Building a photo library that will not let you down
Designing a private, searchable archive around originals, portable metadata and tested recovery.
Separate what is precious from what is convenient
Original files and carefully curated metadata are precious. Thumbnails, indexes and machine-generated labels are conveniences that should be reproducible.
That distinction simplifies backup priorities and makes it safer to change the browsing application later.
Optimise for the next migration
Portable sidecar metadata and a plain folder structure are less exciting than a clever database, but they preserve options.
A good library is not only pleasant today. It can explain itself to the next tool without a forensic export project.