The Best Way to Organize Dental Photos - No one's talking about this!

Store - Organize - Retrieve

Why you should organize your dental photos

Before picking up your dental camera to snap your patient's photos, let's discuss the best way to store and organize your dental photos. This way of organization eliminates the need to remember your patients' names, no need for additional applications, find them easily years later, and the cherry on top is you can have it all FOR FREE!

Ask me how I know...

3 years went by before I thought of organizing my dental photos and I'll admit that these photos are still not organized because of how much time is needed to go back and organize the large number of photos.

My number one advice is to start now and thank me later! (but you could always leave a comment below with a thumbs up!) Since I've used this method to organize my dental photos, I can quickly search to find photos related to specific dental treatments. This makes the process of making presentations for lectures and showing examples of final treatment for patients much easier.

How I organize pictures of dental patients

Here are the steps and don't worry, I will elaborate:

• Capture the photos minimizing the need to crop or straighten

• Once exported to your computer, horizontally flip mirrored shots and rotate photos as needed

• Delete unusable photos

• Create a main folder (eg. Dental photos)

• Create a subfolder per patient (I try to avoid patient names, use date, or case type description)

• Tag photos ***

That's the key...TAGS!

Adding tags to your folders is a free and best way to attach searchable keywords or labels to your photo folders. There is no need to pay for applications such as Adobe Lightroom to organize and store your photos.

Editing dental photos outside of adjusting brightness, cropping, straightening, rotation, etc is frowned upon so paying for these extra features might be pointless.

Tags are a dynamic way to organize dental photography folders and to locate specific cases. Making tags as detailed as possible will allow for quick retrievability. You can create your own code names but here are some of the tag code names I use. Using as many tags that relate to the case as possible. Click on the tag on the left and see all the related folders.

• EO (Extraoral)

• ASC (Anterior single crown), AMC (Anterior multiple crown), PMC (Posterior multiple crown)

• AR1 (Anterior resin class I), PA2 (Posterior amalgam class II)

• Gold

• Anterior Implant

• Posterior Implant

• FMR (Full mouth rehab)

• CCL (Clinical crown lengthening)

• DME (Deep margin elevation)

• Wear

• Clear Aligners

• Veneers

I use this Mac for its fast speed, reliability, and versatility between my other devices (iPhone and iPad) so, if you're on a Windows computer, your view will vary from my screenshots. My camera allows for quick transfers wirelessly eliminating the need to remove and possibly lose my SD card.

Security and Backups

Wherever you decide to store your photos, ensure it is secure and in compliance with HIPPA and of course note the importance of obtaining proper photo consent. Having a reliable backup of your device is also something that you would be thankful for...ASK ME HOW I KNOW!

With my busy life, I've learned having an automated way to back up your device will ensure no information is lost, so I use this backup for my laptop and this smaller one for smaller projects and because I'm traumatized from losing my photos again.

Curious about dental camera gear? I've compiled a blog post of what has brought me success and once you have your gear, here is a great guide for camera settings.

As always, if you have a question, submit a comment at the bottom of the post or send me a message! I love dental talk!