Digital Dental Photography

Digital Photography and Workflow for Dentists

Photo Organization

Prepare Lightroom for 2013 Dental Photos

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It’s the beginning of a new year, and if you haven’t already done so, it is time to create a new set of folders for 2013, and time to create a new Metadata Preset to be applied on import of all your photos.  Otherwise, you’ll be adding outdated metadata to your images and making your photo catalog less organized.  One side benefit of updating your Copyright Info in the Metadata Preset is this: if you upload any of those photos to your website, Google+ Local Page, Facebook Fan Page, etc., Google will recognize the year and know that it is new, fresh content.  And Google LOVES fresh content on websites!

Don’t forget to check out the short video tutorial at the bottom of the page, too!

Create A New Year Folder with Sub-headings

I’ve already discussed how I recommend organizing your Folder Hierarchy, and that hasn’t changed, although I changed a couple folder names this year, as you can see in this screenshot.  You can tell I did it before the end of 2012, as there wasn’t a single photo loaded into this year yet.

How to set up a folder hierarchy to organize dental photos in Lightroom

Of course, this is completely customizable depending on your procedure mix and desire to separate, or not separate them out as much as I do.

Create a New Copyright Metadata Preset for Import

To help protect your photos from online theft and misuse, make sure you read Image Copyright Protection; and now it’s time to create a NEW Metadata Preset.  Please DO NOT just “update” the one that you have; if you do so, every image to which you had applied the old one, i.e. for 2012, will now suddenly read as if it were taken in 2013 instead, which is wrong.  CREATE A NEW PRESET!

To do so, you must first be in the Library Module, then go to “Photos > Edit Metadata Preset” and you’ll come to this screen, and you can just enter the appropriate data for your practice.  As you can see at the bottom, in the box labeled “Keywords,” I’ve added just one keyword – 2013.  This is just to avoid having to add it to every photo.

What copyright metadata information to add to a Lightroom preset.

And you’re set to go!

Lightroom Smart Collections Make Photo Selection Easy

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Have you ever wanted to find some patient photos from several years ago, but couldn’t remember the patient’s name?  Maybe you’re updating your website with some new photos, and it was a great veneer case, but the patient moved away, and you’re completely stumped?  Especially if you’re using your Practice Management Software (PMS), this becomes a virtually impossible problem to resolve. So how do you manage this?

Adobe Lightroom Smart Collections for Dentists

lightroom smart collections automatically collect photos by keywordOne of the most powerful and useful tools for dentists managing their dental photography catalogs, is the Lightroom Smart Collections feature.  Based (usually) on keywords that you’ve assigned to your photos, whether on importing them or adding them later, Smart Collections automatically collect all photos with a given keyword.  You can also create Smart Collections to collect photos with a certain Rating (1-5 stars), Color Label (red, green, yellow, purple, blue), Metadata (date taken, GPS location if your camera has this feature, etc), or even combinations of criteria.

Keep Your Patient Photos Well-Organized

I’ve already discussed a basic structure for organizing dental pictures previously, and as long as you remember the year and procedure type, this can be an easy way to find a patient, because that name should show up in the list of patients under that procedure.  However, if you’ve been practicing long enough and taking enough pictures, this is not always easy.  Where I live, Charlotte NC, is a highly transient area, with lots of professionals moving into and out of town, so we tend to have high patient turnover rates.  In addition, we often have patients driving long distances for our unique combination of services, including LANAP Laser Periodontal TherapyTM, Six-Month Braces, and Cerec Same-Day Crowns, and those patients return to their regular family dentist after their treatment with us is complete.  It’s hard to remember patients we don’t see regularly, right?

Setting Up Your Smart Collections

When thinking of all the possible ways and combinations you could set up Smart Collections, the enormous possibilities can seem daunting.  Remember, though, you only need to do this for image sets that you really want to track over time.  This type of organization is very useful for dental lecturers and for anyone wanting to use your own photos in your marketing.  Theoretically, this might include sets as follows:

  • Dental Implants
    • Straumann
    • Implant Direct
    • Blue Sky Bio
  • Porcelain Veneers
  • Crowns
    • Lab-made
    • Cerec
  • Whitening
  • Six-Month Braces
  • Invisalign
For example, since I’ve started taking photos through my Leica M320 Dental Microscope, I use a Smart Collection based on the keyword “microscope” as an easy way to sort out those photos taken through the scope, rather than with the conventional DSLR set-up.
Smart Collections Save Time

If you’re anything like I am, with a dental photo catalog of nearly 65,000 images over the last 8 years, and you want to find photos of a given subject, without having to remember every patient name and sort through them all, Smart Collections are the way to go.  Because they  AUTOMATICALLY collect every photo in your catalog with the criteria you select, they’re a huge time-saver.

Learn to use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Smart Collections, and you’ll make your life so much easier, any time you need to find one or more photos, but don’t remember the patient’s name, or if you want to find photos from a lot of patients of a certain procedure, material, etc.

Please let me know in the comments if you have any questions, or if you’ve found other easy ways to organize your photos!