Trail Cam Pix- What to cull, What to keep?

[Leftridge]

Full of questions today..

I've got thousands of photos from last year and photos take up space..

Questions is
1) How do you catalog your pics (locations, years, etc..)
2) What do you keep? (the best of individuals, one from each month throughout the season, every photo there is?) I mean, what besides horn size and numbers are you really wanting from previous years..

What is the data set that will help later on? (ie what would a wildlife biologist whan to see about a heard from year to year besides numbers and size) Does anyone spend the time or have you developed a spreadsheet for tracking age structure?

[Junebug]

I first go thru the card and delete all the junk. does, coons, quail etc. then ill delete the young bucks. Im only looking for 2.5 and up. about everytime i check a card ill end up with 50 or so "good pics" these will be transfered into a file for that feed station. By the end of the year ill have around 1000 pics per feed station which then get burned onto a cd and kept for future viewing.

[Shake1]

I store mine on my PC with the following file structure to catalog them. FYI - I only keep the good pics (eliminate duplicates, all the doe photos, hogs, coons, etc.):

\My Pictures
\Hunting
\Trail Camera Photos
\2007 Season
\2008 Season
\2009 Season
\8-15-09
\N. Rd. Feeder
\S. Rd. Feeder

The indentations do not show in the example above, but these are each sub-directories of the one above it.
The dates I use to create folders, are the dates I am at the lease and pulling TC cards. The photos themselves actually have date stamps on them.

[Jackalope]

I first go thru the card and delete all the junk. does, coons, quail etc. then ill delete the young bucks. Im only looking for 2.5 and up. about everytime i check a card ill end up with 50 or so "good pics" these will be transfered into a file for that feed station. By the end of the year ill have around 1000 pics per feed station which then get burned onto a cd and kept for future viewing.

same here

[Throwin Darts]

pick up an external hard drive. I got 500 gigs for about $50. i don't think i'll be able to fill that up.

[tadmaryperry]

I actually print the pics that I really like and keep a binder for each year.

[Smart]

Leftridge here is what I do and it makes life easy for me. I have a set of files set up and accessible while I look at my pics. While I am viewing I will drop and drag pics of known deer I want to keep and then have miscellaneous files for new 8 and 10+ points that may be a deer we end up naming if he makes something. Since we average about 2000-2500 pics per month perfeeder I don't keep much unless it is a good shot and a good or promising deer. That definition varies per lease I am sure.

A lot of folks ask us why we name deer. I just say it's easier to keep them all in line when discussing them amongst the lease members versus saying that 8 point with the tall rack with a left kicker, but not the same tall racked 8 point with a kicker you are seeing etc etc......Tuthdoc said it well when he said "it works for me"

I have my file set up by season year and then by folders according to specie then named deer.....this is just an example from the 2008 season....all accessible through Windows Explorer.

2008 Hunting Season

2008 Deer
Cavron
Homeboy
High Rack
High Waters
9-11
Mad Dawg
Rocket
Unlucky
Miscellaneous 8s
Miscellaneous 9s
Miscellaneous 10s
Odd pics
2008 "Kilt" Deer

2008 Dove
2008 North Zone
2008 South Zone

2008 Ducks
2008 Teal
2008 Big Duck


2008 Turkeys
2008 Spring
2008 Fall

2008 Trail Cam Photos
By Date (this file is for temp storage while I go through them


I'll download then from the card to the "2008 trail cam photo" section so they are easier and faster to work with versus directly from the cards. As I scroll through the masses, I'll drag and drop any photos I want to keep into the 2008 Deer folder under the corresponding named deer's folder or the miscellaneous folder if that deer has no prior history with us. I'll also create folders for deer we name throughout the season if they become ones on the watch list. When a deer gets shot he and all his TC photos/LDPs/other photos go to the "2008 Kilt deer" file under his name.

It may sound a little confusing but look at it like a file cabinet with manilla folders and you're just dropping your photos in the right folder. Once you get it set up it moves quick and easy. After I have all the photos in place, I delete the photos in the 2008 trail camera folder and on the chip ready to do it all over again in two weeks to a month. It also transfers over well to the next year once you get your system down.

And like throwing Darts i have an external hard drive used for backing them up. The working files above are on my computer hard drive.

[Leftridge]

Leftridge here is what I do and it makes life easy for me. I have a set of files set up and accessible while I look at my pics. While I am viewing I will drop and drag pics of known deer I want to keep and then have miscellaneous files for new 8 and 10+ points that may be a deer we end up naming if he makes something. Since we average about 2000-2500 pics per month perfeeder I don't keep much unless it is a good shot and a good or promising deer. That definition varies per lease I am sure.

A lot of folks ask us why we name deer. I just say it's easier to keep them all in line when discussing them amongst the lease members versus saying that 8 point with the tall rack with a left kicker, but not the same tall racked 8 point with a kicker you are seeing etc etc......Tuthdoc said it well when he said "it works for me"

I have my file set up by season year and then by folders according to specie then named deer.....this is just an example from the 2008 season....all accessible through Windows Explorer.

2008 Hunting Season

2008 Deer
Cavron
Homeboy
High Rack
High Waters
9-11
Mad Dawg
Rocket
Unlucky
Miscellaneous 8s
Miscellaneous 9s
Miscellaneous 10s
Odd pics
2008 "Kilt" Deer

2008 Dove
2008 North Zone
2008 South Zone

2008 Ducks
2008 Teal
2008 Big Duck


2008 Turkeys
2008 Spring
2008 Fall

2008 Trail Cam Photos
By Date (this file is for temp storage while I go through them


I'll download then from the card to the "2008 trail cam photo" section so they are easier and faster to work with versus directly from the cards. As I scroll through the masses, I'll drag and drop any photos I want to keep into the 2008 Deer folder under the corresponding named deer's folder or the miscellaneous folder if that deer has no prior history with us. I'll also create folders for deer we name throughout the season if they become ones on the watch list. When a deer gets shot he and all his TC photos/LDPs/other photos go to the "2008 Kilt deer" file under his name.

It may sound a little confusing but look at it like a file cabinet with manilla folders and you're just dropping your photos in the right folder. Once you get it set up it moves quick and easy. After I have all the photos in place, I delete the photos in the 2008 trail camera folder and on the chip ready to do it all over again in two weeks to a month. It also transfers over well to the next year once you get your system down.

And like throwing Darts i have an external hard drive used for backing them up. The working files above are on my computer hard drive.

What if you have more than one deer do you just copy the photo and put it in each file?

This is good info..I need to get organized in these photos.Going back trying to find pics of specific deer is a pain in the rear..

[Smart]

What if you have more than one deer do you just copy the photo and put it in each file?

.

yes....look again at my file systen under 2008 Deer. Those are individual deer that have been named on our place. Cavron, Homeboy, High Rack etc etc.. As I am going through my pics and I come across one that I want to keep...I'll drop the pic in the file of the corresponding deer.

[FCTrapper]

pick up an external hard drive. I got 500 gigs for about $50. i don't think i'll be able to fill that up.

DITTO... I keep them all

I label them by the pasture then by the feeder location.

[bcdawg1]

Like others I go through and delete all blurry, blank, coons, does, young/small bucks, squirrels, etc reducing pic count from 2000 down to 900-1000. I then file in folders for each month with another folder for each feeder/cam location. I also copy the highlites or best of in another folder, narrowing down pics count to less than a 100 in that folder.

If I want the short version or want to show them to someone I show the highlite folder and don't have to thumb through many hundred to get the best ones.

[Shake1]

The trick to doing this is to create the sub-directories "before" you save the files into them (from the SD cards). You can then go through and delete what you do not want, rename a photo to reflect something of interest (e.g. "Big 10pt with split G2, etc.).