Hazel step-by-step guide to import and organize photos from camera or card

I like my photos to be independent of photoediting programs, but automatically stored in a properly named folderstructure of years, months and days

Step 1 Make sure you have a folder called "pictures", and that this is going to be the master folder for your new folderstructure inside - if there are photos in "pictures" now they will be sorted out too, but photos in subfolders will be left untouched.

Step 2

Download and install Hazel http://www.noodlesoft.com/hazel.php - it is a preference panel, so you will find it inside system preferences later!

Step 3 for cable

Before you connect the camera directly to usb, start the tiny osx program called image capture (inside the folder addons) - in its preferences, tell it to be the default and dont start the scanner. Now connect your camera, and choose to import to the folder "pictures", tell image capture to do it automatically and delete after import

Step 3 for cards
Put your sd-card or cf-card in your reader so they appear in finder.
Open the Hazel preference panel

a) click lefthand lower plus for new folder: select the folder containing your photos on your card and click open

b) click the lower middle plus for new action, type "take photos from card"

c) if... select "any file" (assuming your card folder has nothing but your photos)

d) do... select "move file" to folder "pictures" (select "other" to access it)
e) ok*

step 4

The hazel preference pane: click "info" and make sure it is not running by clicking "stop hazel" now we will make a rule for sorting the pictures that we automatically have coming in the folder "pictures"

a) click lefthand lower plus for new folder: select the folder "pictures"and click open

b) click the lower middle plus for new action, type "sort photos in nice order"
c) if... select "kind" is "image"
d) do... select "sort file into subfolder" and click attributes

e) from the popdownlist, drag "date created" up in the empty field, then an arrow ">" in front of that, then a second "date created" before that, another ">" before that and finally a third "date created" in front

f) controlclick the first "date created" and edit date pattern**
g) delete the "31" and "12" and "-" so all is left is "2001" done
h) controlclick the second "date created" and edit date pattern
i) delete the "31" and "-" so all is left is "2001-12" done
j) check that the example below says "2008>2008-03>2008-03-09" and ok***
k) click on the "info" tab and start hazel running

Now enjoy looking in finder as your photos reorganize themselves by magic:)

Hazel is an almost fully working 30day demo and cost at present 22dollars, fair enough for me, and they offer a family pack too, which i am happily using now, even adding the iso speed to the names of my photos, that used to be a hazzle to find, now it simply a hazel;)

*repeat the process for each card you have, if any folder names differs

**if you accidentally convert it to text then delete that and drag a new "date created" to the place - use the keyboard arrows to navigate within the field

***thus the folder structure will be a folder for each year, within that each month and within that a folder with the date containing the photos themselves, omit any as desired or add actions if you like, the idea of new files being blue is quite useful:)