How to find the names of the creatures you shoot?

Hi folks, as the title says? I've been shooting for years now and have amassed quite a collection of images. I've never really done anything with the photos before (ie. they sit collecting dust in my hard drives, haven't seen most of them since I shot them) but now I'm trying to organize and tag them all.

So far, the best I can do is "fish" "Anemone" "crab" "nudi" "other"... honestly, I've no idea what about 90% of the creatures I've shot are. I've had a lot of fun shooting them, but life after the shot has never afforded me the luxury of going through most of the shots I've taken (of any kind) in the last 6 years.

Life has taken a turn for me though, and I haven't had work in a long while. Money is getting tight and its time to put my passions to work. I've got enough imagery and skill as an artist to jump head first into full time photography and image sales (mostly because I don't have any other options atm, but that's beside the point ) So I've been spending time working on my "workflow" which I've never bothered with before. Part of that is tagging, so I can actually find images I'm looking for.

Asking people about specific creatures using examples isn't going to work for this project, there are just too many of them, so if anyone knows of a functional method of finding the names of creatures myself I would very much like to hear your advice

Thank you for looking!

-Jason

Fishbase and Nudipixel are two good resources. It takes a while to get the hang of them but they are extensive.

I'd start with the books from New World Publications for the places you've dived, such as https://smile.amazon.com/Reef-Fish-Identification-Florida-Caribbean/dp/1878348574/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1469719567&sr=1-1&keywords=reef+identification

These books are uniformly good and it's very helpful to flip through pages looking for a match.

The other thing I do is have a series of Lightroom keyword sets for ID. For instance, the first one is like "Fish, crustacean, mollusk, reptile, etc" and I quickly tag things that way. Then I select all the crustaceans and further refine to "crab, shrimp, lobster" etc. Then I end up with a group of similar creatures in a photo and can page through just a few pages of a book to definitively identify them.

As noted by others, I use Humann (book) and Fishbase (http://www.fishbase.org/search.php ) most often. I also use Ross Robertson's Fishes: Greater Caribbean (http://biogeodb.stri.si.edu/caribbean/en/pages ) although it takes a little while to learn how to use it if you don't know scientific names. But since he is using some of my pictures and has been very helpful in identifying species when I asked him questions, I took the time to get acquainted with it. It does show multiple pictures of each species so you can see how much color variation there might be for a species and he is developing a module to try to identify a fish from a picture you input (but don't think it is active yet). He also has a similar Pacific fish ID program but I have never used it since I have not yet dived there (http://biogeodb.stri.si.edu/sftep/en/pages ). Occasionally, I also use: http://reefguide.org/ or http://species-identification.org/index.php but not often.

Thanks for the great advice guys. it seems by the suggestions that there isn't a one stop shop kind of place for all types. I think maybe the book with all the species in an area might be the best bet. even if I can't get specific names, if I see a similar creature at least i'll have something to start with on an internet search.

I've primarily dove around Cebu island, so I should only need one local species book eh?

You'd do really well with the Humann and DeLoach Indo Pacific fish and creature books. There is also a nudi book from the same publisher and other nudi books, but the creature book has a pretty good selection of nudis already.

I would also suggest purchasing the Marine Life Keyword list to aid you in adding ID keywords to your images:

http://wetpixel.com/i.php/marinekeywords

It hugely simplifies my workflow....

Adam

Like Adam, I use the marinekeywords which is excellent. I think v2.0 is the latest.

And like Vondo, I use Ned Deloach's guides plus those of Andrea Ferrari. It's rare I can't find something between them. Probably 6 books in total: 4 by Ned and 2 by Andy.

Ah ha, so yo want to know specifically about Philippine creatures! Here you go:

http://www.poppe-images.com/?t=1

http://www.nudibranch.org/Philippine%20Sea%20Slugs/index.html

http://www.philippine-sea-slugs.com/main.htm

Here's another general resource - the Marine Species ID Portal:

http://species-identification.org/index.php

hey! These links look pretty good. I'll be honest, I'm looking at the price of all those books and loosing a bit of hope. they're pretty pricy. I understand why, but if money wasn't tight I wouldn't be trying to identify them. lol