Photography Thailand Forum

[agitlits]

Hello,

Would like to get views and experiences on how people archive their work.

I used to archive final, high resolution, high quality jpg as well as raw files on DVDs. Now, I not only archive these, but also the so-called 'master files'. Master files are those that I end up with after I process the photo and they are normally high resolution 16-bitt psd files, some containing several layers.

Why do I keep these enormously sized (some up to 150 mb)files? Well, I do not want to rely just on jpgs should I want to reduce the size of my high resolution jpg. Firstly because each time you resave from jpg you introduce artifacts, secondly once you sharpen your high resolution jpg, that sharpening is only good for a certain size of the photo and each time you run USM, you introduce noise, etc. Secondly, I want to keep layers in case i want to go back and adjust something within a certain layer.

So normally, I process the photos and end up with the following:

- Original RAWs (negatives) which are burnt to a DVD and deleted from HDD eventually

- Master files - 16-bitt high resolution psds or TIFFs, normally saved in LAB mode.  - eventually burnt to DVD and removed from HDD

- High resolution JPG, burnt to a DVD and also stored on HDD.

Would appreciate others to share their views on archiving and workflow.

Cheers

Alex

[bkkdave]

I archive my images on multiple hard drives. I backup the backup. I don’t trust DVD’s to hold up over time and they are limited in the space available.  And I don’t trust hard drives to hold up indefinitely either. It is not a question of if they will fail; but when. They also never send you a warning message either, so I use multiple drives.

I have no comments on work flow as mine is a mess and not worth mentioning.

[Markus]

Gold DVDs last more than 100 years, so when they break, I dont really care anymore. And if the poor guy who paid millions for my photos did not back them up on some groovy hyperlightspeedfriggin drive its his fault  :P. Check this:

Tested under the most extreme conditions to ensure a storage life of 100 years.
Gold is one of the most reflective robust elements on Earth. More than 20 of 24k gold in every DVD-R.
Maximum resistance to the harmful effects of oxidation, a main cause of failure to optical media.
Scratch Armor's protective layer prevents scratches, scuffs, dirt, chemicals, and fingerprints

http://www.amazon.com/10CASE-Archival-Gold-Scratch-Armor/dp/B000FS7M76

[epixx]

External hard-disks in identical pairs. Compared to DVD's, they are:

- Smaller
- Cheaper
- Readable even with partial damage
- Online with the flip of a power switch
- Larger capacity (to get 500GB of DVD's online simultaneously, I would need more than 100 DVD-drives)

In addition, they have the read/write mechanism integrated. With DVD's, you depend on a computer with a DVD-reader. In 20 or 50 or 100 years, there may not be readers available. Try to find a reader for 8" or 5 1/4" diskettes today, or for Jazz, Zip, Syquest or one of the other countless, popular storage media that were once popular. They are all younger than 30 years. HD's on the other hand, have been conceptually unchanged for 40+ years, and since they are integrated units, they don't depend on other hardware to be read, except for a computer.

During many years in the graphic design business, I've received surprisingly many completely new, but very unreadable DVD's from customers. The problem is rarely physical damage, but the fact that the DVD standard has never really settled. You burn it with one DVD-writer today, buy a new computer with a different reader tomorrow, and suddenly, all of your shiny, golden discs are reduced to potential decorations for mobile street kitchens in Bangkok.

This is obviously a very pessimistic view, but when it comes to backup, no view is too pessimistic.

[agitlits]

Thanks for the response, every one.

I intend to buy a high-capacity external HDD at some point, but was wondering do you guys also save 16-bitt tiffs, png, psd or whatever?

Alex

[epixx]

Thanks for the response, every one.

I intend to buy a high-capacity external HDD at some point, but was wondering do you guys also save 16-bitt tiffs, png, psd or whatever?

Alex

I don't work in 16-bit, so that saves me a lot of space. I obviously save all RAW-files, and most of the time, I don't delete any images. In addition, I save the psd-file and a jpeg quality 12 for all edited files.

[agitlits]

Thanks for the response, every one.

I intend to buy a high-capacity external HDD at some point, but was wondering do you guys also save 16-bitt tiffs, png, psd or whatever?

Alex

I don't work in 16-bit, so that saves me a lot of space. I obviously save all RAW-files, and most of the time, I don't delete any images. In addition, I save the psd-file and a jpeg quality 12 for all edited files.

Thanks, epixx. That's pretty much what I do, except in 16-bitt. I work at that bit depth until I actually convert to jpg. The big downside is that if you save a 16 bitt psd file which has a few layers as well, it is often well above 100 mb in size.

Cheers

Alex

[David Procter]

I save everything on my Macie harddrive
RAW originals, the converted TIFF/JPEG and a web file are saved next to each other for my favourites. The rest stay as RAW. Recently I've been doing some more commercial type stuff and have been saving the psd multilayered files too. I'm ruthless with my pictures and delete lots.

[agitlits]

Thanks David. Do you save in 16-bitt mode, psd's that is?

[David Procter]

They seem to be 16bit at the moment, but people argue there is no discernable difference between 16 and 8, so I may not bother in the future.

[David Salmanowitz]

For archival purposes I had once mentioned in a separate post hard drives at this technological moment in time are the way to go--as far as those archival dvd's not that I am sceptical but I do not believe it. :-) The Library of Congress did an archival test going for 100 year reliability. I think it was something like 90% failed after a simulation of 10 years, or maybe it was none made it past 10 years. Whatever, the results were not pretty. For real short time fine, but for archiving I would not do it. As I also mentioned in earlier post, keep those Sharpie pens away, as they will eat into the CD/DVD. I save my archival files as DNG, because down the road as operating systems, computers, software changes--you could have thousands of photos that you would not be able to view! Sound far fetched?, remember zip drives not too many years ago? How about floppy discs? Get the idea? :-)

[agitlits]

Thanks David, Why dng and not psd format for example? Is dng more space efficient?

[David Salmanowitz]

Probably not more space efficient as DNG saves all the proprietary and non-proprietary info from the camera manufacturer's RAW format. All your original RAW data is there, as well as well as additional data turning it into DNG format. Hopefully eventually it will be the standard RAW format on cameras, instead of a mlillion different ones. The Leica M8 is one of the newer cameras that use DNG as their format.