«

Augh! Bad side of bigMP camera, and RAW: The Space! I used to be able
to fit a couple months' pics on one DVD. Even in .jpg, I can barely fit
the originals of my Tasmania trip on one! The originals I've taken just
since I started with the Rebel XTi are taking up one DL DVD on their own...

I've just been floored to discover I have over 60GB (!!!) of just photos
stored on my hard drive. This is partially because I rarely delete my
originals; I have the originals stored in one place, then I make a copy
of the folder to work on for editing and viewing. Sensible, but it
means I need nearly twice as much space to store photos.

I started by storing my photos on CD. Then DVD, and I've just started
storing them on DVD-DL. The pile of photo backup discs is growing, and
gonna grow fast if I keep taking RAW pics with the new camera... I think
I need to find a better way of backing 'em up.

I'm not interested in HD or blu-ray yet 'cause of the built-in DRM, even
though that *shouldn't* affect my photos. It's a philosophical thing.
I can easily get an external HD (heck, I have one already) to store them
on, but I'm a bit nervous about putting all my eggs in one basket like
that. At least if one CD or DVD goes bad, I've only lost that small bit
of backup data.

So. How many GB of photos do you have, and how do you back them up?

jmc

jmc wrote:
> Augh! Bad side of bigMP camera, and RAW: The Space! I used to be
> able to fit a couple months' pics on one DVD. Even in .jpg, I can
> barely fit the originals of my Tasmania trip on one! The originals
> I've taken just since I started with the Rebel XTi are taking up one
> DL DVD on their own...
> I've just been floored to discover I have over 60GB (!!!) of just
> photos stored on my hard drive. This is partially because I rarely
> delete my originals; I have the originals stored in one place, then I
> make a copy of the folder to work on for editing and viewing. Sensible,
> but it
> means I need nearly twice as much space to store photos.
>
> I started by storing my photos on CD. Then DVD, and I've just started
> storing them on DVD-DL. The pile of photo backup discs is growing,
> and gonna grow fast if I keep taking RAW pics with the new camera...
> I think I need to find a better way of backing 'em up.
>
> I'm not interested in HD or blu-ray yet 'cause of the built-in DRM,
> even though that *shouldn't* affect my photos. It's a philosophical
> thing. I can easily get an external HD (heck, I have one already) to store
> them on, but I'm a bit nervous about putting all my eggs in one
> basket like that. At least if one CD or DVD goes bad, I've only lost
> that small bit of backup data.
>
> So. How many GB of photos do you have, and how do you back them up?
>
> jmc

I don't have close to that. I tend to thin mine out quickly.

I would say that most people could delete over 80% of their collection
and never miss any of the ones they delete. They will be better able to
find what they want in the remainder. Keeping six slightly different images
of the same subject usually does not make much sense. You really don't want
to show anyone the five lessor images do you. You only want them to see the
best, so way keep three good, one very good and one poor image when you have
one great image?

The exception might be portraits when you will be selling them and you
want the customer to pick. Even them, more maybe especially then, you want
to get rid of everything except very good or better. Why keep you second
best?

BTW did you know that most people will pick mirror images of themselves
over the original is shown both photos? We all know ourselves by our
mirror image, everyone else knows us straight.


--
Joseph Meehan

Dia 's Muire duit

Suddenly, without warning, Joseph Meehan exclaimed (18-Feb-07 9:31 PM):

>
> Keeping six slightly different images
> of the same subject usually does not make much sense. You really don't want
> to show anyone the five lessor images do you. You only want them to see the
> best, so way keep three good, one very good and one poor image when you have
> one great image?
>

I don't keep six copies (whatever gave you that idea?) I keep two.
Original and working copy.

That's not why I keep the originals. I keep them for a couple of reasons:

1) In case I screw up editing an image. I can always go back to the start
2) In case I change my mind about a deleted picture. I've occasionally
deleted an image in the working directory, then seen it again in the
originals and realized it was a keeper.

There's other reasons too, but these are the main two.

Gads, looks like I just topped out my external HD. ::sigh::

jmc

On Feb 18, 6:09 am, jmc <NOnewsgroupsS...@NOjodiBODY.HOMEus> wrote:
> Suddenly, without warning, Joseph Meehan exclaimed (18-Feb-07 9:31 PM):
>
>
>
> > Keeping six slightly different images
> > of the same subject usually does not make much sense. You really don't want
> > to show anyone the five lessor images do you. You only want them to see the
> > best, so way keep three good, one very good and one poor image when you have
> > one great image?
>
> I don't keep six copies (whatever gave you that idea?) I keep two.
> Original and working copy.
>
> That's not why I keep the originals. I keep them for a couple of reasons:
>
> 1) In case I screw up editing an image. I can always go back to the start
> 2) In case I change my mind about a deleted picture. I've occasionally
> deleted an image in the working directory, then seen it again in the
> originals and realized it was a keeper.
>
> There's other reasons too, but these are the main two.
>
> Gads, looks like I just topped out my external HD. ::sigh::
>
> jmc

As everyone knows, the choices to store photos in digital format are
generally known, such as
- store in your computer internal hard drive
- store in external hard disk drive (HDD)
- store in solid state drive (SSD)
- store in flash memory card (MMC, SD,xD,SM,Sony stick, CF cards, etc)
- store in CD (650 Mb)
- store in DVD (2 to 4 GB)
- store in HD media (Blue Ray, etc)
- store in a Photo viewer (Archos, Epson, Creative Zen)

I do not have a lot of photos like you have. So, I generally back up
at 3 locations : DVD on yearly basis, external HDD (occasionally), and
in my 80 GB Archos Photo viewer.

I still think that dollar for dollar, DVD is the cheapest media. I
bought the high quality with extra coating DVD (not the regular ones).
I heard this is more resistant to scratch and last longer.
I have a habit of storing the photos that I took during the year at
the end of each year. Sort of a way to "clean up" or "tidy up" your
computer HD.

Recently, I also store the photos in my photo viewer. The latest photo
viewer can hold has high as 180 GB. My Archos hard drive is basically
a small HDD made by Hitachi. I would prefer to store in a solid state
disk, as there is no moving parts , but they are still expensive. The
ones that are available is basically the flash cards, perhaps up to 2
or 4GB each and cost a lot.

My Archos is excellent to file, manage and store photos. You can
create the folders by the year or by event. I can carry them around
and use as "show and tell" purpose.

I do understand how you keep duplicates of photos. I think it is
because computer storage is relatively cheap. It is a bad practice for
my part, as I always have a habit of keeping the same images after
making modifications, etc. using photoshop. There should only be 2 or
3 files : original, and processed. I made extra copies of the
processed files in smaller size format (usually 1024x 76 and dumping
them into my Archos. This way, the photo viewer work better and faster
(rather than keeping 6 or 10 MP images)

On Feb 17, 9:54 pm, jmc <NOnewsgroupsS...@NOjodiBODY.HOMEus> wrote:
> Augh! Bad side of bigMP camera, and RAW: The Space! I used to be able
> to fit a couple months' pics on one DVD. Even in .jpg, I can barely fit
> the originals of my Tasmania trip on one! The originals I've taken just
> since I started with the Rebel XTi are taking up one DL DVD on their own...
>
> I've just been floored to discover I have over 60GB (!!!) of just photos
> stored on my hard drive. This is partially because I rarely delete my
> originals; I have the originals stored in one place, then I make a copy
> of the folder to work on for editing and viewing. Sensible, but it
> means I need nearly twice as much space to store photos.
>
> I started by storing my photos on CD. Then DVD, and I've just started
> storing them on DVD-DL. The pile of photo backup discs is growing, and
> gonna grow fast if I keep taking RAW pics with the new camera... I think
> I need to find a better way of backing 'em up.
>
> I'm not interested in HD or blu-ray yet 'cause of the built-in DRM, even
> though that *shouldn't* affect my photos. It's a philosophical thing.
> I can easily get an external HD (heck, I have one already) to store them
> on, but I'm a bit nervous about putting all my eggs in one basket like
> that. At least if one CD or DVD goes bad, I've only lost that small bit
> of backup data.
>
> So. How many GB of photos do you have, and how do you back them up?
>
> jmc
I have a lot of photos, with the raw and jpegs I have about 540 GBs of
photos. I am currently storing them on external drives with backups
on DVD. As space gets thin I will start to delete the raw images from
the external drives, with two sets of backups on DVD.

The number of GB I use per years has been going up at a very high
rate, in 2000 all my photos took up less then 0.25 GB, in 2006 I used
286 GB of space, or over half the total space used for all my photos.
A lot of this is because 2006 is when I started to shoot in raw full
time, which is well worth it but it does take up a lot of room.

For now DVDs are the cheapest form of storage and are pretty much safe
from accidental deletions of all the images. I buy the DVDs when
they are on sale at Costco for $20 for a 100 pack, works out to less
then $0.05/GB.

Scott

On Feb 18, 2:01 am, "Joseph Meehan" <sligoNoSPAM...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
>
> I don't have close to that. I tend to thin mine out quickly.
>
> I would say that most people could delete over 80% of their collection
> and never miss any of the ones they delete. They will be better able to
> find what they want in the remainder. Keeping six slightly different images
> of the same subject usually does not make much sense. You really don't want
> to show anyone the five lessor images do you. You only want them to see the
> best, so way keep three good, one very good and one poor image when you have
> one great image?
I only delete an image if it is pretty much unusable, you never know
when you might want the extra images. As an example I do slide shows
using my computer, these seems to be very popular with people who view
them, often a few image that all look pretty much the same will give a
nice effect when shown with just a faction of a second per image,
gives the feeling of motion. And sometimes an image that by itself
is not great will be needed to give continuity to a slide show.

Scott

> So. How many GB of photos do you have, and how do you back them up?

One responder summarized and I've added the point numbers:

As everyone knows, the choices to store photos in digital format are
generally known, such as
1. - store in your computer internal hard drive
2. - store in external hard disk drive (HDD)
3. - store in solid state drive (SSD)
4. - store in flash memory card (MMC, SD,xD,SM,Sony stick, CF cards,
etc)
5. - store in CD (650 Mb)
6. - store in DVD (2 to 4 GB)
7. - store in HD media (Blue Ray, etc)
8. - store in a Photo viewer (Archos, Epson, Creative Zen)

Storing photos is nothing special. Making backups has been an issue
with computers since the beginning. So let's take it out of the
"photo"
world and treat it generically.

Point #1 is a given. A couple of big hard drives in your usual
computer will allow you to keep everything you do "online".
Anybody can run a terabyte easy. I suggest using separate hard
drives.
One for plain old storage. You only write to it to save the original
from the camera and to save an editted image. Another to work with.

Point #2 is my selection for best method. Basically, I set up another
machine with, again, plenty of hard drive space and using some kind
of sync software (synctoy is OK. it's free) I easily back everything
up to the other PC over a LAN. The point is that it's quick and easy
to do. Making it more likely you'll do it as frequently as required.
Writing/filing CDs and DVDs is a bit more work and I'd guess
you probably batch that job. I doubt if anyone would get out
this week's DVD to update one photo.

Point's 3,4 5, and 6 don't seem usable due to either capacity/price
issues ot convenience.

Point 7 is much the same. Just you run out of room later.

Point 8 is really just HDD storage anyway.

The important point is that making backups should be simple, quick
and verifiable. If not, they will not be done.

I would organize by date and inside of date, project if applicable.

Finding what you want after 10 or 15 years might be difficult.
You need to think about your filing process to try to ensure
that the photos are retrievable.

Since all reliable recovery scenerios include the element of
off-site storage, you could pick up a large HDD and
copy everything to it once in a while. Presently, that would
probably be a USB2 drive. But in the future this could change.

As always, before you over-write backups you need to be sure
that your originals are good. So a quick random check
is important too.

Just a personal anecdote. I've been using this method
for a few years and I have just under 200 gig of important
files (photos, MP3s, home movies...). I organize my folders
on my usual machine so photos are in one tree, mp3s
in another, home movies in yet one more. Then if I just
update the photo section, I can quickly use synctoy
to bring my photo backups up-to-date. I backup
every time I add files. Deletes can wait.

good luck...thehick

>
> For now DVDs are the cheapest form of storage and are pretty much safe
> from accidental deletions of all the images. I buy the DVDs when
> they are on sale at Costco for $20 for a 100 pack, works out to less
> then $0.05/GB.
>
Just a word of caution. Nobody knows how long DVDs/CDs will last.
I'm positive everyone has had the experience of trying to view
a movie and it freezes. Or trying to copying a DVD but failing
due to read-errors. I have no confidence in using DVDs
for data archiving. They have media quality differences and
read/write compatibility issues. If you happen to think that
you are actually writing/reading a DVD error-free, take a look at
http://www.cdfreaks.com/reviews/Lite...e-DVDR_RW.html

or

http://preview.tinyurl.com/35vwje

And the Costco DVDs would be my very LAST choice.
....thehick

On Feb 18, 8:35 am, "thehick" <theh...@canada.com> wrote:
> > So. How many GB of photos do you have, and how do you back them up?
>
> One responder summarized and I've added the point numbers:
>
> As everyone knows, the choices to store photos in digital format are
> generally known, such as
> 1. - store in your computer internal hard drive
> 2. - store in external hard disk drive (HDD)
> 3. - store in solid state drive (SSD)
> 4. - store in flash memory card (MMC, SD,xD,SM,Sony stick, CF cards,
> etc)
> 5. - store in CD (650 Mb)
> 6. - store in DVD (2 to 4 GB)
> 7. - store in HD media (Blue Ray, etc)
> 8. - store in a Photo viewer (Archos, Epson, Creative Zen)
>
> Storing photos is nothing special. Making backups has been an issue
> with computers since the beginning. So let's take it out of the
> "photo"
> world and treat it generically.
>
> Point #1 is a given. A couple of big hard drives in your usual
> computer will allow you to keep everything you do "online".
> Anybody can run a terabyte easy. I suggest using separate hard
> drives.
> One for plain old storage. You only write to it to save the original
> from the camera and to save an editted image. Another to work with.
>
> Point #2 is my selection for best method. Basically, I set up another
> machine with, again, plenty of hard drive space and using some kind
> of sync software (synctoy is OK. it's free) I easily back everything
> up to the other PC over a LAN. The point is that it's quick and easy
> to do. Making it more likely you'll do it as frequently as required.
> Writing/filing CDs and DVDs is a bit more work and I'd guess
> you probably batch that job. I doubt if anyone would get out
> this week's DVD to update one photo.
>
> Point's 3,4 5, and 6 don't seem usable due to either capacity/price
> issues ot convenience.
>
> Point 7 is much the same. Just you run out of room later.
>
> Point 8 is really just HDD storage anyway.
>
> The important point is that making backups should be simple, quick
> and verifiable. If not, they will not be done.
>
> I would organize by date and inside of date, project if applicable.
>
> Finding what you want after 10 or 15 years might be difficult.
> You need to think about your filing process to try to ensure
> that the photos are retrievable.
>
> Since all reliable recovery scenerios include the element of
> off-site storage, you could pick up a large HDD and
> copy everything to it once in a while. Presently, that would
> probably be a USB2 drive. But in the future this could change.
>
> As always, before you over-write backups you need to be sure
> that your originals are good. So a quick random check
> is important too.
>
> Just a personal anecdote. I've been using this method
> for a few years and I have just under 200 gig of important
> files (photos, MP3s, home movies...). I organize my folders
> on my usual machine so photos are in one tree, mp3s
> in another, home movies in yet one more. Then if I just
> update the photo section, I can quickly use synctoy
> to bring my photo backups up-to-date. I backup
> every time I add files. Deletes can wait.
>
> good luck...thehick

Following the same discussion about backing up image files, I have a
question which someone can help. When you are talking abut backing up,
do you mean that you back up the image files using some kind of back-
up software? In the old days, we used to back-up our computer (and
also compressed the data). The problem with that is after a couple of
years, if you want to restore your data, you have to use that
software.
perhaps back-up using software is faster, but would it be better just
to "copy" images instead of "back-up"?
I copy the actual image files (JPG or RAW) using "copy" and "paste".
This way, the files in the external drive will be in the same format.
If you back up using software, it will be stored as different file,
won't it? To restore, I have to get that same software installed in
another computer to get the data out.
My files is not that large, and therefore I never thought about back-
up software anymore, since those days whenI use PC Back-up software.

jmc wrote:
> Suddenly, without warning, Joseph Meehan exclaimed (18-Feb-07 9:31
> PM):
>>
>> Keeping six slightly different images
>> of the same subject usually does not make much sense. You really
>> don't want to show anyone the five lessor images do you. You only
>> want them to see the best, so way keep three good, one very good and
>> one poor image when you have one great image?
>>
>
> I don't keep six copies (whatever gave you that idea?) I keep two.
> Original and working copy.

Most of us will take more than one exposure of a given subject. Often
the differences from one exposure to the next are minor. I was referring to
slightly different original images, not different edit versions.

>
> That's not why I keep the originals. I keep them for a couple of
> reasons:
> 1) In case I screw up editing an image. I can always go back to the
> start 2) In case I change my mind about a deleted picture. I've
> occasionally deleted an image in the working directory, then seen it
> again in the originals and realized it was a keeper.
>
> There's other reasons too, but these are the main two.
>
> Gads, looks like I just topped out my external HD. ::sigh::
>
> jmc

Sorry I did not include a suggestion with my original message, but I
would suggest moving all the original files to a CD. Then as you edit the
originals and come up with the results you want to keep, delete the original
files from the HD and put the CD is safe keeping. CD's are cheap. You also
can dump all the slightly different original files that you did not bother
to edit because they were just not that good onto other CD's. That way you
can pare down the number of images you have on the HD to the cream of the
crop, yet feel comfortable that you still have access to all the original
files.

Note: CD's (and hard drives) are subject to failure. I would suggest
(and do) store copies of my good "keepers" in multiple places. I have the
active files on my computer. I have a networked "server" at home for all
kinds of backup and about once a year I make CD (or now I have the options
of DVD) disks. I make three. One I keep at home in a safe place, the other
two I send to my kids who live out of town. That gives them copies of the
images and provides a really good backup since it is very unlikely that all
three CD's stored in various parts of the US are all going to be destroyed
at the same time.


--
Joseph Meehan

Dia 's Muire duit