Organizing Stock Images with Hazel.
Hazel, by NoodleSoft, is a great tool for organizing and automatically sorting files — and a great solution for sometimes forgetful employees.
At my office, we regularly purchase stock from both photos.com and istockphoto.com.
We’ve got one log-in which everyone uses, and individuals are free to download stock as they need. Of course, theses downloads land on someone’s local hard drive.
The problem with this convenience is a problem of organization.
We have a central image folder on one of our servers, and — theoretically — all the stock we download is supposed to get copied there.
Of course, this doesn’t happen.
I myself am quite guilty of this sin — and there’s plenty of stock on my local hard drive that never found it’s way to our server.
Enter Hazel, by NoodleSoft. Hazel is like OS X folder actions on steroids — except easier to deploy and without the AppleScipting.
Sorting downloaded images with Hazel
Sorting downloaded images with Hazel
Here, I’ve created a rule that sorts images downloaded from Photos.com (based on it’s origin URL). The rule sorts the image into a “Stock” folder I have, and then copies it into the main image library (it won’t copy it it it’s a duplicate.)
Hazel Sort Options
Hazel Sort Options
With everyone in the department running these rules, all stock we download will always wind up in the central library — no effort involved.