[KineticLensman]

(since photo management seems to be of interest)

I have approx. 220k photos, of which 210k are in camera raw, 10k are ‘processed’, which typically means exposure corrected, cropped, etc. They are stored in two parallel directories (raw and processed), each of which is structured into years which are further subdivided into ‘shoot’ folders – one for each distinct upload from the camera. I use Adobe Bridge to do the uploads and to change the raw files names to support my indexing approach. The year folder names are simple (e.g. ‘2021’) and the shoot folders have names like ‘2021-010 garden birds young’ (where 010 is the sequence # of the shoot in the year). The folders thus automatically list themselves in chronological order when sorted alphabetically. A processed image might have a name like ‘20210523_010_my-IRL-name-here_0019.psd’ (so that I can immediately find the raw or processed shoot folder given a file name). I insert my name so that if I a send an image to someone I am identified as a creator (image metadata contains additional contact / copyright info). I’ll often extend the automatically generated file name to include the photo subject as I process specific images.

My indexing system relies on my memory and the fact that the relatively small number of processed pictures are indicative of the contents of the wider raw set – so I can browse the relatively small number of processed shots (using Bridge) if I am looking for something thematically. I usually manage to cull obvious fails from the raw set when I do an upload before doing any processing. Storage costs being what they are I have not yet had to further cull raw or processed images to make room on my hard-drives – currently 1.7Tb of images.

I have left it too late to add meaningful tags to this collection, and because I am the only librarian, I don’t have a need to help other users find particular images.

[xattt]

Any suggestions for managing an advanced photo library locally with a concurrent Google Photos library to share with family?

[mceachen]

I'd recommend using one of several mobile phone apps to sync your phone's camera/DCIM directory with a computer/NAS at home, so you have your originals.

https://photostructure.com/faq/how-do-i-safely-store-files/#...

I wouldn't recommend syncing from, say, your Google Photos library: even in "original quality," your files may be mucked with (it depends on your platform).

Once you've got them local, there are several apps to share photos via local webserver. I wrote PhotoStructure to deduplicate and manage my 500k+ photos and videos from the past 20+ years.