Please comment briefly on your approach to digital image organization.

Please comment briefly on your approach to digital image organization.
I keep them on my hard drive in folders, then back up with CDs.
69% (151 votes)
I use an image organizing software program specifically designed to help me rate, organize and create a catalog of my work.
20% (44 votes)
I keep all my images on my hard drive, and haven't tackled the issue yet.
11% (25 votes)
Total votes: 220

COMMENTS
Gunnar's picture

I back up my photos like all other data...external hard drives. CD's don't compare to a 400 hard drive.

Charles Tribbey's picture

I have a main working drive, a backup drive for storing RAW files, and burn them to CD as well. You can never have too much backup. And for gods sake, dont delete your RAW files after you work through the images...equivilant to cutting up your negatives. Only point that out as I have heard of a couple of photographers doing just that.

Donald Garland's picture

CDs are cheap protection for my files. I make at least two copies of everything. So far so good.

Marc St.Onge's picture

1. After shooting I download to hard drive. 2. I immediately copy RAW unedited files to two DVDs and send one DVD offsite. 3. Now if I need to use the CF card, I can format it for the next job or just leave it on the card for additional safety. 4. At this point I have one set of files on the hard drive, one DVD on site, and one DVD off site.

Artie Moffa's picture

I love Apple's iPhoto.

S.  Hurd's picture

I have a separate hard drive 80gig for pictures and music. I backup all photos to CD monthly.

David T.'s picture

I not only keep them on my desktop hard drive and CDs, but I also have an external hard drive that I keep the originals on. I've gone as far as keeping original work from a trip, on my laptop until my next trip, just in case. If I pick a few to print, after a little "tweaking", I'll back them up a couple of times too.

Donna Robinson's picture

I have a back-up external hard drive also. I upload to an external website as well.

Kevin Paulson's picture

I keep all my pictures on the main hard drive, then copy them to a second hard drive in my computer, then burn them to a DVD or CD.

Paul Campbell's picture

I keep all photos on a second physical hard drive (D:) since the primary (C:) drive generally has more problems requiring reformatting. Every year or so I buy a new hard drive (double the size; same price) and copy EVERYTHING from the old D: drive to the new one. I then take the old drive and put it in the safe with all of the photos still on it. That way everything old is available, yet backed up in a secure location should the worst happen.

Vern Pilling's picture

Actually use DVDs not CDs. Also copied to USB harddrive too.

Paul Short's picture

With 1GB memory cards I gave up on CD backups and now use DVD's. I also copy the images to a 2nd PC on the other side of the house.

Bill McMahon's picture

I have a second external hard drive which I copy my photos onto. When a group of files is large enough to fill a dvd, I burn a dvd and store it safely. My computer hard drive crashed and I didn't lose anything.

J.  Bryan Kramer's picture

First backup all new files in RAW and JPEG to DVD, then organize on HDD and process there too.

Debi Null's picture

I really would like to know a more efficient way to title pictures on cds as well as a way to store all the cds themselves.

Paul Pritchett's picture

My primary organizer is ACDsee. The images are rated and sorted by format. Once they have been sorted and worked over (as required), all the files are backed up to DVD-RAM or archived to DVD-ROM. ACDsee allows searching of off-line media for quick reference.

Jerome Sotkiewicz's picture

It is a continuing problem that has not reached the ease of cutting a roll of film, putting in a sleeve and numbering in the next succession.

Chuck Pike's picture

Once they are backed up to CDs, I back them up to an external hard drive. I keep buying additional hard drives as they fill up. I once read that the only device that we still use since we went digital is the hard drive. The first ones still can be used. 5 1/2" Floppy is gone, CD's will phase out to DVDs, but we will still be using hard drives.

Harshad Sharma's picture

I do use organizing software for managing my photos, but I am still looking for a good Open Source photo management software to work with my FreeBSD machine...

Andy Guarnieri's picture

I worry enough about reading present file formats in the future, I don't want to have to keep updating management software to find what I may have trouble reading.

Barry De Libero's picture

I have used mostly Acdsee v5-v7 for several years Lately I use Faststone for certain features as well. I catalog by job number.

Cathy Gregor's picture

I back up on DVDs when I accumulate 4 GB of images. I have an index (spreadsheet) with photo subject to access correct DVD quickly when I want to retrieve a photo.

Ronald Uzzo Photography's picture

I make a named file and save the pictures to that file. I then save it to a CD. When everything is done I save My whole project to A couple of DVD disks.All finished photo's and all of the out of camera files are always dated named and most important is they are always kept together.

Michelle Fontaine's picture

I'm getting used to Adobe Bridge and rating my images as well as adding keywords for searches. Will also be purchased an external hard drive at some point for backup. Also faithfully burn to DVDs and keep them in cataloged albums.

Rene's picture

I set up files as follows: Subject>Category>Year>Month>mm/dd/yr and image number. This system allows me to retrieve my image files in an easy manner.

Neil V.'s picture

I manage my collection utilizing iMatch, it's extremely powerful and I would be lost without it. I copy all my captures from card to one of my hard drives in my system (seperate from the operating system), once a week I back up to an external hard drive (also managed by iMatch). Once a collection of photo's is two year's old (2003) I back that year up to DVD-RAM and remove it from the hard drive in my system.

Dianne Harlan's picture

I use Photoshop Elements 3, but also back up on CDs. Am considering buying flash drives for backup.

John Williams's picture

I couldn't imagine doing without the Organizier that comes with Photoshop Elements 4. I edit my RAW files with Nikon Capture 4.x, export them to tiff and then have Elements convert them to PSD and drop them into the organizer. They stay there as I switch back and forth between the organizer and the editor. I can do pretty much everything I want from organizing, editing, exporting, and even printing from within Elements 4. What more can you ask for?

Paul Scott's picture

I have two computers that I backup my images on plus I burn the images to CD and store the CD's at my work place.

Jonathan Cannon's picture

I actually use a backup hard drive instead of CD's though. And also I use fotki.com to backup and publish my images.

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