Preferred folder naming when a single project stretches across multiple days?

[WinterSolstice]

How do you handle folder naming when a project stretches across more than one day?

Like most of you, I use a date code (eg: 20250312) as part of my filenaming and folder naming. For most shoots, this date corresponds to the day the photo was made. Easy.

But for other projects, sometimes a single project will stretch across multiple days. For example, Day 1, I'll visit the subject and do some posed environmental portraits, and Day 2, I'll return to photograph the subject at an event. The photos are going into one single published story, so it makes sense to work in a single batch of images for culling and filing purposes. Because of this I typically put all these in one folder, even though the folder date will be technically incorrect for some of them.

(For longer-term projects, say, 3+ days, or if I'm working with high volumes of images, I'll usually piece them out into different dated folders.)

This has worked for me, even if it's not necessarily the "tidiest" DAM logic. I'm curious if there's a better or more accepted way of doing it.

[Kirk Baker]

I would create a parent folder with the project name and then the dated folder as a sub-folder below it.  You can still open the parent folder and all of the sub-folders in a single contact sheet from the Navigator or Favorites (if you've added it or its parentage there).

All of the photos will be in their correctly dated folder and you will have the flexibility of seeing them all in one contact sheet, or in their individual sub-folders as separate contact sheet tabs.

-Kirk

[WinterSolstice]

Yeah, having multiple subfolders with different dates is a good strategy. But I'd probably keep a date in the parent folder name too, so it follows the naming conventions of the rest of the archive.

[pike]

Hi,

The folder naming convention I use is as follows:
{year4}.{mn0}.{day0}_CLIENT/PROJECT_SLUG

I input this info into the IPTC Template and usually keep it in a per-assignment contact sheet.

For multi-day or multi-assignment projects that need to be viewed as a single contact sheet, I will move the dated folders into a '_MASTER' folder with the date range so I can use the navigator to 'Open Folder and Subfolders in new Contact Sheet'. (I have not found a way to automate this, so I make the master folder after the fact in the navigator or Finder.)

{year4}.{mn0}.day range_CLIENT/PROJECT_SLUG_MASTER


In addition, my file naming convention is: {yr2}{mn0}{day0}_{tmsl}_sir name/company
For shoots with remotes or multiple photographers, where there may be frames shot at the same tmsl, I add 'file name' prefix set in camera, (I shoot canon and sRGB and have my camera's set to CP1_, CP2_, etc, my initials and a camera identifier): {yr2}{mn0}{day0}_{tmsl}_sir name/company_{prfx:0:lc}

Allowing all images to be uniquely named.

[ahoward]

Yeah, having multiple subfolders with different dates is a good strategy. But I'd probably keep a date in the parent folder name too, so it follows the naming conventions of the rest of the archive.

In that case I would use the variables that return the values based on the current date, rather than the variables that use the capture time or IPTC date.