In the good old days of film it was fairly easy to store all the negatives and slide that you had shot. Put them in filing sheets in a dark dry place and they would last for ages. Add in a decent filing system and you could even find the pictures you needed without much difficulty.

How things have changed. With digital images it is relatively straight forward to store the images on the computer’s hard-drive. But this is really the start of the problem. It is very easy to clog up a hard drive with lots of files and folders without being clear what is in them. This is the situation I was in until fairly recently when I lost all the images on my hard-drive which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Luckily I had almost all of my files backed-up.

This is the way that I organise my images now:

• First I set the camera to record the date of shooting in the folder name.
• I download all of these files into one folder on my hard-drive dedicated to storing images straight from the camera. These files are never altered except for Metadata and RAW conversion settings.
• I will preview all the images on the computer and delete any dross.
• Next I will decide on any settings for RAW conversion.
• Now I will copy the new folder(s) to a DVD and format the card once the images have been backed up.
• Files that I want to work on will be copied to my ‘Working’ folder.
• Files that I have finished working on will be moved to my ‘LibraryPics’ folder. This folder contains subfolders according to subject, such as ‘Location’ which itself has several subfolders, or ‘Seasons’, again with subfolders.
• When a file is needed for a project it will be copied from the ‘LibraryPics’ folder into the ‘Working’ folder where any necessary alterations are carried out: resize, sharpening, etc.
• The finished image will then be transferred into another folder called ‘FinishedProjects’, which will contain a subfolder for each project.
• The ‘LibraryPics’ and ‘FinishedProjects’ folders are also backed-up to DVD regularly.

There are possible issues with storing images on a long term basis on home produced DVD’s which is something that needs to be watched. Maybe a better solution would be a portable hard-drive. But the main thing is that a backup is essential. Hard-drives will fail and images will be lost unless precautions are taken.

Copyright © Greg Wright 2006 - All rights reserved