Marsh

Does digital photography take on a life of it's own? I love my digital slr & take many photos when traveling. I don't want to print them all, but I do want to save them for viewing. I am now trying to decide if I should buy an external hard drive in addition to storing photos on cd's & dvd's. Seems to me the hard drive thing would be like "putting all of my eggs in one basket"! What do you other photo "junkies" do?

Thanks!

Reisender

I set up a folder for the trip photos with meaningful name, such as "Italy 2007" or whatever. I upload everything into that folder then burn the whole folder to a CD. I then edit the pictures in the folder and delete the ones I don't want. I print some as needed.
The CD then has all the photos junk and all from the trip. It gets labeled and stored away. Not fool proof but better than leaving them on hard disk only.

escargot

Ditto Reisender, but I also to put them on an external hard drive I keep at the office, I don't know, I'm one of those nuts that tries to cover all sorts of 'possibilities' - ....you know, like reassuring myself so if my home is burglarized and they are soo inclined to take all my photo cd's, I'll be covered

dwooddon

My archival storage is somewhat the same as Reisender's but a bit more extensive. First, I download the raw photos to my hard disk and immediately burn a DVD so that I always have a set of the original photos. I then select the keepers, do whatever post processing is appropriate, and save them to a meaningfully named file sub-folder in the My Pictures folder. On a weekly basis, I burn a backup copy of all of my photos and files to DVD, rotating three sets of DVD's. Once a month, I take the newest backup to my safe deposit box at the bank for storage. That way if my home is destroyed, I still have a backup set of my photos and data files.

Once I have done whatever post-processing I am going to do on the keepers and have saved them and backed them up at least once, I delete the original photos from my hard disk.

I have several thousand photos on my hard disk so some method of keeping track of them is imperative. I use Photshop Elements for organizing and cataloguing them but there are a number of other options out there that could also be used.

toedtoes

I load my raw files onto the computer and convert them to DNG files (I'm using Photoshop CS so I have to convert them). Then I save my DNG files to DVD.

Then I process the DNG files of photos that I want to print, etc. Then I save all my DNG files to DVD and also save them to my external harddrive. My processed photos get saved on both DVD and external harddrive.

This way I have my original RAW files on DVD, my DNG files on both DVD and harddrive, and my processed photos on DVD and harddrive.

Of course, the trick in any storage plan is that you have to keep up with the copying and saving...

alcook2

I use an external hard drive for both documents and photos and back up to DVD's every 6 months or so. Historical family pics have been scanned and DVD copies given to older kids. For recent travel pix I've uploaded to Webshots. Recent family pix have been uploaded to albums on Walmart.com.

bookhall

I just went the external HD route. Second one, in fact. I've got a 20Gb (though not full) that's going in the safe-deposit box (after we upside it) soon.

A growing concern is ID of the people on the pictures. I'm thinking toward a short text file in each picture folder giving a quick description of the views and folks.

ggreen

Yes! And it's so easy to take lots of pictures and save them all! So for me, photography really does take on way more of a life of its own than it ever did with film...

I also backup in multiple ways: automated backup of computer to a backup drive; burn pictures to DVDs; store them on a portable external hard drive. I usually do all this before any editing - and then of course the edited photos get backed up, too!

toedtoes, what version of CS are you running? I use CS2, and I've never had to convert RAW to any other format before using my images in Photoshop or Bridge. (BTW, Bridge is great for batch processing tasks like adding notes and other photo info, rotating, etc. Like Lightbox etc., but comes with Photoshop so you're not paying extra...)

toedtoes

Bookhall - I recently cataloged all our photos from one family branch (still have 3 branches to do). I considered a lot of ways to identify the photos (who, what, where and when) and this was the easiest solution I found.

First, I sorted the photos into 10-20 year groupings. Each grouping went into its own folder (i.e., 1800's, 1900-1920, etc.).

Then, I titled each photo by sequential number, starting with the earliest photos in the first folder and working my way up through the years. Since some photos didn't have a year attached, the numbering wasn't exact.

My next step was to create an Excel spreadsheet. I made columns for: Photo Number, Who, Where, When, Comments and entered all the information I had. This makes it easy to sort by different criteria.

When I finished, I converted the Excel spreadsheet to a PDF file so that anyone could open and read it. I put the spreadsheet on the first CD.

Then I copied the CDs and sent them to each person in the family (this was a small family with only about 10 folks left). When I ever finish the other branches, I will send copies to each main connection (either my parents siblings or their first cousins) and let them make copies for their immediate families.

toedtoes

Ggreen - I have the first CS at home. It doesn't read the Rebel XT RAW, so I use the Adobe DNG converter.

At work, I have CS2 and don't have to convert.

I don't really mind because I feel it gives me one additional backup of my files.

I just bought a 500gb external harddrive because I filled my 160gb internal and a 160gb external. Of course, my 160gb external crashed before I got it copied, so I'm waiting for my Dad to try and recover my files - he's extremely good at recovering things from dead machines.

ggreen

Wow, 500gb!! I recently bought my portable external and have yet to use up the 160gb. I thought that was a lot! I guess it gets back to the fact that digital photography certainly takes on a life of its own!

That makes sense about your CS. Have you seen CS3? (I'd just gotten used to CS2 - lol!)

toedtoes

When I bought the 500gb, I thought "wow". Now I look at it with over 160gb filled and I think "maybe I should buy another". The good thing is that it only cost $120.

CS3 looks good, but I have to upgrade my monitor before I buy new software. I still am quite happy with CS1 and don't see much difference between it and CS2 (except for Bridge).

One trick I've learned is that if I take a class at the community college, I can get a student ID and buy the educational version of the software at the college bookstore. I saved a good $200 on Dreamweaver last year.

Marsh

Thanks for all the information, everyone! Now, could you please tell me what brand of external hard drive you like? Also, how about DVD burning software? I have used the free Pinnacle Instant program that came with my laptop, but I'm thinking I may need something else.

bookhall

My 250Gb external drive is an Iomega, which I got, on sale, from J&R of NYC. Ran about $76 incl. shipping.

There's a guy on eBay right now advertising a 250Gb Western Digital for about $70 incl. shipping. I'm planning on getting one for my son when he gets back from his travels.

Software: Roxio Creator and Nero Ultra are the two main players in the relatively-low-cost game. eBay's a good place here, too. I've got both, and they're relatively simple to use. I'm sure there's shareware/freeware out there that would work as well.

Windows Media Player will burn CDs, but I've not sure I've ever used it--it seems oriented to music.

toedtoes

I've been told by my IT geeks at work that Western Digital is the cream of the crop in regards to drives.

They say Maxtor is the "kmart line".

Both of mine are Maxtor and I've been happy with them. My old one died after about 6 years of daily use, so I feel it did well for the money.

I use Nero software. I've got others on the machine, but the Nero is easy to use and so far problem free.

ggreen

toedtoes, the tip about the student discount is key: I bought CS2 when I started grad school last year, and plan on buying CS3 before I graduate! I haven't had a chance yet to play around with it, but I'm curious about all the changes they've supposedly made...

To be honest, I don't remember who makes our backup drive(!) - my BF does all the work on that end. Western Digital and Iomega are two very good brands. We usually buy our computer gear at J&R, too (online at jr.com).

I use the Roxio software that came with a package of CD labels I bought at Staples. It's worked fine, easy drag-n-drop functionality, etc., but I'm sure any of these products will do.

cynstalker

I just bought my first 500gb external HD - a Western Digital from Target, through AA-shopping, so I get 3 miles per dollar, and fairly inexpensive price (not the <b>best</b> price, but I'm getting those miles!).

I really need to get into a photoshop class - anyone know of a good one available on-line?

dwooddon

I use Windows XP to burn CD's of my data files and the burn function of Photshop Elements to burn DVD's of my photographs and photo catalogs. Unfortunately, Microsoft has not caught up with the 21st century and Windows cannot be used directly to burn DVD's.