Help! Files, Files, and more Files ... Everywhere

Hi,
I've gotten semi-serious lately and started to shoot alot more in RAW
mode (yes, everyone finally convinced me). The problem, I have files
everywhere. On 2 different hard drives, burned on multiple CDs, in tons
of different formats (JPEG, TIFF, PSD, RAW). I need something to help
organize, locate and identify/view this mess. Is there a decent piece of
software out there that newsgroup members use to keep track of their
photos and perhaps provide thumbnails? I realize that PSD files might be
a problem, but something that would handle just the regular graphic
formats would be great. Any suggestions/recommendations would be greatly
appreciated.

Thanks,

Jeff

 

PIcasa?

http://www.picasa.com/content/download.php?sourceid=awd&subid=ha-picbd&cv=1

 

Here's what I do:
Process the raw files (which ususally only consists of getting the white
balance and exposure right) and save as tiffs. Delete the raws and do
all further work only with tiffs. When I have a dvd's worth of tiffs,
I use either Jalbum (free from www.jalbum.com) or PS to create
html pages of the files and I write the html and tiffs to a dvd. The html
page provide an index and screen sized images of the tiffs.

The advantages of this method are that you don't lose quality as
tiff is a lossless format and you don't need to mess around with
amateur thumbnail/indexing software that is usually more trouble
than its worth (other than Windoze Explorer of course!!!).

Graham

 

I can't agree with that. To me, deleting RAWs would be like throwing away
the negatives. My RAWs are the most important files I have, and are backed
up twice to DVD and also onto an external HD.

 

Good point but I'm only stating what I find works for me.
I have made mistakes occasionally and wished that I had
saved the raw. Maybe I should save the raws alongside
the tiffs.

Graham

 

And they are certainly smaller than the TIFFs too!

 

I store all my photos in a folder called "photos." Each time I download, I
make a new folder named with the date and subject: 2004-10-16-FloridaTrip

If you get better results in RAW mode, then you should plan on larger
drives. Only trust your cdr/dvd recorder for stuff you can afford to loose.

Bob

 

Why do you reply to me instead of the OP? You have done this twice to me
today!

 

Thumbs Plus, <www.cerious.com>. It'll index online and offline disks,
lets you make virtual groupings of images from anywhere ("galleries"),
displays thumbnails from PSD and RAW files as well as the standard
formats, handles EXIF and IPTC data, database keywords, etc. Very
nice package.

 

Picasa's very nice but it doesn't handle any RAW formats so it's not as
useful as you might think. The good news is that version 2.0 should have
RAW support for at least some cameras:
http://forums.picasa.com/viewtopic.php?t=1199

 

Out of curiosity, what is the basis of this comment. I store all of
my photos on my HD, but I assume my CD backups are a safe archive.
Are they not?

 

Wow. Thank you all for the responses! I'll check out all the programs
mentioned to see what I feel comfortable with and meets my needs. I
definitely don't plan on tossing out any of my 'keeper' RAW files. I
agree with the person who stated that they are the digital equivalent to
negatives. I have a workflow similar to that which many cited. I do the
base corrections from the RAW files and save them as TIFFs for further
processing. Then I move the original RAW files out of harms way. Right
now I burn them onto a CD (no problems with this as yet), but I will be
picking up a dedicated external HD for storing them as well.

Thanks for all the suggestions and comments!

Jeff

 

A couple years ago I searched for white papers by CDR manufacturers.
After reading what Kodak and TDK had to say about the archival properties
of their media, it was clear that under certain circumstances that they
might be able to last for 100 years or more, but those circumstances take
for granted that a) the burner is 100% in factory spec, but since the
burner uses many analog components that are know to deteriorate with use,
that assumption is invalid, and b) that the media is perfectly matched to
the drive, but since there are several different technologies used to
make media (different dye types, etc.) that assumption is only valid if
the user knows what dye type is best for his drive and what dye type a
given media is made from.

After the assumptions are made, the circumstances require that the disc
be kept in the dark at controlled room temperature and humidity. Some
people keep thier AC's on all year round, but some people don't. Their
findings also are based on the assumption that there are no factors that
are not accelerated by temperature, which might not be valid, and they
admit that.

So far, the only CDRs I've lost have been due to abuse and neglect,
rather than media failure, but based on what the experts at the
manufacturer's had to say, I do not feel like they are truly "safe".

Bob

 

Hard drives fail also. Isn't the average life expectancy of a drive in
relatively steady use about 4 to 5 years (given most manufacturer's
specs)? Although, even if a drive crashes, in many cases the majority of
the data is recoverable. Recovery services are expensive though and
there are no guarantees that any data at all will be able to be
recovered in a useful form.

So, there really isn't (at least for now), a truly dependable media type
for preserving data forever with 100% reliability in the digital realm.
One can either be paralyzed and do nothing, or one can take what
precautions one can and hope for the best. One can spend an inordinate
amount of time backing up to multiple media types in the hopes that at
least one will survive or even start etching the 0's and 1's to clay
tablets. I try and save original work (RAW files and JPEGs) to CD and a
hard drive. The chances of both failing and losing everything is slim,
but entirely possible even so. Until something better comes along, what
else can you do?

Jeff

 

Yes, although at least in my environment, they (hard drives) seem to be
holding up much better than they had.

The difference between a HD and a disc is that when the HD fails, you know
it has, and you can take action to retrieve your data from backup media and
make new backups, or whatever else. When your CD (or DVD fails), you won't
know it.

In the "old days," we used to backup our HDs to tape, every day, rotating
multiple tape sets. Even though our drive failed at least 5 times, we never
lost a single file. Now that drives are so big, and tapes aren't much biger
than they were 5 years ago, tape isn't a reasonable choice.

I've got three hard drives in my computer, and I keep important files on at
least two of them. I also burn backup copies to CDs, but I don't trust the
CD as the only copy of anything I don't mind loosing.

Bob

 

Hard drives are cheap. I think the best way to backup is simply to
nightly auto copy your main hard drive to another hard drive.

 

Hehe, I remember those days as well. Abysmal backup software, incredibly
slow write times and stacks of tapes. I recall starting backups at
midnight and still writing at 9 AM when the doors opened for business.

I agree, I prefer keeping backups on another HD but I use CDs also. I've
been fortunate to never have had a burned CD go bad. I only wanted to
point out that currently no media type is 100% secure and safe for
holding data. I've had HDs crash and result in less than 20% of the data
being recoverable in a usable form. I, like everyone else, keep waiting
for the 'next great thing' to come along for reliable long term data
storage.

Jeff

 

If you use good backup software to do it (instead of drag and drop), then
backing up one drive to another will do a good job of protecting against
both user error (deleting files by mistake) and hardware failure (of the
sort where the drive spins down).

But it won't protect against malicious activity.

There are no cheap foolproof systems, so I tend to make a lot of copies of
things and put them in many places.

Bob

 

If it fails completely, yes. But if a few files disappear, due to bad
blocks, operating system bugs or user error, no alarm bells ring.

I have known companies lose important files and only discover it after
all tape sets had been rotated. It's extraordinary how few people have
ever heard of (or worked out for themselves) the need for archive
backups - i.e. backups which are never re-used.

Well, that combination doesn't sound too bad.

 

In 15 years, I've only lost maybe one or two files on hard drives to bad
blocks, but I've lost at least a dozen drives.

I guess I'm willing to risk the loss of a single file, but not an entire
drive.

Bob