What do you consider to be the best way to save an image?
Should I keep a copy of the unedited original, an edited copy, plus a low resolution copy ( For use on the web )? Then save all three copies on two different drives?
My intentions are to be able to show low resolution, 640X480 images on my web site, then be able to later sell the higher resolution, full sized image.
How should I go about saving them?
Posted by Steve Foss on August 20, 2007 at 9:20 AM
Well, I'd suggest some experimentation, then settle on which works best for you. That's important.
In the spirit of your experimentation, here's my work drill. It has changed slightly over time.
I download images from the CF card to folders with the date and species or location on the desktop. I sort them, discarding those I don't want and titling those I want to process. So after a day's shoot there are a number of folders on my desktop with titles like "8-20-07 bald eagle."
When processed, I save them to the original "8-20-07 bald eagle" folder, but I also put copies of each newly processed image into a separate folder of images I have up for sale. That folder is titled "for sale" and in that folder, each image has its own folder, and in each of those folders is a series of images of different sizes for different needs. So a folder within the "for sale" folder might have the title "bald eagle fishes" and will contain the web version and a different TIF file for each of the available print sizes I'm selling. (This makes it easy to post a Web version, and when a client wants to buy a print, all I have to do is pull up the image of the right dimensions, click "print" or ship it off electronically if I'm having it printed out of house.)
The dated file I then move into a folder titled "2007 images" on my backup drive. The "bald eagle fishes" folder I then move into the "for sale" folder on the same drive. Each of those folders then gets burned to CD as a further backup.
Then, and only when those things are moved to the backup drive and burned on CD, do I trash the original folders from my desktop and reformat my CF cards.
Well, that's how I do it. Lots of other ways to workflow things.
Posted by Dan Borzynski on August 20, 2007 at 10:35 AM
You'll probably get enough answers to this question to leave you completely confused and wondering why you asked in the first place.
Here is what I do: I alway keep the original and leave it untouched, whether it is the RAW file or the transparency scan. After processing to my satisfaction, I save an uncropped, unsharpened version with the same name. That is my master print file. I'll then keep a cropped and sharpened version for each print or display size. Unfortunately, this means that I have up to 8 copies of the file on my drives, depending what the photo gets used for. They are all named appropriately.
All files are stored on a external hard drive, with second backup drive. Between backups, I retain the files on DVD and on my machine drive as well. This can mean many, many versions of the original, before cleaning everything up, but it has covered my butt on hard drive failures.
Part of the reason for keeping all of the cropped images at various print sizes is that when it comes time to reprint something, I have found it easier just to pull up the file and hit print, rather than go through the print resizing process again.
This is fresh in my mind after helping my wife on a big wedding yesterday. Sheesh!!!! What a way to make a living......
There is so much at stake on the shoots, both for the clients and the photographer, and meanwhile there is beldam, emotion, anxiety, and often alcohol (but never for the photographer). You have to get the shots in spite of it all, and heaven help you if something goes awry.
I shot lots, but my wife was the principal, and my more important duty was to manage lighting setups, keep the gear working and especially take care of the files.
As we shot them, I downloaded cards to an Epson P2000, then stored the cards. When time permitted I downloaded those to a laptop and copied from the laptop to a portable drive, meanwhile saving the full cards. Count them. That's four backups! And we're talking almost 30 gigs of images. Only then does she reformat the cards.
Back at the studio she transfers from the portable drive to her desktop computer, so there's copy #5. That's her working file. From it she selects best images and copies them to a series of "selects" folders. Copy #6. From those she assembles and saves a preview set for the clients. Copy #7. From those the clients pick a smaller set, which my wife saves again. Copy #8. Those are processed and sized, then burned to disc for submission to our lab. Copy #9. She'll make a second set of those discs for her permanent files. That's copy #10.
Once the final discs make it into her filing system, she erases files from the P2000, the laptop, the portable drive and her desktop. Along the way the original 30 gigs will be reduced to something around 2 gigs, just right for a DVD.
My file saving regimen is only slightly different, in that I make 640x480 jpegs of all my final selection, which I retain on the my hard drives for filing and organization, as well as on the DVD's with the larger versions for the file cabinet and safety deposit boxes.
I like to keep things simple. Since I never have to downsize an image for printing purposes because I use Qimage exclusively for printing, I keep three versions - the original raw file, a mildly sharpened edited tiff, and a small jpg for emailing or web posting. I then copy all once a month to a DVD. I use a tool called Karen's Print Directory to create a list of files which I import into Excel, and annotate each raw file and store in the respective folder. Not having to resize for printing saves a lot of time and hard drive space. Using Excel to keep records makes it easy to create detailed notes and add exif information.
I keep virtually every RAW file I've ever shot. (But I'm not as prolific as some.) Whether you keep only the good ones or all of them, make sure you do keep your RAW files (or orginal unedited JPEGs from the camera, if you don't shoot RAW) separately, so you always have them to refer back to. Those are like your negatives.
From then, I process the ones I like, keeping a layered Photoshop file with my edits (except sharpening).
I make web-sized versions of all the ones I process. Those have sharpening for the web.
If I make a print, I make a copy of the Photoshop file for that, crop and resize for the desired print size, flatten layers and then sharpen.
The RAW and Photoshop files are definitely both backed up. I also back up my websized images, but that's more for convenience (the total storage space for those is small). I don't bother backing up my print files--I might make an exception to that if I was printing the same images repeatedly.
-Paul
Posted by Bruce Painter on August 21, 2007 at 7:19 PM
Here is what is do but remember I do not do this for a living. I download the RAW files to my desktop into a date coded folder then rename them. I then make a converted folder in the main file do some work to the shots and convert the "good" ones to TIFF for working in CS2. In the main folder I make two other folders one titled "web" for web display and and one titled "finished" for jpeg's to be printed. These are saved on external HD's and DVD's.
Discussion
6 repliesShould I keep a copy of the unedited original, an edited copy, plus a low resolution copy ( For use on the web )? Then save all three copies on two different drives?
My intentions are to be able to show low resolution, 640X480 images on my web site, then be able to later sell the higher resolution, full sized image.
How should I go about saving them?
In the spirit of your experimentation, here's my work drill. It has changed slightly over time.
I download images from the CF card to folders with the date and species or location on the desktop. I sort them, discarding those I don't want and titling those I want to process. So after a day's shoot there are a number of folders on my desktop with titles like "8-20-07 bald eagle."
When processed, I save them to the original "8-20-07 bald eagle" folder, but I also put copies of each newly processed image into a separate folder of images I have up for sale. That folder is titled "for sale" and in that folder, each image has its own folder, and in each of those folders is a series of images of different sizes for different needs. So a folder within the "for sale" folder might have the title "bald eagle fishes" and will contain the web version and a different TIF file for each of the available print sizes I'm selling. (This makes it easy to post a Web version, and when a client wants to buy a print, all I have to do is pull up the image of the right dimensions, click "print" or ship it off electronically if I'm having it printed out of house.)
The dated file I then move into a folder titled "2007 images" on my backup drive. The "bald eagle fishes" folder I then move into the "for sale" folder on the same drive. Each of those folders then gets burned to CD as a further backup.
Then, and only when those things are moved to the backup drive and burned on CD, do I trash the original folders from my desktop and reformat my CF cards.
Well, that's how I do it. Lots of other ways to workflow things.
Here is what I do: I alway keep the original and leave it untouched, whether it is the RAW file or the transparency scan. After processing to my satisfaction, I save an uncropped, unsharpened version with the same name. That is my master print file. I'll then keep a cropped and sharpened version for each print or display size. Unfortunately, this means that I have up to 8 copies of the file on my drives, depending what the photo gets used for. They are all named appropriately.
All files are stored on a external hard drive, with second backup drive. Between backups, I retain the files on DVD and on my machine drive as well. This can mean many, many versions of the original, before cleaning everything up, but it has covered my butt on hard drive failures.
Part of the reason for keeping all of the cropped images at various print sizes is that when it comes time to reprint something, I have found it easier just to pull up the file and hit print, rather than go through the print resizing process again.
There is so much at stake on the shoots, both for the clients and the photographer, and meanwhile there is beldam, emotion, anxiety, and often alcohol (but never for the photographer). You have to get the shots in spite of it all, and heaven help you if something goes awry.
I shot lots, but my wife was the principal, and my more important duty was to manage lighting setups, keep the gear working and especially take care of the files.
As we shot them, I downloaded cards to an Epson P2000, then stored the cards. When time permitted I downloaded those to a laptop and copied from the laptop to a portable drive, meanwhile saving the full cards. Count them. That's four backups! And we're talking almost 30 gigs of images. Only then does she reformat the cards.
Back at the studio she transfers from the portable drive to her desktop computer, so there's copy #5. That's her working file. From it she selects best images and copies them to a series of "selects" folders. Copy #6. From those she assembles and saves a preview set for the clients. Copy #7. From those the clients pick a smaller set, which my wife saves again. Copy #8. Those are processed and sized, then burned to disc for submission to our lab. Copy #9. She'll make a second set of those discs for her permanent files. That's copy #10.
Once the final discs make it into her filing system, she erases files from the P2000, the laptop, the portable drive and her desktop. Along the way the original 30 gigs will be reduced to something around 2 gigs, just right for a DVD.
My file saving regimen is only slightly different, in that I make 640x480 jpegs of all my final selection, which I retain on the my hard drives for filing and organization, as well as on the DVD's with the larger versions for the file cabinet and safety deposit boxes.
From then, I process the ones I like, keeping a layered Photoshop file with my edits (except sharpening).
I make web-sized versions of all the ones I process. Those have sharpening for the web.
If I make a print, I make a copy of the Photoshop file for that, crop and resize for the desired print size, flatten layers and then sharpen.
The RAW and Photoshop files are definitely both backed up. I also back up my websized images, but that's more for convenience (the total storage space for those is small). I don't bother backing up my print files--I might make an exception to that if I was printing the same images repeatedly.
-Paul
Bruce