How to organize...

[pband]

I am considering whether iMatch will meet my needs. After a not so cursory look at resources, I can't determine if iMatch will do what I want - I expect it will but I don't know how to go about it and so I'm not sure. Purchase depends on the answer.

Basically, I want to organize my image data as virtual directories and sub-directories. Presently, I have my image data in several large flat directories, one each for each camera. (Except for one where it got too big and I had to split it up into two directories.) What I want to do is ingest each large directory and split up the thousands of files into appropriately named virtual subdirectories where each subdirectory collects all meaningfully related image files. For example, a shoot in spring 2010 Oregon or fall shoot 2016 Utah and so on. How would I, who knows all too little about iMatch, go about doing this simple data organization? Thanks.

Cheers, Peter

[Mees Dekker]

Peter

I would use categories for this. They can work just like you want to. See attached screenshot of my categories (virtual folders) of animals (I use a Dutch version, so they are called "dieren" and I activated a filter in order to filter out all images, so therefore you don't see any images in the center part of the screen).

You can assign images to one or more categories, organise them in any way you like (i.e. hierarchical). very easy to make changes afterwards (dragging, dropping, renaming possible for individual images, groups of images or entire categories), so you are not stuck with any initial decision you make.

Success,

Mees

[Mario]

As Mees pointed out, IMatch categories are the best tool for the job. They allow you to group your files into any number of 'virtual folders', to temporarily combine them, to use formulas to combine your virtual folders (e.g. combine the category "Utah Fall 2016" with all files assigned to the category "Landscape" to get all landscape photos taken in Utah".

You can assign each of your files to any number of categories (this will not create copies of the files on disk). A category can hold any number of files. You can quickly re-arrange your categories any time using drag and drop.

To setup your categories, switch to the Category View.
To assign files to your categories, use copy/paste or the dedicated Category Panel.

You may also want to look into data-driven categories. Data-driven categories allow you to automatically categorize your images based on metadata. For example by EXIF data like camera model, lens, ISO. Or by other metadata. By Year. Or by location (County, City, ...)  Very powerful.

Setting up a few data-driven categories may save you a lot of time. Always better to let IMatch do the work for you 

Tip: IMatch by default ships with a set of data-driven categories which automatically categorize your images by several criteria.
To see them, switch to the Category View and open the "IMatch Sample Categories" top-level category.

IMatch categories are unique in their flexibility. Read the help topics on categories in the IMatch help to see what you can to with categories.

Note: If the data you want to group your files by is only available in your folder names (and not in the metadata of your files), you can even use data-driven categories based on (parts) of folder names. I know members of a photo club who did all their management in folders named by year, month and 'motive'. We created a data-driven category which groups their files on the folder names. Now they have a proper hierarchical "year > month > motive" and a "motive" category structure.

[clpratt]

Mario,
your last post says "Tip: IMatch by default ships with a set of data-driven categories//  To see them, switch to the Category View and open the "IMatch Sample Categories" top-level category".
IMatch Help says "When you create a database, IMatch automatically adds a set of sample data-driven categories. You find these under the IMatch Sample Categories category:"

I don't seem to have any Sample Categories in my category tree.
As my database is quite old maybe they were not included when it was created.
Is it possible to import these IMatch Sample Categories and merge them into my current category tree?

[Mario]

As my database is quite old maybe they were not included when it was created.

Probably. Although they were always part of IMatch 5, as far as I can remember.

Is it possible to import these IMatch Sample Categories and merge them into my current category tree?

Yes. Import the category schema

C:\ProgramData\photools.com\IMatch5\Presets\system-en.imcsx

(via the Import & Export Panel > Category Import module)

[clpratt]

Many thanks Mario,  Sample Categories successfully imported.


Chris