garden that's also 20' deep (per DH) but that has to be separated into five parts. It happens to be the easiest one for finding plants.

I use "Garden Art" for anything like structures or wrought or cast iron, etc.

I spent two weeks going over every photograph during February: challenging but worth it, especially when you consider the weather we had.

So when you name or re-name them, how do you do it? Name it 'Stella D'Oro 7-07' and put it in a Daylily folder, for example? Do you then delete the chronological folders? If not, you're taking so much space with duplicates!

Great question, Victor. (I assume you are speaking to me).

When I am done editting the photo, I do delete the original. But I make sure that I have everything I want from the original photo; by this I mean that the original may have two or three different plants and I can crop to the specific plant with my photo editor and then save each one separately.

So far, I have only taken photos to show a 'time lapse' kind of effect. I think I do it that way because we are always asking something like ... 'what did the columbine look like when it came up?' or 'I can't remember what that container looked like when we first planted it'. You know, stuff like that to help jog our memories.

I suppose that one day I will get way too many photos, but then, that's what they sell computer memory for, right? And blank CDs!!

Now it's:

Obelisk - rose - Tuscan Sun

Therein lies some confusion. If I put all the roses in one folder then when I want to match a new addition to the Obelisk garden I have each plant in a different folder.

Asiatic lilies is yet another area of confusion.

Let's call everything plant1. It's a way to force us to improve our memories!

Pirl:

I do:
Tea Rose - May 23 2007
then next month it's
Tea Rose - June 24 2007

Right now that's the easiest for me, and of course, I don't have as many plants or beautiful species as you have.

I'd like to do that one of these days. Maybe a winter project, like Pirl did. What do you do with wide shots that show many plants? How do you categorize them??

Well, Victor, right now we don't have that much in the way of 'full' gardens, so the wide shots pretty much stay wide, with all the plants.

However, (and I know this might cause some groans out there), I love to scrapbook, and I usually create digital layouts. Soooooo ... when i create the layout I can put text right onto the photo which tells me what each plant is.

If I can, I will try to upload one of my digital layouts that shows this.

Victor:

I couldn't find my layout, as I think I lent the CD to my other daughter. But I did create this really quickly so that you could see what I mean.

Wide shots are under Landscaping.
From there it's by garden.

Candyce - I'd love to see what you've done although I can't think of starting another project. There is a way of doing it on the computer and I have the instructions but it still confuses me.

Pirl:

I'd love to teach you. Talk to me again during winter about this project.

Thanks Candyce. I have to learn to do something like that one of these days!

It's really no trouble. Once you learn it, it's like riding a bike. You don't forget it.

And, I love to teach people new things!
It would be a way of giving back to the kind members here. I have learned so much in just a couple of weeks! What a wonderful world gardening is!!

Like most things for me, I know how to do it and it needs to be done,but.........

I wrote a post describing that I could label the individual plants in photos with my old el cheapo digital ($30.00) camera program but not with Picasa. When I tried to attach the photo Microsoft sent me one of their love notes and ended the whole program, DG and my post.

The problem comes in with what might be too many plants (for other people, not me) in an area. Would it be possible to label them all Candyce?

In this area of the long garden there have to be 50 to 60 (if not more) daylilies, plus hydrangeas back by the fence, hosta, daffodils, and many other plants.

Oh, Pirl:

Your garden is so lovely! I could spend a lot of relaxing hours just sitting under those trees!

To be honest, a photo like this would be used as a 'map' of sorts in my gardening folders. I would label it with the date that I took the shot.

So I would ask that if you already know the names of all that's growing there, would you really need to label over the photograph? For us, I only have done it so that when the garden begins to sprout up next season, we know the approximate location of the sprouting things. Does that make sense?

Oh, Candyce: a chair can't even fit under those old pines! I cleared an area at the far right but it's for our long gone pets and assorted birds, rabbits, and the neighborhood duck with a chandelier hanging over it so they'll know we "left the light on" for them.

Thank you for your compliment.

I understand your point of wanting to know where plants are located before you plan on adding more to your beds. For us I can only replace something I don't like or I feel would be better off in another place.

With each birthday I fear I'll forget names, which is why I'd like them on some, not all, photos. I do mark names on the 6 x 6's that line the entire length of that (about 100') long bed.

That's a good idea Pirl.

Thanks. Then when I move one I am left with the name!!! It works 95% of the time.

You can always switch fence posts.

........and have to move plants to coordinate with the names!? Too much work.

Organization of photos sounds like a good idea. I have lots of photos, but not as many as most cause I just started this season. I already have trouble finding a photo I want. Right now I have a folder for each group pf photos that I download and they are labeled with the content but I have to go through each one to find what I want. I have 96 folders in my Picture Package program of photos taken since January. Since I only have four gardens and containers I think I might organize them into types of flowers and then the annuals for my containers (maybe). Needs to be done anyway. Thanks fo the idea Pirl!!! Eleanor

It's a good job, Eleanor, for hot muggy weather or for winter.

I've learned the hard way to date photos and folders as: 2007-0709

If you date them July 9, 2007 then August's photos will come before July.

Pirl, you are so right about watching how we date our photos. And yes, I learned it the hard way, too, but mostly with the photos of my grandkiddos.

I can just see you out there moving the plants around to match the names! What a 'picture' THAT painted in my mind!

Candyce - that's exactly how I learned, too! Pictures of the grandkids.

Today I moved plants so the area around the new Japanese Maple would be more color coordinated and never got the plants back in the ground: way too hot. Maybe at 5:30 AM tomorrow........maybe.

I must tell you, Pirl, that you have inspired me to try more day lilies next year. I just love all the gorgeous colors you have waving at you every day. I'm jealous! Of course, first there's the small matter of putting in a new leach (sp?) field, and then re-grading the back hill to a more respectable degree for walking up and down. Right now it's just about 90 degrees of banking - way too hard on my legs! And me going down the hill is certainly a sight to which the grands would love to charge admission!! Forget about going up!

But, that's where I'd love the day lilies next year.

It can get to be a sickness but the color is hard to beat. Let's hope you can get everything you need done so you can plant and tend the plants without any problems. Long Island is big on very flat ground and ant hills get second glances here.

Mine get labelled by date. Then I relabel the individual pics. I can also view what's in the folder so that makes things easier too.

So neat!

I use ACDSee and it shows thumbnail folders too. It has gotten much better in terms of editing features too. I just rarely use them except for cropping.

Thanks, Pirl. I KNOW they will become addicting, which is why I want to devote the WHOLE HILL to them. Anna, of course, doesn't agree. So perhaps if I sneak them in while she isn't looking - LOL!!