Workflow Advice

I curious about some books or web information on digital workflow and image management. I'd be interested to read what some of you on the forum are doing and some suggestions for reading. I'm trying to come up with a plan for storage and cataloging the images from the original RAW or JPEG to the final product and finding them easily.

I've read a few things and tried a few things, but I haven't found something that works for me yet. I know I will.

I'm sure some of you have fought or are fighting the same battle.

When you get the images on your computer, what steps to do take from there (i.e. review the images, delete rejects, convert to DNG, file orginal, manipulate a copy, save a working file, finish final image, file final image, etc)

Just curious. I did some upgrading to my computer and want to get things nice and organized between my computer, my ext backup disk and archiving on DVD.

Thanks for any input.

Ryan: Get and read the DAM (Digital Assett Management) book. This book goes into just the things that you are mentioning here. I for one, store my final images as a digital negative and a TIff. The DN embeds the RAW data into it in case I need it again. This sucks up some room but..... I don't burn to disk, takes too much time and too many disks. I have two 1/2 terrabyte drives in RAID configuration for backup. I also use dowloader pro for initial dowload and file name organization.

I was not able to implement many of the recommendations in the DAM book, but the concepts were of great value. One of books, where you take what you need from it.

Randy

Thanks Randy, I had not heard of that book before. I will check that out. Any other book suggestions from other forum members would be great too. I've got a long vacation coming up, and although I'll be spending quite a bit of time photographing I'll have plenty of time for reading as well.

I'd second Randy's recommendation for Peter Krogh's The DAM Book. There is also a related forum dedicated to all sorts of DAM topics here.

Rod, thanks for dittoing Randy's recommendation. I've browsed through the forum you mentioned and found it very interesting. Thanks!

Ryan,
I would 3rd the suggestion on the DAM book. Personally I would not archive on DVD. DVD life - especially the type you burn yourself only has a 5 year life.


On other workflow methods and info Ron Bigelow's site is very informative:
http://ronbigelow.com/articles/articles.htm

I ordered the DAM book, it will be here tomorrow. Phil, the DVDs are my backup to my backup to my backup. I have an internal backup drive, and external backup drive and then the DVDs, which I actually store at work after I've updated them. I usually put them on new DVDs each year. I'm checking out the the Archival Gold DVDs and my go with them for my next backup since they are supposed to ahve a 100 year lifespan. I'm pretty anal about not losing my digital images. I don't have a RAID 5/0 set up (yet), but I feel I've got a pretty safe set up for now.

Actually, right now I have way to many duplicates of my images and they are taking up more space than necessary. I'm doing a major overhaul on the way I do business. I really appreciate the input!

I keep meaning to backup my best work to DVD and getting it in a safe deposit box. I hope I don't procrastinate on that too long.....

I received the DAM book today and have read through about half of it. I am impressed and I will probably implement the system. Thanks for the reference!