Ouch - The complex world of organizing.

I've been through hell trying to organize my own. My tuppenceworth below works for me, and allows me to have photos+digital all organised.

Before you get into it : Main advice - do not attempt to split apart negatives form their original sets, not yet.

You say you have dates available - you are already 3/4 way organised.

Set out your photos in chronological order. Most recent first, and behind every pack of photo's/negs - slip in a blank piece of paper (printer A4 paper or such.

If a pack or photo shows up with an unknown date - don't panic - make a best guess.

Once all possible packs of phot's are lined up, start labelling the blank paper in order most distant 1, next 2,3,4 etc up to most recent.
This is important: leave every 10th or so number free - you are sure to find more at a later date - they can then 'slip' into file and not be too far out of date.

My own system then organises a filename in the following;
N12-345-67X
N = Negative
S = Slide
B = Black and white
(other categories can exist if you have medium format (M) digital (D) or phone pics (P))
12 - 2-digit year number
345 - sequential roll number for that year or overall sequence (choice here)
67 - frame number
X - if oyu decide to play with an image and for example turn colour photo into B+W with photoshop - X can mean edited...
The 'filename' system is then set.

Now the hard part, label EVERY pack or negative carrier with the filename unique to that pack. As you do this, copy the filename into a book or folder page. Here add your comment - Family, joe's wedding, concert etc.

Your organising is now done on hard copy - if you then choose to scan in each picture or only the good ones - you already have a filname system to use and reference back if looking for anything. New software packs (I use I-match) are brilliant - but need all the above with character names and sets applied - so I'ld advise getting the above sorted before going near classifying the images.


Best of luck - and for what it's worth - I haven't actually completed my filing yet - but have made many mistakes. I'm now using my method above and think it's working great for me so far !

Diesel..