Picture naming and sorting

[dgolub]

Similar to what David (dgolub) wrote, the naming convention we have is based upon route, direction, exit number or intersection or county line, etc
i-094_eb_exit_213_01.jpg - route direction exit number, number of photo in order
mt-135_nb_after_old_hwy_10.jpg - route, direction; approach; at; after, route or street or other intersected/crossed
us-285_nb_at_pine_jct.jpg - route, direction, at city/county/state line

I've considered dividing roads that don't have exit numbers by county.  When I first started the site, it was just Long Island, so the only really long roads without exit numbers were NY 25 and NY 25A.  Now that I'm covering a much larger geographic area, the renaming can get a bit out of hand when I add something to the beginning of a photo set that already has 200 photos in it.  Dividing things by county would help.  So far, I haven't done it yet, though.

[vdeane]

Mine are organized simply by year/trip, at least for my personal filesystem (which is shared with non-roads photos).  The ones on my site are organized by state/route.  I mostly retain the original filename... mostly because I do a bulk rename from 100_xxxx to 101_xxxx to preserve file sorting and prevent potential filename conflicts on the website.  Luckily, in Linux, this rename operation is very easy ("rename 's/^100/101/' *" on the command line before copying them off my SD card if anyone is curious).

[AsphaltPlanet]

I really love the idea of automating the renaming process (or any process associated with managing photos).  I upload so little of the photos that I take because I edit and sort manually and it's just too time consuming to get much of anything online.

[vdeane]

I also automated much of the process of getting them on my website.  I have a Perl script to make the smaller image and thumbnail for the website and another one run remotely to add them to the database.  This does have the downside that I can't organize the website photos by direction/milepost or have descriptions, but it was that or always be several years behind, getting more behind each roadtrip.

[Ian]

^^^

What kind of camera are you using to get those night shots?

I have a Nikon D5100 that I use for almost all of my photography. It's only an entry level DSLR and I'm looking to upgrade to something better a little bit down the road, but it's treated me very well in the ~5 years that I've had it. I also used my Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens for this particular photo.

I'm curious as to what kind of settings you're using. Getting good nighttime shots has always been a struggle for me.

When I'm getting night photos, I usually play with my settings a bit to get the photo that I want. When I'm trying to get photos with stars, I'll usually crank up the ISO and use a wide aperture with a long exposure (that particular photo of the car was 30 seconds long). It also helps to shoot in manual focus, since it's hard to focus on very far away objects like stars.

[formulanone]

It also helps to shoot in manual focus, since it's hard to focus on very far away objects like stars.

I've found that manual focus tends to "drift" a bit after long exposures, especially when the camera is angled up towards the sky. So I get a few in focus, and about 20-30 shots that are too blurry. I need to work on that technique...

I really love the idea of automating the renaming process (or any process associated with managing photos).  I upload so little of the photos that I take because I edit and sort manually and it's just too time consuming to get much of anything online.

FastStone has an image editor, photo viewer, organizer, and batch-renaming process which are all easy to use.

I have an old copy of Photoshop 6.0, but I rarely use it much. It's nice for selective color changes that I can't quite nail with curves/levels, and for scanned photos. I know how to use about 2% of the features in PS...

[Duke87]

So it sounds like as I suspected, the reason I don't get photos like that is because they are simply beyond the capabilities of my camera. I can only do exposures up to 15 seconds, and on any exposure greater than 1 second the ISO locks to 80 (yes, this is in manual mode).

[slorydn1]

Wow. I'm ashamed to admit all of my pictures are labled as whatever my computer decided to call them when I downloaded the camera or phone that I took the pictures with. The folders were created by the computer when I downloaded the pictures, too (usually the download date). From the looks of all the previous posts before me I'm the only one who does that.

Since my pictures usually suck (especially compared to the rest of you) I usually don't share them online. Whatever pictures I have decided to share on this or other forums get uploaded to Photobucket and then linked to the forum. Whatever Photbucket decided to call them is what they remain.

I guess I kind of need to get some kind of filing system in order, huh?

[7/8]

Wow. I'm ashamed to admit all of my pictures are labled as whatever my computer decided to call them when I downloaded the camera or phone that I took the pictures with. The folders were created by the computer when I downloaded the pictures, too (usually the download date). From the looks of all the previous posts before me I'm the only one who does that.

Since my pictures usually suck (especially compared to the rest of you) I usually don't share them online. Whatever pictures I have decided to share on this or other forums get uploaded to Photobucket and then linked to the forum. Whatever Photbucket decided to call them is what they remain.

I guess I kind of need to get some kind of filing system in order, huh?

So far I'm the same way  . I've labelled my folders by the date they were taken, but the original photo names haven't been changed. I just need to start adding descriptions to my imgur photos so I can search out my photos better. Currently I just go through all of my photos and pick ones I haven't played based on the view count (if the view count is really low, then I haven't shared that photo yet).

[paulthemapguy]

I have a whole freaking system of how my photos appear on Flickr.  It basically revolves around my ability to sort them out in Organizr using the "Alphabetically" option.  Every photo is named according to a code, starting with the state, followed by the route featured in the photo and then, if necessary, the highway it's intersecting.

Here's a pretty basic example:  WI-US8-139W
This means we're in Wisconsin on US8, at its junction with WI-139, facing west.  The three-digit number without any prefixes or modifiers means we're looking at a state route.


WI-US8-139W by Paul Drives, on Flickr

Important--every number should be expressed with the full number of digits necessary in your state (usually 3 or 4 digits is enough).  So Route 1 is 001, Route 83 is 083, etc.  Otherwise it screws up the sequence.

I've got a whole complex guide to all my coding conventions, but I feel I should post them somewhere else, so as not to burden you all with a marathon of a post.  Let me know and I'll add more if you're curious.

[intelati49]

I feel like this comic is relevant to this thread

[MNHighwayMan]

I thought that same thing when I saw the comic. How true it is...

I've got a whole complex guide to all my coding conventions, but I feel I should post them somewhere else, so as not to burden you all with a marathon of a post.  Let me know and I'll add more if you're curious.

Actually, that was really the point of this thread, so please, share!

[paulthemapguy]

I have a whole freaking system of how my photos appear on Flickr.  It basically revolves around my ability to sort them out in Organizr using the "Alphabetically" option.  Every photo is named according to a code, starting with the state, followed by the route featured in the photo and then, if necessary, the highway it's intersecting.

Here's a pretty basic example:  WI-US8-139W
This means we're in Wisconsin on US8, at its junction with WI-139, facing west.  The three-digit number without any prefixes or modifiers means we're looking at a state route.


WI-US8-139W by Paul Drives, on Flickr

Important--every number should be expressed with the full number of digits necessary in your state (usually 3 or 4 digits is enough).  So Route 1 is 001, Route 83 is 083, etc.  Otherwise it screws up the sequence.

I've got a whole complex guide to all my coding conventions, but I feel I should post them somewhere else, so as not to burden you all with a marathon of a post.  Let me know and I'll add more if you're curious.

Since I've been so encouraged, I'll add the rest to give you the extended version of my photo coding and cataloging system.

Guide to other codes I use:
A- approaching.  Used for signage approaching an intersection, rather than adjacent to the intersection at hand.
B- Business...For business routes and alternate routes.
C- Close-up.  Indicates a close-up version of signage for which another photo already exists.
D- Duplex.  For photos taken for the sole purpose of depicting two routes following the same alignment.
E- East
F- Far-away.  The opposite of C for close-up.
I- Interstate
J- Junction.  Used to indicate junction signage (e.g. NJ indicates junction signage from the northbound approach
of an intersection).
L- Alternate.  Used to show a secondary photo of the same signage.
M- Multiplex.  For photos taken for the sole purpose of depicting two or more routes following the same alignment.
N- North
R- Reassurance marker.  Usually preceded by direction of aperture/traffic approaching the sign.
S- South
T- Terminus.  Used for end signage.  Usually preceded by a direction for relative location of the route terminus
(i.e., OH-323ST is used for the southern end of Ohio Route 323).
V- View along a particular route.  Used for miscellaneous aesthetic photos.
W- West
X- Exit.  The X is preceded by the route number and followed by the exit number-- for example, NE-I-80X379E is
taken on I-80 eastbound at Exit 379 in Nebraska.
Z- Unimportant alternate photo (sometimes also L, Q, or Y).

Example 2:  IL-047-113SA

This means we're in Illinois; the lack of "US" or "I-" modifiers indicated that these are both state routes. 
Since 047 appears first, this means we're on IL47, at IL113.  S means we're facing south, and A stands for
"approaching."  If there was no A, we'd be looking at signage immediately at the intersection.

And here's the picture mentioned.  If that arrow didn't have the vertical component, the A would be absent
from the code: 

IL-047-113SA by Paul Drives, on Flickr

If two routes have multiple intersections, I disambiguate by showing two directions at the end of the code. 
The first direction is for the relative location of the intersection, and the second is for the direction the
aperture is facing.  This is handy for interchanges and situations where two routes form a multiplex and then
split off again. For example, here's Ohio 582 westbound at US23.  The code here is OH-582-US23SW,
meaning that we're on Ohio 582 at US23, at the southern junction of the two routes, facing west:


OH-582-US23SW by Paul Drives, on Flickr