Image Management

Masha Ershova asks: "I'd like to find out how people organise their work: what's the workflow, when they edit pictures, where they store negs, if they mirror system for safety, if they use external discs, etc. I've run out of disk space".

-- RodBird - 22 Oct 2007

22 Oct 2007 22:42:19 RodBird:

Well here's what I do. For negatives, it's simple. I put them in archival polythene wallets, write the date at the top and keep them in a folder. I have twelve folders going back to, ahem, 1970.

More relevantly, for digital images I do this:

As soon as I come in from photographing anything, I upload the images onto a folder on my PC (a new folder every month) and inspect them on a big screen. I delete any that are blurred, duplicates, or otherwise rubbish - generally aroung 25% of them.

I then rank every image using the star system in Elements. It's great, as long as you have a disciplined scheme and stick to your own criteria for what gets three stars, what gets four, etc.

Once a week I download all my images onto a portable hard disk drive, which I then store as far away, physically, from the PC as possible. This takes about an hour. On the backup device I keep the same month-based folder structure that I use on the main PC.

Only then do I delete the images from the card in my camera. Actually, I format the card, as it's quicker.

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25 Oct 2007 18:42:05 JohnAshford:

Upload camera card to pc
Backup originals to an external hard disc
Import into Adobe Lightroom using date>topic folder structure
Add subject keyword strings like 'Dorney rowing trench'; KT boundary; Kerala 2007
Discard mistakes & anything embarrassing
Rank in Lightroom with filter codes for family; friends; mcc PI; mcc print; RPS; etc
Backup Lightroom
Reformat camera storage card
- - - - - - once a month (roughly) dump to CD (or DVD if huge)
- - - - - - Once every seven years or so, accidentally copy the backup on to the live instead of vice versa; this frequency is about all the human frame can stand.

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