Organizing and archiving thousands of photos - which is best?

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>Me...</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I don't bother naming through keywording every Raw and jpeg shot. Too much work.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>You...</p>

<blockquote>

<p>in Lightroom, it could be done in 2sec for 1 or 100000000000 images... simply select them all (or the one you want to rename) hit F2.. and apply the name you want with increasing number, or (too) many option that you need.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That's where this started. You gave instructions for an app I didn't have for a process solution I didn't ask for, mine being a fast way to custom keyword different images, so it's kind of hard to see what your point in helping was. I took it as admonishment by you for my not figuring this simple solution out for myself. I'm clarifying, not fighting you, Patrick.</p>

<p>Since I could see you weren't thoroughly addressing what I said, I just decided to debate this issue and offer up possible strategies that can arise with different users to get others to come up with suggestions and it just got out of hand.</p>

<p>It's still not been hashed out on how will everyone's archived images be asked for (called out) in the future. Name all the possible different ways. See everything works as long as things work today and with clients who use the same call out system. Whose to say that call out system will be utilized 20 years from now.</p>

<p>I'm sure your system works for you, Patrick, because you have to work with professional clients who have an incentive to maintain the current archival system currently in use.</p>

<p>What about hobbyists who may some day sell their images years later to individuals? I'm sure they're not going to be using some stock agency's archival, call out and search system. There's too much clutter in the number of options available in current apps to come up with a customized archiving/call out/search system that works for hobbyists which there are more of than professionals.<br>

<em><br /></em></p>

[johne37179]

<p>My only comment from experience is that all hardware, including all drives, fail at some time. No matter how much memory you have available, you need multiple copies and a plan to replace the drives and move the files. You need multiple copies because it is rare that all your hardware fails at once. You also should consider offline, air-gapped backups -- DVDs, CDs, etc. DVDs are more fragile than CDs, but obviously hold much more data. Depending on how active you are you could spend a lot of time just backing things up and managing the backup. The cloud is another alternative -- but one I'm wary of. I don't like sending files some place out of my control and then bringing them back inside my firewall.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>Good points to consider, John. Backing up is a no brainer.</p>

<p>Do you and will you know how your archived images will be asked for in the future when you can't remember what they look like. Will you remember time, date, location and name of event? And if not, what failsafe system or method do you have in place to find an image other than the terms/parameters just listed? IOW do you now have a quick way of keywording all your files using descriptions of the image that doesn't take clicking on each individual image and entering data?</p>

<p>Also will you have a stock agency keep a searchable directory to look them up for you with their established file naming convention?</p>

<p> </p>

[Mary Doo]

<p>If I am as worried as you, I would use an Excel spreadsheet to summarize the archival keywords, time, date, location and name of event, etc. before or after the images are catalogued away. Then, of course you would then worry about losing track of, or forgetting about the spreadsheet... and there will be no end to this discussion. LOL!</p>

[Brad_]

>>> Changing modes can get confusing for me in knowing what features get turned on and off, crippled, changed and added. I had a

long discussion over at Adobe Bridge forums on my forgetting something as simple as blue highlighted horizontal panel dividers after

years of not having to remember how to recreate custom named modes (mine being a version of FilmStrip) whose preferences (that can

be copied) got lost reinstalling Adobe apps to another system.

 

 

Seriously Tim, I think you're worrying way to much about all of the challenges of learning this and that. You seem extremely resistant towards considering others' advice. Pick a method you have a

reasonable amount of confidence in and go forward. Like unknown thousands of other photographers, I picked Lightroom and it has

served me well with over 100K images. And I expect it to going forward with much more. A very flexible framework is there for however you want to organize/keyword/label your images. For me, after a few weeks of initial learning it became

second nature - I don't even think about it any more years later. If the sky actually falls, I'll adapt and go forward with another plan.

 

Step up and learn how it works, like everyone else. It's like learning how to drive a car. A little challenging, and even scary for some, at first.

Easy after a few days.

[pjmeade]

<p>@Tim Lookingbill Most image requests will be along the lines of an individual player at a polo tournament wanting to know if there are any more action shots - so I know to look at shots from that date shot with a 7D. Or a sponsor wanting a group shot, so that's going to be the date and shot with a 5D. The client doesn't need to know what the camera was, they just need to tell me what they want, I work out what the camra was (It's a little more difficult for carriage driving shows).<br>

How long would I keep content? The Smithsonian recently asked for a portrait from some years ago. I'm preparing a book on polo at Sandhurst and I'll be looking at photos from the last 5 years. When not in active use, I keep all of them.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>Thanks, Peter, for answering my question and offering a rundown on how you hunt up images according to the way you work with your clients.</p>

<p>In what terms/words/file names/numbers did the Smithsonian ask for the portrait from years back? Was it a form they submitted through email? These are the specifics I'm trying to raise to help others and myself in asking ourselves these questions in developing a system that works. </p>

<p>See when I put a bunch of my stuff in the closet to get it out of the way, I look over the items and determine which one I will likely need quickly like say legal papers or instructions to devices like my answering machine in the event the power goes out and I can't remember how to reprogram the time and date.</p>

<p>Now I had to learn this through experience when I actually needed those items and had to spend hours rummaging around trying to find them. When I put stuff away I'm never this anal about such matters until I'm reminded of the frustration of searching for them previously. Since we don't know how others using this archiving software attempt to find their digital stuff in real world usage, thought I'ld get some feedback here.</p>

<p>I think it's an important subject to discuss despite anyone else's opinions and if you don't like the points I'm raising then use that scroll bar on the right side of your browser and just pass me by. You won't hurt my feelings.</p>

[johne37179]

<p>One final point. I'm on an Apple system and it automatically indexes all of the content of the files (not images, but textual) and provides a convenient search tool. I use it a dozen times a day. I have about 30 TB of data on this system. I can find any file, if I can manage an intelligent search term, in a fraction of a second.<br>

My point is not to push Apple (though I would be hard pressed to go back to a DOS based environment), but to stress the importance of indexing your digital content.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>I'm on Apple as well, John.</p>

<p>What do you consider an intelligent search term when finding your indexed images? How would you know what to ask for?</p>

[johne37179]

<p>I use two approaches. Date and since I have always retained the default camera sequencing label -- I use that, I can find the images from the camera on a certain date and in a sequence of shots - which seems close enough for me. I also put images from a single shoot into a single folder. Then within that folder I keep the RAW images in one subfolder and the processed images in another. I store all of those folders in what has become a very large overall folder. Some years ago I lost several thousand images when a RAID drive lost its RAID sets. From time to time I will copy to external media, but have yet to have to retrieve and image from them -- I guess the paranoia has kept the drive failures away. I have the original file on my hard drive and three backups. Two of them on an external RAID drive that I will back up to about once a month and then an external TB drive that the Mac Time Machine backs up to.<br>

Just as an aside, there is lots of metadata recorded with your shots on a Nikon (and I assume other cameras, as well). If well indexed, you could find all of the shots taken with a particular lens, or f-stop, or shutter speed, etc.</p>

[johne37179]

<p>I had one additional thought to add to the above. Indexing and retrieving information is all about unique record locators. That does not mean a descriptive term. If you have a lot of images the descriptive terms soon get very fuzzy and retrieve a lot of images. The easiest unique locator to use is a time/date stamp the equipment can automatically apply. Many photographers keep diaries of what they were shooting on particular day (my digital calendar does that for me) and that diary is basically a table of contents that can be used to find a particular image or group of images.</p>