Image Managament...

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barrymoir

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Edit My Images
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Heya folks, im curious as to how everyone stores their images, im having a bit of bother coming up with a good directory of images, ive just bought an 80gig external drive to stick all my images i have on but lost as to how to organise.

I seem to have so many copies of images that im unsure to delete some of them and keep a master copy or what to do. I generally take raw, then convert to tiff with raw converter in ps.

Do you Keep all raw untouched, as well as tiffs from raw, then a second copy of tiff all touched up, then jpeg copies for net and printing??

Some thoughts on this would be great before i start my organising.

Many Thanks.

Barry
 
You should always keep the RAW file, as this is the original file to refer back too.

I keep the RAW, Edited TIFF, and a web jpg.

My RAW files are kept in a folder that is date stamped, and is named with the location the shots were taken (i.e 02-01-06 placename).
Inside this folder I have a folder named converted, this folder holds all of the TIFF's.
My web images are kept seperate in the my Pictures folder.

HTH
 
I'm the same, I keep mine in dated folders and then have a seperate disk for the edited images/ file conversions
 
Thanks Matt, do you keep your tiffs at the size they were when converted from raw, what i mean is that once i converted to tiiff, and then do any adjustments in ps, and a crop to my image size i require, i.e. 10x8 at300, im not sure should i keep this and add to harddrive space or just keep the original tiff.


silly questions i know, but i would like for the first time in my life to have some organisation with my images.
 
Once I'm Happy with the TIFF, I save the editted version over the original TIFF.

If you need to re process the image, you can always produce another TIFF from the RAW file.
 
I keep dated folders under a main directory called Images on a seperate drive and back them up to DVD once a month, If I've been very busy I'll just back up RAW and any images (Tif/jpg) I've worked on, otherwise as long as it fits on the disc the whole lot gets transferred. The backed up folder is kept on the hard drive for a couple of months afterwards then deleted if I'm not using it regularly, which I never am.
 
I commit the ultimate sin of only keeping web version :shock: , as I'm hoping my photography will keep improving & therefore I won't want to keep archive stuff (family aside). :whistle2:
 
I keep all images from a job or task in a file with a unique reference number that's also recorded in a Job Book with location details and misc info about the job itself.
A job today would be DMOC,JMOT1,06,001 - the dates and generic caption would be in File Info - this is a must - images without file info are discarded as there is no provenance.
DMOC,JMOT1 is the organisation I work for; 06 for 2006 and 001 for the first job of the year.
RAW images are stored in a sub-folder maked RAW and images are sequentially numbered - DMOC,JMOT1,06,001_0001R. R being for RAW.
Processed Images are stored in other sub-folders marked Best and Transmission, as TIFFs and JPEGs respectively with the R being replaced with E for enhanced.
The whole job is then burned onto a CD-ROM if space allows or a DVD-ROM.
If the job is too big then RAW Images are burned onto a seperate DVD while the TIFFs and JPEGs are burned onto a CD.
Five copies are made.
One for me, one for work plus one spare; one for HQ Land Photo editor and one for the Imperial War Museum.
I also now keep the folder on a seperate HD which I'll start archiving on.
 
Thanks much for the info folks, its been most helpfull, so far ive come up with raw files (for processing), raw files processed, tiffs and jpegs and the latter two il organise into category folders.

One thing thats bugging me is the little tag files that come with an adjusted raw file, can this info not be incorporated into the image itself, i use cs2 and cs raw converter??

Many thanks again
 
It gets added as a sidecar file, not into the RAW file itself. This means the integrity of the original is untouched.
One of the reasons for doing this is for Evidentiary reasons.
Police and Law enforcement asked that there be no way of altering the original RAW files so that evidence couldn't be faked.
Manufacturers have gone along with this when writing the programming.
A RAW file is sacrosanct.
With Nikon transfer you can add file-info to the RAW file which is embedded, but that's about it.
It has the advantage of meaning that if you b****x up your processing of an image, you can go back to the original RAW file and start again, safe in the knowledge that it's not been compromised.
 
Thanks for the info Arkady, its a canon i have so there goes that idea, i like the idea of seperate sidecar file, but if i move the raws around i need to ensure i move that file too. My thinking was that if i process the raw file, it should only need done once, then it should be perfect, and stored this way, i want to avoid having to return to raw files once adjusted if needed.
 
With Adobe Bridge, it 'remembers' the last adjustments used on that file, even though the file itself isn't altered.
 
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