Sorting your photo's

We have topics on what and where to buy figures, how to sort, arrange and store figures.
Even topics on how keep track, take photo's and make list the figures we already have or like to have.
But here is my issue:

Over time i have taken many photo's of my figures. But somehow i cant get them in a good orderly system.

How do you keep track of what figures you have photo's off?

How do you sort the photo's you have taken of figures?

Do you rename the photo-number to "brand"-"figure numer"-"figure description"?
Like Schleich 14659 polarbear.
For instance a decent walkaround would take at least 6-8 mayme even 10 photo's for just 1 animal. So would it be
Schleich 14659 polarbear a
Schleich 14659 polarbear b
Schleich 14659 polarbear c ... etc. etc.
That's why i sometimes merge photo's to a small collage, to reduce the number of single photo's.

Or do you think that fewer shots are enough? Or even left right only.

Do you only keep all the large photo's, or the 800-pix you upload too?

And in comparison photo's; how do you name those, telling the figures in the photo apart?

Sort photos? What do you mean by that?

I don't sort my photos. I don't even save them. I use Flickr and save everything in there, and if I need to grab a photo for something I just come here and get it.

But how do you know what photos you have on Flickr without looking through all couple of hundreds everytime.

I use brand name abbreviation then number for numbered series then animal (abbreviation sometimes) and often all as one word.

Schleich are all in one folder with just the item number as name though.

I save them in folders after the big brands and "others".
Then I make sub-folders for series ( Big brands) , others after brand or country .
If the series are large, I make sub-sub-folders for type, - for instance for horse types.
I save them in 1500 pixels after having redigated them.

It is quite easy to get an overview, - you can make the icons larger or smaller ( Ctrl +/- )

And , remember : Real men don't make back-up  

Although I have some photos stored on my computer, and some of those on photobucket, these are just the ones I've needed there to send as emails or post on forums. Most of my photos, as I only have an old fashioned film camera, are on paper and stored in 15 physical albums (big ones, most 200 photos each.

I have 6 albums for Britains, including some 'associated', such as Transogram copies of the Britains swoppet American War of Independence set in my Britains AWI/ACW/wild west album. Then another album for Britains lead farm + lead + plastic garden, another album for Britains lead soldiers + some odd items, another has Britains lead + plastic zoo + Britains catalogues (Ihave photos for insurance purposes too), another album for Britains plastic farm + plastic soldiers & knights, another album for wooden buildings sold by Britains, but not actually made by them (no carpentry workshop in Britains factory!), + the other buildings which appear to be made by the same (some unknown) suppliers.

I have 5 other albums (2 of them smaller, only 100 each) of other wooden buildings, although one of the bigger albums is half used for Elastolin & similar composition figures (+ their buildings, obviously)

One album (still lots of spaces) for the currently most growing part of my collection, various animals and figures by Reisler, Starlux and other European manufacturers.
Another album, also lots of spaces, for Aluminium figures by Wend-Al and others + lead & plastic by Marx  and other US manufacturers.

Finally, 4 albums for other UK lead & plastic manufacturers, 1) farm, 2) wild west, 3) soldiers, 4) zoo & 'odds'. Within each album sorted A-Z by manufacturer name, although a bit more complicated in (3).

Dutch Bear wrote:

But how do you know what photos you have on Flickr without looking through all couple of hundreds everytime.

I only use the first few I uploaded. If it's farther down the page I just come here to get it.

On Iphoto I have as files as brands I have. Inside every brand I have three files: I have, I don't and retired.

Apart of these I have a list with my wish list; and that's all

I don't how to do this if you have just a huge huge collection of bears - it must be difficult, but I save my photos like custom horses, outdoor photos, collection photos.. Hope you can solve your problem

Thank you all for your replies.
Maybe i am making the whole idee of it too complex, but my collection is too.
I have only 6 species and 1 group non-species-specific, many unknown brands.
Maybe i should settle for less photos of each figure.
I will make a start with some general folders, folders per brand and in those sub-folders by comparison / walkarounds. and include shortcuts.
Let's see it that works for me.

Dutch Bear wrote:

Thank you all for your replies.
Maybe i am making the whole idee of it too complex, but my collection is too.
I have only 6 species and 1 group non-species-specific, many unknown brands.
Maybe i should settle for less photos of each figure.
I will make a start with some general folders, folders per brand and in those sub-folders by comparison / walkarounds. and include shortcuts.
Let's see it that works for me.

You'll certainly need folders by brand for many vintage brands as lot of them had just one set of moulds, say 'bear walking', 'bear sitting', 'bear standing up on hind legs' and maybe a couple of cubs in various poses, and simply painted them different colours in lead, or used different colours of plastic to represent the species.

Hey, they were toys!