Sorting Picture Files

Sorting Picture Files
Using an Effective Filing System
Release : 13 July 2010
Field : Organisational Behaviour
Focus : Optimised Business Systems Process


Introduction

With the advent of digital cameras gone are the days of expensive film processing, for all but avid photography fans anyway.

Cheap harddrive storage means that our collections of photos has expanded beyond what could have been imagined only a few years ago.  Take a look at the average computer these days and it is not uncommon to find literally thousands of photo jpeg files lumped in the digital equivalent of a photo shoebox.

Sorting photos can be a time consuming process however it affords a unique opportunity to develop several organisational skills that are highly employable.

My Pictures

The default standard place to store your pictures on a MS Windows computer is the My Pictures folder.

Most digital cameras also come with software to download photos from a memory card or directly from the camera.  Tuning a couple of settings before downloading your pictures can make a big difference to sifting through them months or years later.

Software Settings

There are so many packages available for the plethora of digital cameras on the market that it is impractical to write a guide for all of them.  Besides, once you know the type of settings you are looking for the help files and online guides will show you how to do it with your camera/software combination.

The Download Location

Before hitting the Transfer Images button or Download Pictures button you want to make sure that your pictures will end up where you want them.

Copying files to the My Pictures folder is a good start however if you are taking photos for a work project or school assignment it may be better to specify a dedicated folder for that purpose.  This folder can be under the My Pictures folder or somewhere more useful.

Another common location is an external harddrive.  Copying files directly to your external storage device not only saves a significant amount of time but also helps to keep your main harddrive clean:

• Copying large amounts of files to and from your main harddrive can cause it to become fragmented and this can have an adverse effect on system performance.

The File Names

The simplest way that picture download software can help organise your photos is to rename the pictures as they are downloaded.

Typical options include setting a filename prefix, like "IMG_" followed by a numbering system.  Sometimes the number system is a simple 001, 002, 003, etc. that reflects the order the photos were taken in.

Other number systems include writing the photo shoot date into the filename as well.

The Folder Structure

As your pictures are downloaded from your camera or memory card many packages can create a set of folders to store them in.

Typical options include:

Year > Month > Day > IMG_001, IMG_002, etc.

• separate folders for the Year, Month and Day the photos were taken.

YearMonthDay > IMG_001, IMG_002, etc.

Again, setting these options before you download your pictures will make sorting them much faster.

Because of the way I use my camera, I normally use the YearMonthDay folder format.  This lumps all the photos I took on any given day into a single folder.  I generally find this works well because most of the photos taken on a single day will be from a single event, like 'a day at the beach'.

Renaming Files in Batches

A nifty utility provided by most camera manufacturers is a software tool to rename a bunch of photos with a similar name.  For example, when you are looking at the photos taken, say, on the 15th of March 2007, you may have taken a set of photos of a house you were looking at buying and spent the afternoon at the beach with the kids.  

By selecting all the photos of you and your family at the beach you could rename those photos with the prefix "Beach with Kids" and the software will automatically add the numbers 0001, 0002, or whatever format you have chosen.

Deleting Rubbish Photos

Frankly there is something about deleting photos that we have a general aversion to.  If you were the photographer it can be hard to delete that photo when you find it in your collection.

For comparison it is quite a common for a  professional photographer to find only 3 photos in  24 photos that he can use.  The rest get binned!

So what do you do?  Become ruthless!

There are some photos that even though the lighting is bad, a couple of heads are chopped off and the main subject is blurred because they were moving, that we want to keep.

Party photos are often like this.

The awful photo we have is nonetheless a reminder of that point in time where the party was in full swing, glasses were overflowing and everyone was having a good time.  There was no time to get everyone to pause a moment to compose a perfect shot.

You have to learn to be tough.  Get mean!  Don't hold back.

Learn to hit the delete button without so much as a second thought.  When you spot a photo that really isn't up to scratch delete it.

Point blank.  Gone.  Deleted.  Done!

The catch all - assuming you have a Recycle Bin that is alive and well - is that if you get too trigger happy you can always restore it for another day, where potentially it will be culled again!

As a rough guide, 20 - 30% of all photos taken on a digital camera can and should be deleted; that's about 1 in 4.

Sorting Files

With an ever increasing number of picture files on your computer it is not always practical to individually sort every photo.  A simple system that tidies your photo collection in the least amount of time is required.

Through years of refinement I have found the following method to be the most efficient use of time:

• Download new pictures to a folder called:
  
  "Pictures Fresh Download"

This folder appears after "My Pictures" when sorted alphabetically so it is easy to find and clearly indicates the folder contents.

• Select a folder with pictures to sort in it.
  e.g. 2010_03_18
  

If all the photos in the folder all belong together 

• rename the folder
  e.g. "Bells Beach Surf Festival"

• Then drag the entire folder to a container folder called:
  
  "My Pictures Sorted"

If the photos belong to different categories:

• Create a new sub-folder for each category
• Give the new folders suitable names
  e.g. "Festival in Berlin 2010"
  e.g. "House 4 Sale in Berlin"
  
• Drag and drop files onto the appropriate folder
  -  selecting multiple files to drag and drop is best
  
• When done, move the folders to the "My Pictures Sorted" folder

Storage Space

One last tip for storing your photos.

Many cheap point and shoot digital cameras now have very high resolutions like 7 MegaPixels and above.  This can be fabulous for large reprints of great snapshots but often all you require is a picture that looks good on your computer monitor or television screen.

For example my compact Canon PowerShot takes a 12MP image.  The files are 4000x3000 pixels which is HUGE! 

After a party, day at the beach or strolling through the local botanic gardens I may end up with a couple of hundred photos.  Each of these photos chews up about 3 1/2 megabytes on my harddrrive when stored as a compact jpeg file.

That's the equivalent of about a CD full of pictures from one day's shooting.

Out of the 200 photos I probably have 30 or 40 that are fairly decent and in reality about ten or twelve that I might one day want to reprint on real photo paper as a good enlargement.

After clicking through the pictures using the Windows Image Preview tool and ruthlessly deleting anything that isn't crystal clear I have a set of files I want to keep.

In keeping with an efficient filing system I use one more main folder to keep my best shots:

"Pictures Hi Res Categorised".

In this folder I copy only the best, highest quality photos and individually sort them into categories.  Here is a snap-shot of the categories I currently have:

Files that I may want to one day print as normal 6x4" photos don't need to be 10 or 12 megapixel images.  Without a lot of technical information the rule of thumb is 200dpi or dots per inch to get a good print.  So how many pixels is that?  

Well, about 180 pixels per inch is about right.  You actually need about 120 pixels per inch for a good print but a bit higher than this is best to retain superfine detail.  

This means you can get a good quality print on a 6x4 inch photo (15x10cm) with as little as 720x480 pixels!  

A Word of Warning!

Shrinking your happy snaps to such a small image is NOT recommended.  A good guide to follow is:

Happy Snap Image Size: 1080 x 720

This represents 180ppi or pixels per inch for a 6" x 4".

Better Quality vs Larger Storage?

To print a 7" x 5" on photo paper you need a bit higher resolution.  To make my life easier I simply scale all the photos I want to keep as happy snaps or slide-show pics in a size that I can safely enlarge to a standard 7x5 format on photo paper:

Optimal Storage Image Size: 1280 x 1024

Another thing, when you resize, simply keep the proportions of the original image and change the longest side to be 1280 pixels.

To make the job of resizing photos a cinch, after much searching, trial and error I found this fabulous free utility by FastStone.

FastStone Photo Resizer
Here's the link: FastStone Resizer

It is fast, lightweight and simple to use.  Best of all it can process all of your photos in a single go.  If you use the program you are encouraged to make a donation but that is entirely a personal decision.

Returning to our filing system discussion I use one more folder dedicated to the shrinking of photos:

"Pictures Fresh Download Processed"

FastStone Resizer can mirror the folder structure from the location your photos are in, for example 'Pictures Fresh Download' and copy the shrunk files to 'Pictures Fresh Download Processed' in using the same folder layout.

When you process your new pictures in this manner it never takes long to catch up on the back log of your photographic adventures.

That's all for today.  

Happy sorting and may your pictures never get jumbled again!

Comments and Questions Welcome

Organising Folders An Effective Filing System

Organising Folders
An Effective Filing System

Release : 8 July 2010

Field   : Organisational Behaviour

Focus   : Optimised Business Systems Process

Introduction

Folders are a powerful means for organising files on your computer. The way you use folders can make finding the right file quick and easy or something that eats away at your valuable time.

A simple system to organise the folders on your computer is time well spent. In this article we are going to look at the nitty gritty of Working With Folders.

What's The Big Deal?

Most students and shockingly many so called 'managers' put ALL their documents in the My Documents folder and that's that. Complete chaos!

From correspondence letters to accounts spreadsheets to requirements analysis and reports, when everything is lumped in together in one folder it can be a time consuming process to find the right file.

Getting Organised

Top Pointers for an Optimised Computer Folder System

• Give every file you create a meaningful name.
• Use folders to group files by category.
• Use sub-folders when subgroups of a category become apparent.
• Regularly sort frequently accessed folders.
• Use special characters in names to sort frequently accessed files and folders first or last.
• The exclamation, dollar/euro/pound sign and apostrophe symbols sort first alphabetically
• When beginning a new project, create a dedicated work folder.

In Summary

• The hierarchy of folders you use will make finding information faster and easier. 
• Grouping related files in to a single project folder streamlines the task of assimilating the data into a desirable final product. 
• The more intuitive your filing system is the less you will rely on time consuming brute force techniques like File Search tools.

Next Steps

A complete and expanded coverage of this topic is contained in the F sharp Productions Optimised People Systems training course found here.

To get your staff to consistently apply optimised production techniques enrolled them in the F# Fast Start Program. This program is offered gratis as a sample of our comprehensive Office Training Course.

• Tailored specifically to meet the needs of the office professional - Secretary, PA, Receptionist, Typist, DE, and more - if you use Microsoft Windows this simple training is the start of a new paradigm - moving beyond technology to the business of profitable creativity.  

If ever there was an office plug-in assistant to make your office staff more productive, produce better results and virtually eliminate errors in published documents, this is it!

Go ahead now and enrol to receive five free days of training, delivered by email, fresh each morning.  Our trial eMail Mini Course rocks!

References

For organising your office paper filing system the following links offer an enlightening read:
Zenhabits: How to simplify your filing system; or Why Stacking Just Doesn't Work
WomensMedia: Organize Your Filing Systems - a 4 step formula that really works
SBinfoCanada: Filing Essentials For Fast Office Filing

Flexible Body Flexible Mind

Flexible Body Flexible Mind

I have often said, "A flexible mind is a flexible body".

And the implications are more incisive. If your mind is stuck, use your body. Repeated thoughts may be interrupted by changing a physical behaviour.

In one of his audio programs, Anthony Robbins quite passionately recalls the story of the man sitting behind the curtain, hidden from the audience. He informs the audience the man sitting on the chair, behind the curtain, hidden from sight, is depressed. He asks the audience, 'Describe that man.'

"That's easy," one man heckles from the audience, "He's slouched over."

"Good," responds Tony.

Another chimes in, "He is looking down."

"Right," says Tony.

"Shallow breathing," says another.

"True."

"And his facial muscles are slack," offers one more.

Anthony agrees. This description would fit quite well the depressed man, slouched in his chair, looking down, taking only shallow infrequent breaths and wearing no expression. Spot on.

Now it isn't always easy to get this fellow to smile. 'Just be positive,' you command. 'Think happy thoughts,' you try. 'Can't you just be happy for me?' you might beg.

None of these things work, for any length of time anyway.

There's still the memory of what was depressing the man, going round in a loop in his head.

You gotta get in there and break the pattern.

Especially in the early stages of processing, to get someone to 'think differently' can be quite difficult. When you can get him to use his body differently the thinking changes as a matter of course. It's quite direct.

"Flex a body to flex a mind." pdh.

Do this consistently to radically restore a man's memory and the happiness will return.

The Natural State of Man

Our Natural State

In our natural state we have a perfect memory.

By inference I will define natural state and for now define a perfect memory as one that can recall any and every detail of an event in a situation when asked to do so. The natural state refers to the mind; the culmination of the brain (the grey matter) and the power of reasoned thought. In this state we have an optimal set of conditions. These conditions may be lowered by the effects of our environment, leading to less than optimal performance.

So the game we are about in dealing with our memory is to overcome the effects of our environment. This state may also be said to be the state of no-pain.

Pain lies on a gradient scale from maximum pain to no-pain. We can imagine maximum-pain to be the firing of every single nerve cell in the body with the signal, "pain", in a moment, with a clear expectation the physical pain will have no end. This situation may occur, for example, if one was to be thrown into a pit of burning sulfur!

The pleasure state, or optimal state, is where every nerve cell reports feelings of pleasure, with a clear mental picture the enjoyable nature of the state will continue. This may be where the environment provides pleasant stimulus through to a pinnacle or peak experience of euphoria, ecstacy, awe and wonder or simply, pure pleasure.

Free from physical pain, which requires an awareness of self, the physical being we possess, our mind is not distracted by the real world. This is the best state to start from.

Next we embark on a process to deliberately call to mind the painful experiences from the past.

On closer inspection of these memories, which may be recalled several times in succession, more detail than had previously been available becomes available. We get in contact with more detail in the pictures from the memory.

Doing so is akin to unlocking the effects of old environments. One model of these memories has it that past painful memories have an associated charge. This charge is like applying heat to the skin: too much heat causes pain and prevents us operating from an optimal state.

Clearing old painful memories is as important for cleaning up our childhood memories as it is after being fired from a place of work. It is as important for the genetic history of the perennial body you have as it is for the eternal spirit we are.

For various reasons we encounter trouble, in this life and presumably at some previous time in the existence of our eternal spirit (well 76 million years in the making is a fairly huge amount of time that by any standard of reference that fits in the human mind simply does-not-compute). Those times of trouble, physical and emotional pain, are stored in our memory.

So this process of clearing the past has the tremendous benefit of bringing about our natural state by removing the effects of the environment, both past and present, from our memory banks. These data storage units, when not being cooked - or overheated - by the energy of past painful memories, perform perfectly well.

By way of simple example, if you drank too much beer last night and have a headache this morning then you understand perfectly well that things that happen in the past can impact the way we feel today.

If you 'forget' how many drinks you drank you may recognise that as you think about the questions, "What did you drink?" and "How much did you drink?" you will recall more detail.

Your first reaction may have been to protest, "My head hurts and I didn't drink that much..." however on reviewing your memory of the previous night you may recall the five rounds of shots that 'a friend' insisted you imbibe! Around this time you experience an "Aahhh" moment. "Ah-ha!" you exclaim, shortly before collapsing back on the couch with your sore head!

Weight Loss Example

Recall the prevalance of television weight loss programs. On a daily basis participants are required to exercise and work to consistenty higher physical performance levels than they have clearly undertaken in a number of years.

This reigeme is continued for several months. In six months time the candidates are presented to the watching audience and the results are often dramatic. Massive weight loss is the external metric.

The process of using one's body on a daily, consistent basis towards the goal of weight loss produces many changes: lower resting heart rate, clearing thinking, faster metabolism, energetic feelings, can-do feelings, etc.

The change in physical condition produces a massive shift in mental ability. New possibilities open up. The evidence is clear and you, my dear reader, can see this for yourself!

Changing Minds

Get someone to move differently and you get that person to think differently. From that point out you have someone you can work with. That's power! You just "saved" a man.

Freed from the pain of the past, we live in the moment in our Natural State; our memories work better and as a funny little aside that means our intelligence goes up!

Why?

Great question.

The answer may be found by searching out the factors that increase "gF" a measure of Fluid Intelligence.

To simplify the process you can get the data here:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/04/25/0801268105.abstract

The full article is freely available. And I highly recommend searching for online games that apply this concept: search for "Dual n-Back Training". There are many games, mostly free and the results become apparent after only three or four days training about twenty minutes per day, playing this game! Enjoy.

Human potential is awesome. Explore more of yours today!

(c) Paul Heffer 7 July 2010

Memory

Memory

To the best of my knowledge the Good Lord gave me a brain to think and reason. On a separate occasion He gave me memory. Now isn't that the darnedest thing?

Seems most grade school, secondary school and to a lesser extent university have the general opinion that things taught must also be remembered. They twist these two separate things together, and I'm sure it is only to make examinations hard.

It is much simpler to teach a process, system or piece of knowledge to full conceptual understanding. 'Memory', per se, is therefore not required!

Now, bear with me a moment: what at first may appear a convoluted digression into not-much-ness (viz. naval gazing) on closer inspection reveals a basic truth.

Different kinds of memory have been described in the literature: instinct, short term recall, learned helplessness and long term memory. Study of the field shows that memory, be it short or long term, instinctual or educated, lies on a gradient scale from no-memory to perfect-recall-at-will-with-minimal-time-delay-memory.

Now, I think most people are like me and when we hear someone utter the phrase "memory game" we tend to react, "Oh, no!", or, "Oh, I'm good at those", or, "That sounds hard" or "Have I got time to get a pen and paper?"

The key word here is "game" if only we can get that far. Don't get caught up on a word like memory, just because you don't understand it. (If this statement provokes a slight twinge of insult in you read on; you're on to something here. Keep going!)

To clear up the word memory, let's look at a dictionary definition:

memory [ˈmɛmərɪ]

n pl -ries

1.

a. the ability of the mind to store and recall past sensations, thoughts, knowledge, etc. he can do it from memory

b. the part of the brain that appears to have this function

2. the sum of everything retained by the mind

3. a particular recollection of an event, person, etc.

4. the time over which recollection extends within his memory

5. commemoration or remembrance in memory of our leader

6. the state of being remembered, as after death

7. (Electronics & Computer Science / Computer Science) Also called RAM main store store a part of a computer in which information is stored for immediate use by the central processing unit See also backing store, virtual storage

8. the tendency for a material, system, etc., to show effects that depend on its past treatment or history

9. the ability of a material, etc., to return to a former state after a constraint has been removed

[from Old French memorie, from Latin memoria, from memor mindful]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003

To effectively clear the word 'memory', use it in a sentence or three:

• The student recited the poem from memory.
• The professor demonstrated that despite his age he had an excellent memory.
• Our memory is known to have no practical limitations to the amount of information it can store and recall, notwithstanding environmental effects directly related to pain.

Returning to our original text we are interested in "Memory Games".

Many memory games are available online, both for free and by subscription. These generally may be found by searching for "Cognitive Training". Here are a couple of links to sites with edutaining memory games:

• http://cognitivefun.net/ free
• http://www.lumosity.com/ free 7 day trial
• http://www.mindsparke.com/ purchase only

Now with full conceptual understanding is memory not required?

Yes and No.

The active process of trying to remember something as distinct from recalling something are two different activities.

The old adage, "Use it or lose it" applies to memory and many references relating to illnesses like dementia indicate that active use of our memory is a vital ingredient to preserving our mental faculties.

The distinction that 'memory is not required' refers to the Natural State where our memory performs perfectly: it recalls accurately on demand with minimal time-delay from the point of request. Both playing games to try and improve one's memory plus the attempt to attain one's Natural State both require effort.

So, use it or lose it! Train your brain, play memory games and do what you can to find out about the Natural State of Man. Your abilities to survive and thrive in this world depend on it!

(c) Paul Heffer 7 July 2010

Writing and Speaking

Don't mind the earlier rubbish. It takes a while to get the hang of this blogging thing!

Writing and Speaking

After a while it becomes second nature but getting started is like learning a new language. Not everything you say sounds good when you write it down. The converse is true: Not everything you write down sounds good when you say it.

Thus a balance must be struck. What to write? what to say?

It stands to reason one must say what needs to be said and get about the business of writing what must be written about.

What then, must one, afterall, write about?

A good first answer arrives, "Anything".

A concerning second says, "Everything".

Well, concerning Everything, some have attempted it and despite a biblical admonition not to, one to my knowledge has done it. I find it absolutely engrossing the bible contains so much teaching, experience and wisdom yet consistently fails to explain why!

Interesting...

...let the blogging begin!

Whoa There Cowboy!

Thanks for dropping by!  

Apparently the page you're looking for hasn't arrived yet.

At this stage, to get the F sharp Quick Start or more
information on the Optimised People Systems course
shoot me an email at xboa721@yahoo.com.au with
the product title as the subject.

This notice was updated 8 July 2010

Arghhh!!!

If I believe what turned up in my inbox today, from two completely different sources, I'd come to the conclusing that marketing is a scam!

okay, okay. it isn't however one may be forgiven for thinking such thoughts...

What Is Marketing?

This entry will explain what we mean when we refer to marketing.

Setting the scope of what marketing is makes our job much easier.

I'm about to delve into this subject boots and all. Get strapped in, this is the nitty gritty stuff where we sort out what exactly we're doing here. Okay, let's go.

Marketing derives from the word Market. Traditionally, market meant the place where buyer and seller would meet for exchange. To understand marketing, we must first recognise that without buyers and sellers, there is no marketing. Also, the term Market now refers to an organisation of buyers and sellers and is not tied to a specific geographical location, like a market!

For example, the 'cars market' refers to all sellers of cars and the group of potential buyers at a location in time.

Okay, so in broad terms our primary focus here is the internet market. That's very broad indeed, however for the time being, we will work from the basis that everyone who uses the internet is included in our market.

Right. The word marketing is a verb that describes a set of actions. There are several processes we link to task of marketing. A popular description of these processes are the 4P's: Product, Pricing, Promotion and Placement.

Simply, to be involved in marketing we concern ourselves with having a product, determining an appropriate price, promoting and advertising our product to our potential market and placing - either physically or perceptually - our product in front of our buyers.

The total picture of marketing operations is very much wider than this simple starting point. As a useful reference for you, I have created a Visual Mind^TM Map which you may use as a handy reference. It will help you explore aspects of marketing that perhaps you haven't considered and there are a bunch of great ideas for ways to promote your product in various markets. Check back often as I will be updating this periodically.

There are two ways you can access the Visual Mind^TM Map. I highly recommend you go to the VM website and download a free demo. Simply playing with this tool will uncover thoughts you never knew you had!
www.visual-mind.com

Then you will be able to edit the map I've created and placed here:


Alternatively, if you have a Java enabled web browser, you can simply play with the published map found here:

Welcome

Welcome all!

This is the place you can find tips about successful Marketing.

Find Paul’s personal blog at
pdh721.blogspot.com

Read more about Sinsat Productions at
Sinsat Productions

The Perfect Christmas Cake
There are many recipes for the 'perfect' Christmas cake, aren't there? Well, successful marketing has a lot in common with baking a cake; a list of ingredients and an method to follow. Although the methods vary, the end result is much the same - A Christmas Cake!

Realise all Christmas cakes have the same basic ingredients. However, what happens if you throw some flour, eggs, water and some dried fruit into a cake tin then slam it into the oven for an hour or two? What do you get? A call from the fire brigade? :)

Marketing is as much science and creativity as baking a quality cake, perhaps even more so.

Now, let me outline the ingredients you need and then let me show you how I’ve mixed them together to achieve the end result: a working home business.

Magic Marketing Mix:
A Business Model or Three
A Product or Service
The Attitude of Altitude
The Leverage of Legends
Affiliations and Associations
The New Time Management
Timing Timing Timing
Sales Strategies and Techniques

As we develop new articles we’ll add the blog pages to introduce each of these areas.

You may have seen similar attempts to pen the ‘definitive answer’? Well, let me say that anyone prepared to walk their talk and share their walk has my full support.

Think BIG folks; glad you’ve decided to come along for the ride. Know that you can be in business for yourself but not by yourself. Successful business depends on successful business relationships.

As John Di Lemme said to me, “Paul, don’t listen when others tell you to Always Be Closing. That’s the old-school way of thinking. You must get this through your head: Always Be Opening. Opening new relationships with new people is the key to your success.”

I’d really encourage your feedback – let us know what you think. You won't find theory here; what I’m doing is already working and with your feedback it will be even greater. I appreciate your thoughts, prayers and well wishes.

Until next time remember:

"Shoot for the Moon. Even if you miss you

will still land amongst the stars." Les Brown.