I guess I will stick my two cents in.
I started my system mainly because there are two of us using three cameras and the Canon naming/numbering was creating a lot of conflicts with two completely different pictures having identical Canon names/numbers; plus, there was no hint as to what the photos were.
I installed the free photo naming/numbering program “DIM” (Digital Image Mover) and that one move forever changed my image filing system for the better.
We are fanatical about setting a new folder within the camera for each day and sometimes create folders during a busy day to separate what was going on.
I let DIM move the image files from the card-reader and dump them into the same landing place on an external hard-drive, from where I then move them into dated/named folders that make sense to me.
DIM creates folders by date, which is wonderful, but I like my own final dated folders better, hence the temporary landing place.
Most file handling programs use three-letter abbreviations for the months and only put a solitary number as the name for each calendar day’s folders.
Thus, the months are listed in alphabetical instead of chronological order; I don’t like that.
So, I create my own folder names; hence our folder tree:
MyName’s Pictures
…MyName_2016
…A_January-2016
…11-Jan-2016_Big Ice Storm
…BigIceStorm_Finished-jpegs
…BigIceStorm_Orig-jpegs
…BigIceStorm_PSD
…BigIceStorm_960-FaceBook
…23-Jan-2016_Big Snow
…(Repeat above)
…B_February-2016
…(Repeat above)
…C-March-2016 ------ and so forth and so on.
Individual file names are (MyFirstInitial)T3_11-Jan-2016_001
The first initial denotes that it was my Canon T3 and most likely me that took the picture; pictures from the wife’s T3 will have her first initial followed by T3.
Of course the date is the date taken and the three digit number is consecutive and starts all over at 001 each day.
Although we have no less that a dozen different photo browsing/filing/finding programs; we have found it quickest/easiest to just use FastStone and scroll the folder tree to the dated/named folder, click on it, and there are our images for that day/instance/event.
We can select/hi-lite the one’s we want and send them to an editor program or wherever.
Thanks for reading.