Workflow Question

[karen_lippowiths]

I'm just curious to know who keeps every single frame and who trashes the "non-five-star" stuff (i.e.,

the stuff that the client never sees)?

 

I'm the very opposite of a pack rat in all aspects of my life (drives my husband nuts!) and I get down to

bare bones -- I only keep what the client sees. I also purge what the client doesn't buy after the sales

cycle. I haven't been sorry yet.

 

What do you do?

 

:) Karen

[randmcnatt]

Every frame. I've got decades worth of shots of my toes, the dash or headliner of the car, and the inside of the camera bag. I've always figured it is extra work to throw the junk away, so I just file it with the roll/job. Since switching to digital, we archive everything as the first step in the workflow, straight onto a DVD even before we start editing. It still comes down to lazy: it takes extra effort to cull the blanks, etc. Besides, I figure that you never know when you may need to borrow an eyebrow or ear or need a skin graft or a bit of landscaping.

 

Years ago I saw an odd picture in, I believe, Pop Photo, all swirly and multicolored: it was a piece of the film leader. Half-page, full color, I figure the guy was paid about a week's typical wages for it. Yep, I starting keeping the leaders, too.

 

Then there was that article about folks dumpster-diving behind Jay Maisel's place...

[argv]

There's no one-size-fits-all for the photo biz. What you do needs to mesh with your business model. I used to save every frame as well, till I got into stock photography, and then there was so much noise that most people just threw up their hands and stopped looking. There should always be some degree of "editing", but how much of it you do, and what criteria you choose, is a byproduct of your having a good understanding of your business objectives.

[twmeyer]

I keep all frames on optical disks, not on the hard drives. I actually burn an entire shoot to duplicate optical disks before doing any editing at all. Then move rejects on the HD to a second "deleted" folder under the working folder. The worked files (intermediates PSDs, the final tifs and jpgs) are also written to duplicate disks. After the job has been invoiced and <i>paid</i>, the deleted folder is deleted. One year later the job is backed up again (gold Mitsui inkjet printable CDs) labeled, filed, and then deleted from the hard drive... t<p>This is going to be changing, because I just bought <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153066">this</a>.

[JAPster]

I tend to make a DVD Backup Disk (one or two copies) of ALL the images that i upload from the camera to the computer. I've read too many sad stories of images getting corrupted while still in the camera, and I myself have experienced 1 sudden unexpected h/w failure on the main boot drive, and even internal RAM chips, that prevented me getting access to picture files on the hard drive. I make this first backup disk as soon as the pictures finish uploading to the laptop, and before I do anything else to them. So, in that sense, I save a copy of all picture files at least to an initial DVD backup disk.

 

I think if I were working on a set of pictures for a paying customer, I would keep them all in one project folder, and make a WEEKLY backup on that project folder, whatever was in it, good or bad.

 

And then, when I was all done with that client and project, and had completed and delivered all the agreed to deliverables, and the project is pretty much finished, I would make a final DVD Backup Disk of the whole project folder. That would be your completed set.

 

I would tend to not delete any files throughout the workflow process, unless I knew a particular file was actually a "temp file" anyway, and I already had the real deliverable that the temp file was used to generate. I tend to think you are safer by retaining all the files needed to complete a particular project,and to keep them all unified within their own project folder. This makes backing them up a lot easier. You ca do this approac as long as you have plenty of diskspace, so that disk freespace is not an issue.

 

If disk freespace does become an issue, you can always "cull through" your set of project folders, determine which ones have not been "touched" (accessed) in a long time, and archive those to special DVD backup disks ( 2 copies, A & B). Then you remove them from the local hard drive to free up needed disk space.

[aimpic]

Hi Karen,

 

I'm more like you. I'm not a filing cabinet or store room. Over the years it adds up, now in digital storage cost and time.

 

Better to sell, and get on making more images, clients and cash.

 

Cheers

[janiece_struble]

I go thru all the photos (initially), and discard all bad ones. I take around 400 per shoot though, so I must narrow them down. I usually get them down to around 50. Then I edit those, back them up, and show them to the customer. My computer has already crashed though a few times from having too many pictures on it. Can't imagine what it would be like if I kept all the images.