Saving photos digitally

The raw files. Unless you have very limited computer hardware or need high frame capture rates (e.g., sports photography), there's really no reason to shoot JPGs instead of raw (assuming your camera produces raw files). If you are shooting JPGs, then those files are your negative/slides. Either way, just save multiple copies to the media of your choice (hard drives, flash memory, quality CDs/DVDs, etc.). Right now, I've found hard drives to be the most reliable.

kshapero said:
I am still new to shooting digitally. With a film you always have your negs. So what would be people's opinion of the digital equivalent?
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I shoot in RAW since I shoot slowly. I import the RAW files into my main hard drive, but like negs fro a roll of film not all of them are keepers. I scares me to delete them because once they are gone they are gone, unlike negs which are "forever".
 
If you are on a Mac use Aperture.
Get an external hard drive and use the file vault feature to create a back-up of all your work.

You might even want to burn your most important images on CD or DVD's as an extra measure of security.

However!!!
Non of the digital media is 100%safe.
Making frequent back-up's on a 2nd HD is the first line of defence.

Note that optical disks (CD/DVD) also have to be treated with great care to avoid an early loss. Still its not stored for eternaty....
 
Rogier said:
If you are on a Mac use Aperture.
Get an external hard drive and use the file vault feature to create a back-up of all your work.

You might even want to burn your most important images on CD or DVD's as an extra measure of security.

However!!!
Non of the digital media is 100%safe.
Making frequent back-up's on a 2nd HD is the first line of defence.

Note that optical disks (CD/DVD) also have to be treated with great care to avoid an early loss. Still its not stored for eternaty....
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I am a PC user and I do save to a second hard drive but your comments don't make me feel very secure about digital. Any other ideas?
 
I backup files regularly to an external portable hard drive as well as a 2TB Raid5 server. All paid work also gets burned to a DVD and stored in off site storage (in case of fire or break in...always keep one set off site)
It's a pain in the arse, but on the positive side, you certainly couldn't replicate film to be held at multiple sites without a ton of trouble and cost.
 
Burn them to Kodachrome film. Years ago slides were the equivalent of a powerpoint presentation- there were machines that took computer files and output them to a slide exposing unit. Don't know what the modern version of this is, probably obsolete and long gone.
 
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No not really, this topic is a mayor concern!

I have seen companies offering to print your images back on film..

Not only the problem of the storage of the physical data is a big concern.
But also the future compatibility of the file!

Imagine a grand grand kid finds your old disks and wants to open the files....
 
First, I do very heavy editing of my photos. I tend to shoot a lot, with most of the shots winding up on the cutting room floor (or the recycling bin).

On my main hard drive, I have a section called Photo Library. That's where I keep my favorite images.

Those (along with quite a few almost favorites) also go onto an external drive. I also copy the keepers onto a pair of archival DVDs, which are stored in my bank safe deposit box and on my bookshelf. That's three or four copies of every raw file I deem worth keeping.

Feels a little silly sometimes, considering that when I shot more film, I had only one copy of each negative and those were sitting in archival folders.

Generally speaking, the best way to store a file is probably on a hard drive. But you have to accept the fact that your hard drive will fail at some point. So you have to build in some redundancy.
 
I keep my files on multiple hdds, and optical media, as well as on a co-located server in a secure datacenter.

There is a service that some folks use that print or store your data files - digineg.pro is one of them, have never used it. Smugmug has a vault service for data files, several vendors offer front ends to web services online storage like amazon's s3.

If you are careful with your digital files, they will last, and be readable on future technologies just as we can view negatives from the past century, IMHO.
 
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The short answer is: save several mirrored copies. You may want to do this even for those NOT considered keepers, unless you somehow lack storage space. Reason? You may want a sample of that image (or portion thereof) for a different purpose, such as an online avatar, a digital collage, etc...

Possible storage:

1) Main hard drive
2) External hard drives / network drives
3) CD, DVD's, etc...
4) Online -- places like divshare.com provide wyou with plenty of backup storage (just make sure you have local copies)

ALL of my images go on 2, 3 and 4. I use #1 as workspace for recent images.
 
ampguy said:
I keep my files on multiple hdds, and optical media, as well as on a co-located server in a secure datacenter.
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This is very reasonable answer. While individuals fuss with media failing unexpectedly, storing data in DC is better way. First, that storage solutions are built to last instead of PC's individual HDD's (or home level arrays having same HDD's inside), they are configured for redundancy like RAID5 (well, you can have it at home too) and finally, data centers back it up on tape devices which aren't eternal, but much more reliable than consumer grade CD or DVD. Well, data centers also have crashes (like anything under sun) but hey, they recover data - pretty near always 🙂

Haven't explored myself costs of using DC to store my personal files but would rely if need reliability. Finally, digital photography has hidden costs, invisible at the moment I buy nice shiny pixelblaster.

When customer base will be growing, data centers will keep track of file formats and offer lights-off conversion to more current formats, if customer has signed appropriate check-box in agreement. For very small additional price, but no fuss looking for obsolete software to read obsolete files.
 
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kshapero said:
I'm leaning back to film as I hear all this. I am old and decrepit and like to touch my "art". I am a happy fart
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Hey, no problems with that, I carry both film and digital with me at all times, I find they both live quite happily together and one backs up the other.

Digital backs up film in case of screwed up processing.
Film backs up digital in case of file corruption.

Even when I'm doing a shoot that needs to be done digital due to time constraints I still shoot half the shots in film and it has saved my behind a few times and the reverse is also true.

i think that's what is most exciting about todays world in photography is the fact that you have 2 mediums that can co-exist and complement each other.
 
It sucks and it's a constant pain in the butt to keep everything backed up and backed up again. There's never enough memory and no matter how careful you are things will go wrong.
 
cmogi10 said:
...There's never enough memory ...
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That in itself can be a good thing, in a way; the need to regularly buy larger hard disk storage. Hard disks are now much more reliable (eg some manufacturers offer 5-year warranty) but all disks will eventually fail. It is therefore good to be forced into replacing them, with new and larger disks, long before failure becomes inevitable.

My current system is:

  • digital capture or scan from negatives
    copy to the computer via Lightroom for indexing and keywording
    backup (one) to a second internal hard disk
    backup (two) to a third external hard disk
    backup (three) to a "My Passport" external hard disk that lives in my shoulder bag and always travels with me
    backup (four) is burned to DVD, new material every few weeks

The backups to hard disk are performed with the free but very effective SyncBack program, nightly or at need. I feel fairly confident that I will not lose everything to a computer failure. I'm waiting for the price on the 2TB/raid devices to drop (currently AUD$700), but that is the next step for primary storage, and I'll keep my separate backups going.
 
1. Working files (RAW originals or digital negatives) on the desktop computer HD

2. A backup of the desktop computer HD #1.

3. All RAW originals (no deletions) on external HD #2 (everytime I offload RAW originals to my computer they are automatically copied to HD #2)

4. A back up of HD#2 on HD #3 (or HD #4, see below).

5. Everytime you visit the local bank, take HD #3 or #4 and swap it with #4 or #3 from the bank safety deposit box.

This gives you multiple copies of everything at home and an off-site backup in the case of a home catastrophe.

I use Lightroom and I back up my Lightroom catalog along with my RAW originals. This way all my post processing efforts are backed up as well.
 
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kshapero said:
I am still new to shooting digitally. With a film you always have your negs. So what would be people's opinion of the digital equivalent?
Click to expand...

I too am new... To store all my digital raw files I got a inexpensive LaCie 1TB and set it to Raid 2 which halves the space but provides redundant backup drives, they also make a 2TB version and one that is Ethernet.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/522065-REG/LaCie_301254U_1_TB_2big_Triple.html

I am not plugging B&H.. you can Google for other vendors...

Also look at setting up a portfolio of photos you would like to show online... here is a good place...

http://smugmug.com/price/power-users.mg
 
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