Managing Media in Finder
So… you are digital artist, and you’ve got a ton of various projects on your computer.
Here are some tips that can help you organize, and find your stuff.
⌘1 Icon View
A Finder window of images in icon view
Well, this might be something you're familiar with looking at your files and icon view is not usually very productive and maybe this can be the last time you'll ever look at your files and icon view. It certainly has its advantages and someways. You can make the icons really big if you want especially if presentation is important and you only want people to see the few icons that are in a folder but generally speaking, if it's your own files, you probably should not manage them this way because it'll be very hard to find anything.
⌘2 List View
A Mac Finder window of images in list view
This is the view I am primarily using to sort through stuff and find where things are probably 99% of the time. Just by hitting command two on your keyboard, you can switch a Finder window to list view and you can see more files in this view. It's a little bit more like a spreadsheet you can sort them alphabetically, chronologically by file size etc.. This can be very helpful the disadvantage this view has is that it's hard to see preview of the files but there's other stuff that we can do to get around this if you continue to read further down.
⌘J View Options
The view options window in Mac OS X Finder
By pushing command, Jay on the keyboard, you'll pull up a window of options for the window that you currently have open you can adjust things like the icon text size as well as what other information is going to be viewed in that window. Another thing that you will notice is you can have it always open and the view that you currently have it in… in this example there's a checkbox to have it always open in List View.
There's actually some other important stuff in here that I'm gonna cover a little more in detail further down but for the most part, this is a good thing to know about because it does offer some customization options on what sort of stuff you're seeing for your files, how they're being presented to you.
At the very bottom is a button to use as a default so if you set it up just the way you like it you can set it up as a default so anytime you make a new folder it will automatically open with the settings that you choose at least that's how I understand that it works.
Name a Folder “Images” or “Movies”
Changing the name of a folder to "images" in Mac OS X Finder
What if I told you there was a way to show information like the dimensions of a photo in the list view of a Finder window?
If you do a right click in the top row of a Finder window, that's in List View where it says name, file, size date, added, etc. doing a right click up here brings down a little menu where you can choose other bits of data that's gonna show up in there now. The interesting thing is if the folder itself is named either images or movies you get a few extra options.
List view columns in the Finder that are available if the folder is named "images".
List view columns in the Finder that are available if the folder is named "Movies".
This is one of the more helpful features I’ve come across. The more that I can use to keep my art projects sorted the better!
A good thing to know about this is after you've checked off, showing dimensions, duration, resolution, title, codecs, etc. you can change the name of the folder and that stuff stays checked off.
Also, if I take one folder and drop it into a folder, called movies, that folder that I've moved, Wyll inherit the ability to show dimensions, duration, title, and codecs, without changing its name.
You can see Resolution as a column in the next section.
⌘⇧P Show Preview
A Mac OS finder window with images in it, showing a preview sidebar that comes out of the side of the Finder window
Command shift, P will bring up a preview window on the right side of your Finder window in. This is such a helpful thing. There's actually quite a bit of information that it shows and you can have it showing even more information. Having it like this and using the arrow keys to work your way down through a folder can be a way to quickly see what's in it.
⌃⌘S Show/Hide Sidebar
MacOS Finder window showing the sidebar visible
When you're trying to sort through stuff and you don't want anything else in the window distracting you you can actually hide that sidebar on the left side of a Finder window. I don't do this very often, but I have done it from time to time.
This sidebar is actually very helpful so it's usually good to keep it open so that also means it's good to know what it's called so you can make it visible again if it ever disappears on you.
[SPACE BAR] Quick Preview
Preview Folders
Preview Audio Files
Preview Videos
PDF’s and more
I absolutely love this feature when I have a Finder window open and I've got tons of different files pictures, movies, music, PDFs documents, who knows what I can just hit the spacebar and it'll pull up a floating window above everything else… showing me just a little bit of information about it, as well as a preview of what it is without actually opening up an app. I think that's the important thing is that you're not launching an app just to see what this movie file is you're not opening an app to see what this file is or this PDF no app gets opened and that makes things a lot faster.