Organizing Your Photo Reference Library

I am a painter who works primarily from photographs. I do this for two reasons. First because I do animals and they don't usually like to stand still and pose for extended periods of time. And secondly, my paintings can take many weeks to complete. I work exclusively off my own photo images that I have taken. What this means is I have thousands (yes literally) of photos.

In order to actually utilize my images I must keep them organized. I do this by using clear plastic pull drawers. I will discuss this method as well as a couple of others to help you go about getting your collection in order so you can access the photos you need quickly and easily.

The important thing about organizing and cataloging your images is to start early. Begin setting up a system when you have a few hundred or even a couple of thousand. At the moment my collection is well over 30,000 and it would be a nightmare for me to try to begin incorporating a system now. Part of being a professional artist is about time management and by keeping my reference images organized I can find them and use them with minimal effort and time.