BURNING digi photos to CD: Best method?

D70/ most files shot as Jpg: medium fine, large-fine, and raw/ Mac G4/ OS10.3/Toast

Titanium 6/ Apples disc burning software, other Apple graphic software: iPhoto, iDVD,

DVD Studio pro, Nikon's: Capture, Picture Project, Adobe Photoshop CS & Elements 2......

 

How do I / What should I use / and at what settings to :

1. Archive the original photos to CD unchanged, to view as photo's/ or dnld as files, to my

other mac's with similar software?

2. Burn photo CD's to send to friends & family to view as photos, on their Mac or PC ?

 

Thanks.

Hi Stephen, are you trying to do any specific once the images are burned? Burning images on CD is like burning any other kind of data. It just depends on what you want to archive. If you want to burn them as jpeg or raw then do so. I can't see what real point of your question is based on the info you have given. why do you clarify intent more

Clarification:

1. I'd like to backup the photo files exactly as is, to archive and to transfer

among my other macs image processing software. My files range from some

jpeg-med.fine to mostly large.fine and NEF's.

 

2.I'd like to reduce the file size to show as a slide show on iPhoto on the

same Mac, essentially installing double files without eating up HD storage.

 

3.I'd like to burn "optimally reduced in size" photo CD's for friends & family to

display on their Mac or PC, in a file size that their software, whatever it is, can

deal with.

 

Hope this clarifies things.Thanks.

<p>I make a difference between archives, backups and sharing images. Simply put

backups are copies of a working system so you can restore the system to a known working

state. Archives are copies of your data so you can access the same data over a long period

of time. Sharing images is showing the images to friends.

<p>So if you just need to share images between your Macs, just burn the files you need to

a CD or better install a local network. You'll copy the JPEGs or the RAWs depending on

what you intend to do with the files.

<p>To share with friends, you have many options from uploading them to a web gallery

(e.g. photo.net) to burning a CD with JPEGs for them to take to a photo finisher. I'd

suggest giving them JPEGs as they are the most compatible.

<p>BTW archiving is a good idea but it's a different game. Here the goal is to be able to

load your images in 20 years after you've switched OS and no longer have a copy of your

current software.

<p>--ben

For presentations, you might want to invest in a dvd burner (~$50) and a copy of Sony's Vegas/DVD Architect Combo package. You can burn dvd's just like what you can buy your favorite films on (Apocalypse Now, for example) that will work on ANY dvd player (you have to specify the region code- US, Asia, etc) and then have your various media presentations all together because of the size of the disk. You could also combine stills and video, add voice over commentary, subtitling, etc, and it's all quite simple and straightforward to use.

I particularly like to make slide shows of 6x7cm shots that I have scanned at 4000 dpi. Of course I have to scale them down, but the extra file quality is fantastic on an hd-tv...

I made a single dvd that had a photo essay on every trip I took in 2004 and the results were fantastic. I converted all my photos from .raw to .tiff for the presentation, so I don't know if it can interpret the .raw files or not.

Hope this helps (and doesn't confuse you).

Ian

Stephen, you have all you need and it is not necessary to buy anymore hardware and

software. Toast is better than apple's software. I use toast to burn backups just click new

cd under data, then drag the folders containing the pictures into it then click burn.

 

Same method can be used for burning pictures for your friends making sure you use the

toast setting that is hydrid CD (should be available in Toast window). Also, burn the whole

disk, not in sessions (do not partition your CD) when Toast asks you. While macs can read

multi-session disks, my PC friends don't always seem to read more than the first volume

 

Cheers, Hung Nguyen

One thing a lot of people forget is the quality of the media. Optical media is a strange thing; only a handful of companies make it and few of them sell it themselves. They resell it to other companies who relabel it and sell it under their name. Sometimes companies use more than one supplier. For example, Fuji uses Taiyo Yuden (probably the best manufacturer) and Optodisc (one of the less spectacular ones).

 

Suggestion: buy blank media directly from a media retailer like Meritline (US) or blankmedia.ca (Canada). Get a really good brand. Taiyo Yuden is one of the best for both CD and DVD. It's not that expensive, although it's more expensive.

 

It's also good to get a burner that supports quality scans. I'm not aware of any Mac equipment or software that can do this, but on the PC, BenQ burners and Nero CD-DVD speed will do this. Lite-On drives are also capable of it. This will tell you if the burns you are making are of good quality or not.

 

Burning at maximum speed seldom gives best quality.

Hi I want to burn RAW images but was told that Toast only converts them to jpeg when it

burns the disk. Is that correct? If so what burner will burn RAW photos please?