It's not easy to stay on top of organizing a large collection when it is
a broad (no pun intended) collection; that is, not limited to just a
narrow catogory, such as only models seen at the Spider Pool site.
Marked pictures, the ones with ID numbers in the picture or on the
margins, are a start but eventually you end up with lots of pictures
that have no numbers. Not all of the pictures in a 'set' are marked with
the set number, and some photographers used no numbers at all. I've
restorted to a couple of tricks.
One, when I recognize that a picture is associated with some others (for
example, they look like the same photo session, or belong to a 'set', or
perhaps show the same model) I extend the filename accordingly. For
example, a new picture named xxxx.jpg with an ID on it, I will add the
ID to the name such as "YA-231_xxxx.jpg". If there's no ID but I
recognize what it matches with I may file away as "XXH-15 match
xxxx.jpg" or "Barbara Pauline xxxx.jpg", but sometimes it's just a word
or phrase that will stick in my memory such as "the laughing blonde
xxxx.jpg", etc. This way you begin tagging related files so a file
search tool or just alphabetic ordering can scoop up the files that are
related to each other. Occasionally, new info may lead me to change the
tags; for me it usually is when I discover a model's name and I change
picture tags to show her name.
My second trick, and the hardest, is a text file that I started years
ago. In it, I have a short paragraph for associated files ('sets' or for
models, etc.) and I enter info that may help find those pics again. Info
may be her physical features (moles, bad teeth, funny nose, scars,
etc.), set or background details, costume details, etc. Sometimes,
there's a note that a model reminds me of someone.
Here's a short sample:
et104 match (medium hair brunette, possibly hispanic, black corset,
boots, long leather gloves, leopard blanket on bed, brick wall, cat
paintings)
There's a paragraph like that for every major association tag. Let's say
that I look at a new photo and can't be sure who she is or where I may
have filed related pics, but I see that the setting has an Air France
poster in the background. I open the text file, and search for the words
"air france" or "poster" and find all the associations that included
that feature. There may be several, but it's still much faster than
aimlessly scanning through pictures hoping to find one that matches.
The hard part is keeping the text file going. Whenever you get some new
related pics or a pic that you just know you'll want to find again, you
have to take a moment to make text entries. I've tried explaining these
tricks before (a long while ago, I guess). They're crude, and if there's
a better way, I'd like to hear about it. :-)
--rwl
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