Archiving files

[marten_holmes]

<p>I'm just in the process of streamlining my archiving and back up systems and wonder if and when people get rid of their RAW files?</p>

[picturesque]

<p>Nope, never. I'll probably have them forever, just like I have loads of medium format negatives from weddings past.</p>

[william-porter]

<p>As a matter of archiving, my default policy is: never delete. I have every digital photo I've taken since the 1990s including all the early lousy ones. That's the default policy. As a matter of practice, on the other hand, I do delete photos. And what I should say is, I have every digital photo <em>that I decided to keep.</em> </p>

<p>Five, six years ago when I was shooting lots of school sports, I took thousands of photos of girls volleyball, kids soccer and basketball, swimming, etc. and I've gone through and deleted lots of those photos. A high percentage of them were repetitive. The small handful that actually had some general interest as photos, I've marked and will keep.</p>

<p>For years my goal has been to take fewer photos but have more keepers. It's apparently a goal I'll never reach, but I keep trying. Anyway, the very notion of "keepers" implies the notion of "losers" or as I call 'em, "stinkers". When I finish a shoot, the first thing I do is review the photos. The stinkers — those that are simply bad — get deleted, permanently. Every now and then I go over old photos, and when I do, I marked some for deletion — because they're simply never going to be of interest to anybody. </p>

<p>I'm not nearly as ruthless as I should be. On the other hand, I almost never delete whole shoots. Work for clients is archived.</p>

<p>Anyway, photos get written regularly to DVDs and stashed away, as well as backed up on a couple big hard disks. Storage is cheap.</p>

<p>One last note, since you asked about raw files. I shot raw for clients exclusively, for five years or more. Lately, I'm going through a bit of a crisis of faith in raw. I've been shooting raw + JPEG now for a little while, and although it seems like apostasy to say it, I've been in some cases keeping the JPEG and deleting the raw. Haven't made my mind up yet about this. What I do know is that I keep all the "originals" in a directory called MASTERS. A raw + JPEG pair imported from the camera come in as a pair of master photos or originals. If the photo is a stinker, both get deleted. If the photo is worth saving but (for whatever reason) I deem the JPEG to be completely adequate, I delete the raw file. Otherwise, I delete the JPEG and keep the master. All exported photos get stored elsewhere.</p>

<p>Will</p>

[green_photog]

<p>I backup all my JPEGs. One copy in Smugmug, one copy online and two copies in my home network. I used to backup all my RAWs too but I'm beginning to rethink that a couple years down the road, chances of me going back to the RAWs and re-edit them is next to none.</p>

<p>Since I back up all the JPEGs, I can always edit them if need to be. JPEG is not the best for editing but we are talking about the worse case scenario here.</p>

[eric merrill]

<p>If the image has no value, it's gone. If it has value, I spend money backing it up and making enough copies of it so that a catastrophe at one location won't lose my file.</p>

<p> </p>

[pete_s.]

<p>Ask yourself why you keep any of your files. Do the clients come back and order more? How long after in that case? And are you under contract to keep the originals? Or are you doing it for free in case someone, someday may actually come back and order a print from you that you in that case may or may not find after having to go trough stacks and stacks of old DVDs and other obsolete media?</p>

<p> </p>

[marten_holmes]

<p>Okay, current workflow is - shoot RAW, edit Lightroom and delete blink shots, export users as JPEGs into same folder as RAW files, burn disc of JPEGs for client and back up copy form me (stored off site), load JPEGs from Mac to PC in order to create slideshow in ProShow Gold (files deleted from PC some time!), copy all files to external hard drive (periodically).<br>

So, my question is two fold - do I put all files onto the external drive or just the JPEGs?; how long to keep all the files on my Mac hard drive?<br>

I don't imagine ever getting rid of the JPEGs and I'm happy, I think, that I've cover all my bases in terms of losing files (probably need to find a home off site for external drive!); however I'm wondering if I really need to keep all the RAW files which obviously take up loads of space?</p>

[green_photog]

<p>Marten, it depends on how likely will you go back and edit those RAW files. To me, once the clients have seen their photos, chances of me going back and editing their RAWs are pretty much nil. I flag the RAWs of which the JPEGs go to my blog and keep those RAWS. The rest of the RAWs will be deleted after 6 months or so.</p>

[craig_shearman1]

<p>I delete the obvious blinks, bad exposures, out of focus, etc. Beyond that the RAW files are kept permanently. Same with all my old film negatives and slides. Doesn't matter whether a client might ever order from them -- they are my "life's work" so to speak. I don't expect to be Ansel Adams. But every few years you read about how this historical society or that art group has come across a collection of prints and negatives from some forgotten photographer -- sometimes a local portrait shooter, sometimes some amateur who was good and shot a lot -- that provides invaluable documentation of a town, neighborhood or particular subject matter. Not saying anything I shoot is of that level. But if it's important enough to shoot it's important enough to keep.</p>

[pete_s.]

<p>Professional photographers are usually small business owners and not employees. So there are more than jpeg and raw files files to consider, for instance contracts, email conversation, bookkeeping etc.</p>

<p>Every backup and archiving solution should be based on the needs and needs are different for different people. For instance what are the legal obligations to keep data around? As a wedding photographer is it stipulated in your contract that you should keep a backup of image files after the job is completed and in that case for how long? How long after the wedding will you get print orders? According to the law where you are how long do you need to keep financial records and business documents? How long after would is it possible that you might get sued and need to bring out contracts, emails and other documents pertaining to that particular client and job?</p>

<p>When you know what you need you can look at suitable solutions and the costs involved of having a backup and archival solution that fits your needs.</p>

<p>Copying files manually here and there and perhaps sometime forgetting or not having enough room that is perhaps good enough for home users but not for a business.</p>

<p>For a SOHO I'd say put your working files on your local network, never on your desktop or laptop computer. Have redundant discs on your network, a RAID array. In it's simplest solution that means that every time you save a file it is saved simultaneously to two identical disks. If a drive fails you can continue working as usual while a new drive is being ordered. If your computer fails or have a problem you can use another computer to finish your work because the files are not on your computer, it's on the network.</p>

<p>Backup locally and to a remote location if you want to keep your data even if there is a fire, flood, hurricane or someone steals all your equipment.</p>

<p>When the project is finished and files are not likely to be needed anymore you can archive the files. Archive to archival DVDs or even better yet <a href="http://panasonic.net/avc/blu-ray_disc/archive.html">archival bluray</a>. Hard drives are not suitable for archival purposes (excellent for backup though).</p>

<p>Network attached storage like <a href="http://files.qnap.com/news/pressresource/datasheet/Home_SOHO_NAS_datasheet_EN.pdf">Qnap</a> is a good solution for both redundant storage on your network and for backups locally and remotely to cloud storage.</p>

<p>When it comes to raw files and jpeg I would say keep all files (including xmp files, files for slideshows, albums etc) until you reach the archiving phase. Depending on how much data you have at this stage you might want to decide what files to keep and what to get rid of. Blu-ray discs holds 50GB each.</p>

<p>Maybe it's possible that you don't need to archive anything at all. Perhaps you can keep everything on your network long enough. You will need a sufficient amount of storage though and storage is not cheap, not when done right with both redundancy and backup.</p>

<p>PS. Found these on Qnap site that might be interesting.<br>

Christian Wolf, wedding photographer: http://www.qnap.com/en/index.php?lang=en&sn=4370<br>

Drew Gardner, commercial photographer: http://www.qnap.com/en/index.php?lang=en&sn=3549</p>

 

[rocky_g.]

<p > I'm not exactly sure why so many photographers, Including many who are much more experienced and better than myself, keep raw images. I always shoot 100% in raw. I shoot in raw so I have a lot latitude in post. If I want to bring out shadow detail or highlights that a jpeg just doesn't have the ability to capture, or I need to make a major white balance adjustment, or if I missed an exposer and I need to fix it. Once those images are processed, Im not sure what the benefit in keeping the raw file is? I am not saying there is no benefit, I'm just saying I don't know what it is. I would appreciate if any experienced wedding shooters would tell me why. I hope I'm not missing something. I know of some world class wedding photographers who shoot solely in jpeg. I don't have the skill to nail 1200 shots in camera at every wedding. </p>

<p > As far as archiving, I keep the files on 2 external hard drives and online. I find smugmug to be great for archiving. I can upload all my weddings and if my house ever burns down I can retrieve them. I think it cast me about $150 a year. I</p>

[picturesque]

<p>While you may never go back and re-process files for clients, you may, for yourself. What if you got an outstanding shot, but at the time you processed it, your processing skills were not that good, or you processed it according to the 'flavor of the day' processing. Now, you want to use your better skills or re-process for some other effect, or just plain great looking photographic processing.</p>

<p>I also like the idea of spreading around the copies. If my set of jpegs are damaged for whatever reason, I might have the RAWS, which can always be re-processed.</p>

<p>Just do what makes sense to you.</p>

[frolickingbits]

<p>I keep all my raw files, i find it's cheaper to buy new hard drives than it would be to spend the time to select which files to delete and which to keep. Several years ago, I was only keeping JPG files, and I have a number of images that would be good portfolio pieces had I not done what in retrospect was a rather awful post processing job. For a while I was duplicating JPG files and editing the copies, which is much better than working on the originals, but not nearly as streamlined as my workflow is now with LightRoom. Like Nadine said, with raw files you can also go back and reprocess as your skills and the software improves. With the current price of disc space, it costs me about $10 per wedding to archive the raw files. I figure that's an acceptable cost.</p>