Working with digital images

[Steve1]

Hi, I have got into digital photos and have a very tight budget (non existent), I (foolishly?) thought that although I only had a couple of GBs of hard drive free for my pics this wouldn't be a problem as i have a very fast CDRW and could use this to store my pix on.

Well I have used a lot of my hdd space and have put these pix onto a CD, Now I thought I could DELETE these from the hdd and carry on if you see what i mean, BUT one of my problems is that id have to start all over again with organising my next lot of pix I.E. start with new folders/sub-folders etc... but some of these new pix I might want in with whats on my FIRST cd? .

Am I doing all this storage & organising correctly?, or have i totaly lost the plot. I am very familiar with pc's and CDRW's etc and also plan to keep more than one copy of each CD that I create but I cant help feeling that i'm doing this part very wrong.

By the way I'm glad iv'e stumled (via google) onto this site, it's great and I have subscribed to the news  letter too.

Thanks in advance. Steve.

[Mike54]

Hi Steve and welcome,

I think over time you'll find that there will always be something you want to include with previous work. Obviously one of the better solutions would be a second hard drive. Short of investing in additional storage I would suggest setting up a main folder titled by month (or week) depending on how quickly you can fill up a CD with sub folders based on subject. Make a habit of moving your images to CD based on your schedule (weekly or monthly, etc.) so you keep some open room on your hd. The "special" images you might want to accumulate seperately you might store in your "specials" folder for burning on their own CD (you could even keep copies in both folders for safeties sake).
It's one option anyway.

[Steve1]

Hi and thanks for your reply. To be honest it takes me a while to a very very long time to fill a CD, but this is a better way to do things than i have been i think. At the moment I have folders for family, then subs for breaking down on familys etc.... then I have maybe some specific folders on there own for say certain "specail" outings and some folders for pets etc....
Another problem is I think I could always think of "another folder" to add, perhaps i'm trying to keep my pix too seperate and easy to find later on?. any other input would be great.

Thanks again Steve.

[ShutterbugGail]

Hi Steve,

So glad you find the site helpful.

Boy, do I empathize with you. I find myself in the same situation. Like you, I'm in the process of archiving my images onto CD's then deleting almost all of them from my hard drive. Right now a second drive is not an option for me.

The other day I had to find some photos and it took quite a bit of time to sort through everything. Then, along comes your question which got my memory going about free photo organizing software which seems like it has the perfect solution for our problem.

The software was mentioned in our very first Digicamhelp newsletter (October 27, 2003) and is called Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 Starter Edition. I had it on my computer but forgot to reinstall it after my computer crashed. Quite frankly, I never realized I could use it to find photos on CD's. (Guess it helps to read the HELP menu.   )

According to Adobe, you can:

View and organize photos that are archived on CDs.

You can read what we said about the program and where to download it here:

http://www.digicamhelp.com/newsletter/digicamhelp-newsletters/digicamhelp-newsletter-10.03.htm

If it sounds like what you're looking for, you have nothing to lose because the software is free. Other than the archiving/CD aspect of it, I've used the starter edition and it's really great software.

[Deb]

Hello there Steve,

Yep, organizing and archiving digital files can be a bit tricky. But, it really doesn't have to be.

I shoot quite a bit on trips. When I get back home, I've got lots of images to transfer and organize. I use a (digital asset management) software to create my folders, organize thumbnails, create searchable fields, add information, produce contact sheets and burn DVDs (or CDs). You don't have to use a software this detailed (though it wasn't expensive) but it actually has been a great timesaver for me. The software creates a "record" of each and every image (along with generating a permanent thumbnail) and shows me (text field) on which DVD or CD I've burned the original. It also lets me perform searches and shows me all thumbnails that match those search terms all without ever having to load a DVD or CD. Remember, all the originals are no longer on the computer, yet the software can still find them and tell me which DVD or CD they're on. I then just retrieve that particular DVD or CD and I've found my original image. The folder hierarchy you create resides on your harddrive but it's a very tiny file. This saves you harddrive space! Hooray!

As for an organizing/archiving workflow, here's one way of doing it:
1. transfer your digital images to your harddrive
2. burn them to your DVD or CD twice (one to use as a backup) (Don't forget to burn from the original files. Don't burn your second set of DVDs or CDs from the previous set.)
3. Next, use an organizing software to categorize the images on those DVDs (CDs) and add any additional notes (who was that in that photo? Grandma? ... what was the event? where was the event? anecdotes, etc.)
4. Print "contact sheets" for the images on your DVD or CD
5. store the contact sheets and DVDs (CDs)
6. Finally, remove images from your harddrive

This may be a more detailed method than what you've got in mind but I thought I'd pass it along just in case.  The main point here is to find a flow that works for you. Then you'll find it easy and almost, dare I say it, fun to organize and archive your digital files!  

Cheers,
Deb

[Steve1]

 Hi, Thankyou all for your input, plenty to think about and learn now then. Thanks to DEB for your input, a couple of points though if i may?,.

1) you didn't mention which software you used for this?

2) you said :- burn them to your DVD or CD twice (one to use as a backup) (Don't forget to burn from the original files. Don't burn your second set of DVDs or CDs from the previous set.) why is this importent?

Thanks again Steve.

[Deb]

1) you didn't mention which software you used for this?

2) you said :- burn them to your DVD or CD twice (one to use as a backup) (Don't forget to burn from the original files. Don't burn your second set of DVDs or CDs from the previous set.) why is this importent?

Thanks again Steve.

Hi there Steve,
The digital asset management software I use is called Cumulus Single User, is a Canto product, and does not need to be webserver based (http://www.canto.com). They offer a version called "MyCumulus" for those who will only need to catalog 2000 images or less. I do believe there are others similar softwares, such as Portfolio by Extensis (http://www.extensis.com/en/home.jsp) but I'm not as familiar them.

Why burn two copies? If one gets stepped on say, by your dog  , and gets scratched or cracked, you've not lost those images. If you cherish those images and want to be real safe, store that second copy at a different locale. (Fires, twisters, space aliens could happen.  )

Why burn from the original and not the first copy? Well, a copy of a copy isn't as precise as a copy from the original. You can introduce artifacts or lose minute detail (yep, I'm talking about pixels here) and you don't want that to happen.

Happy archiving!

Cheers,
Deb

[Steve1]

Hi, Thanks once again for al your help. well here goes then.........

Bye for now. Steve

[Steve1]

Hi Again !,
                       Mmmm just wondering anyone got any info on paint shop pro PHOTO ALBUM?, only have been looking for some good software (see messages above) and as i use PSP for editing thought this might be a good idea? As DEB said to me there is CUMULUS but havn't had chance to look at this yet, have read up on it and this sounds like a great peice of software but thought PSP (if it does similar) would be good too. Any ideas please?

Thanks again Steve

P.S. sorry to keep boring you all with my headaches.

[admin]

Hi Steve!

No need to apologize. That's why we are here to try to help the best we can. So ask away, any time!

I downloaded the trial version of Photo Album, and it looks very nice. I'm not sure, because I use Photoshop, but maybe it integrates well with PaintShop Pro, so it's a strong consideration for you.

Right now I'm personally considering ACDSee. I take close to 1000 photos most weeks, and ACDSee seems to handle large amounts of images well. In addition, I personally consider it very intuitive. This is important for me as I get dizzy sometimes trying to learn all this stuff.  

Remember, most of the software developers offer free trial versions. I try them out for a few days and, if I don't care for one, uninstall it from my hard drive. This way it narrows things down for me. After all, if I decide to purchase a particular program, I don't want to lose the database I already created during the trial period.

As we will share in our newsletter that goes out this week, a photo organizing software we featured in May is now free.   Google recently bought Picasa, and is offering it for a free download here:

http://www.picasa.com/content/download.php

Also, we have a listing of some of the popular image organizing software programs here:

http://www.digicamhelp.com/working-with-digital-images/organizing-digital-photos.htm

Do a net search on some of the programs, visit the developer's website and check out the program features and view the screen shots. Give a test drive to ones which catch your fancy. Perhaps when you have a moment, you'll let us know which program you select and why. It can be very helpful to others.