[straightshooter]

Well since most of mine in the past were either prints or slides, I have this desk. and it has these drawers in it. So whichever drawer seems to have the most available room at the time I need it....I'm not kidding. You should see me trying to find a negative or slide.

CW

[christinelandon]

Hmm... didn't we do a thread on this topic back in early March? Ah, yes. Here's what I posted back then:

1) My desktop's second internal hard drive is my primary download point and storage for post processed photos.
2) Everything on that drive is automatically (LaCie's Silverkeeper) backed up onto an external hard drive.
3) Once I've got enough new files, I back those up to DVD.
4) I periodically wirelessly download copies of all post processed photos onto my laptop.
5) Everything on the laptop is periodically backed up onto a second external hard drive.

Still doing the same thing. I'll only add that I use Bridge CS3 as my image organizer and browser, setting up separate file structures for pictures from the Spotmatic, K10D, and my old N***n files.

[Eastern Shore Charlie]

Excellent Ideas...all...I hate dealing with DVD back up...very slow...and external hard drive memory is cheap nowadays....

[Mark Castleman]

I just use iPhoto and have automatic backups through Time Machine to a 500GB Timecapsule...doesn't really get any easier I think.

I do something similar with Aperture. It leaves my originals untouched when I do edits and it makes finding things very easy. Of course this only works if you have a Mac.

[sharko]

I do something similar with Aperture. It leaves my originals untouched when I do edits and it makes finding things very easy. Of course this only works if you have a Mac.

I gave Aperture a try but my Macbook doesn't handle it very well as Aperture needs a dedicated video card to really shine. I've thought of trading it in for a Macbook pro but buying lenses is the priority for now, lol.

[GaryML]

How or what process do you use to organize your photos? How do you store them? Do you print what you like and dump the rest? For the pros, do you have different storage for personal versus work related photos?

...

What do you do?

I've tried a number of different things, and this is what works well for me:

1. All pictures off the memory card are copied to to my computer's pictures/temp directory.

2. I do an initial screening using Mac OS X's Finder and Preview: I have a second screen and use preview in full screen mode to examine each picture. I scroll through through the pictures (using Finder on the other screen) and delete the obvious duds and mistakes. You can do the same thing with Windows Explorer and Picture Viewer on a Windows machine.

3. I then move the files to the appropriate directories: a family directory for family event pictures with sub-directories for year, month, and special event as needed. I also have separate folders for travel, landscape and art stuff with appropriate sub-directories by location (travel and landscape) and subject for art (flower, abstract, etc.).

4. These days editing and printing is done with Nikon Capture NX 2. All edits to RAW files are non-destructive and can be removed at any time. All editing data is stored in the RAW file itself. It has every editing feature I need (dust removal, curves, selective application of editing with control points, automatic correction of geometric distortion, chromatic aberrations, and vignetting, red-eye removal, etc.). I think it is a nice little program, and NX version 2 is a huge improvement over prior versions. (Of course, the Capture NX RAW converter only supports .NEF files, so it isn't a good choice for Pentax users. But it actually does a nice job handling .jpg and .tiff files that I previously converted from older Pentax .PEF and .DNG files using Pentax Photo Lab or Lightroom. It also handles scanned slides very well.)

I previously used Adobe Lightroom. Lightroom version 1.x was ok but more clumsy and less powerful as an editor and with slightly worse RAW conversion as compared to Capture NX. Lightroom's file management is also rather weak since it makes it hard to move files to different directories and it creates thousands of little configuration files. It also has no support for multiple monitors. I really don't need keywords or ratings or similar sorting tools, since I do all the sorting up front and its done. It will be interesting to see what Lightroom 2.x looks like when the final version is released. It has multiple monitor support but still lacks correction for geometric distortion.

I don't care much for Aperture as the editor lacks essential features like correction for geometric distortion. And I positively hate iPhoto and Adobe Elements. At present, I think Lightroom is probably the best all-in-one program for workflow and light editing if you don't need the mega-editing ability of full Photoshop.

5. Backup is now done in three ways: a 500GB Firewire drive is the primary backup using Mac OS 10.5 Time Machine. This backs up the entire computer every hour automatically. Secondary backup is done with a 500GB Time Capsule that I keep at my office (off-site). Tertiary backup is done with a small server at home with twin hard disks that are mirrored (RAID 1). I copy all the data off my computer every day using a Unix shell script that I wrote that automatically copies all new or updated files. It usually finishes in about 3 minutes, unless I have a lot of new or changed data. The other machines at home are also backed up to the server in the same way with Windows CMD shell scripts that I wrote. I did have a hard drive fail in my prior computer (an IBM ThinkPad) about a year ago. The redundant backup scheme resulted in the loss of only about 15 minutes of work after the most recent backup. I went to the store and bought a new hard drive for the computer, and I was back up and running just a couple of hours later. A good backup scheme is essential, and it is scary how many people risk losing all their precious data from a hard drive failure.

[jani]

im using Lightroom and 2 hard drives for photos.
organized by date.
not deleting any
it would take too much time anyway

[ftpaddict]

I don't rely on software to organize photos for me. I do it myself. My camera is set to write folders by date. That's basically it. When I've got ~13 GB of photos on my hard drive, I burn them to DVDs and note the start/end dates on them.

[emalvick]

I generally start out manually sorting them into folders by date and subject:

e.g. "Photos\2008.07.01 - Flowers\xxxxxx.PEF"

This makes them relatively easy to get down to in any program in chronological order. If a trip or photo shoot is over a few days, the first date is what is labeled for the folder name.

I then use IMatch to catalog my "Photos\" folder for categorizing / keywording all images. All the IMatch information is written into IPTC/XMP for redundancy. The images are backed up to an external and internal hard-drive.

[SpecialK]

I hate dealing with DVD back up...very slow....

Yes, but you don't have to just sit there and watch it :-) And when that external drive does not rotate, then what?

I even keep a second set of backup DVDs at work...

[fearview]

again..
a very usable thread! thank guys

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i still i want to know how a pro like benjikan treat his images in his computer.