How to keep an electronic record of your digital photo information

Keeping track of information about photo shots is important for learning photography. Fortunately, you can record your information electronically, after each photo shoot, using your computer's explorer or preview.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Digital Camera
• USB Cable
• Computer
• Notebook / 3-ring binder

1. Shoot your pictures, upload your shots; open your file preview: Windows Explorer, Preview and select a shot
2. Right click on the picture, select Properties
3. Scroll down a bit till you see the EXIF data - that's the information about each picture: Shutter speed, Aperture, ISO setting, etc.
4. You an add tags and a caption to each picture
5. Print screen and copy it to a drawing or photo editing program (MS Paint, Photoshop, etc.). Save it in a folder with a name you'll remember. Print it out and keep it in your notebook.

Tips & Warnings

• When you're in the field you'll need to make a few notes on each shot: if you used a diffuser to cover your flash, for example. That won't show up in the EXIF data.
• If your camera has the capability you can make a short sound recording of those notes with each shot
• I have a tremor condition and writing in a little notebook is tricky for me so I record everything I can digitally. Thank heaven for fast shutter speeds :-)
• Be sure you save each EXIF picture with a new name so you don't save over your original shot.