Storing/cataloging photos

[IndyJeff]

On the EOS forum there was a thread about someone going on "holiday" for 6 months to the USA. He was asking about storing photos while on the trip. This got me to thinking, how am I going to catalog and store my stuff here at home? This is what I have come up with....now mind you this is still in development stage.

First I will save photos I wish to keep to CD. Then I will label that CD such as I have been doing i.e. Kentucky Speedway IRL August 2003 Race

This tells me what track, what date, what series, whether it is practice or race photos.

Then to take it one step further, I will make a contact sheet of each cd. I know this may be several pages. Then I will insert them in a binder and label the binder with a from DATE____ to DATE____ Series______ label. Each sheet will have a corresponding number to a CD. For instance, the above cd would be IRL/KY/2003/R/3 This will tell me by looking that it was the IRL @ Ky in 2003, the actual race and it is the third CD from that track.
When someone is looking for a shot from that race in 2003, I can pull all the sheets from that race, let them look at it and choose which shot they want. Then pull the CD and locate that file by name open and print.

Good idea? Bad idea? Any improvement ideas?

[iwatkins]

That is basically what I do.

Individual event shoots are stored on their own CD (or DVD). Just before I burn it I create a contact sheet(s). I put these images in the root of the disk and also print them out. I have a binder that contains all my contact sheets with a index that I update from time to time. The index is usually chronological order with location, name of event, date etc.

All my general shots/messing about just get backed up in batches onto DVD as and when I get a DVD's worth. I create the contact sheet images again and they go into the root of the disk as above, but I don't bother printing them.

Haven't spent much time hunting for images this way, so I must be doing something right. :lol:

Cheers

Ian

[IndyJeff]

Ian good to know I am on the right track.

[CoolToolGuy]

Seeing your Web site and your concept of selling images, I would investigate a database/index application that would allow you to search on different criteria and index it back to the source image on the CD. It has been my experience that trying to maintain everything in the name of the CD will limit you at some point in time. What I am getting at is if you want to find a picture of a specific car or a specific sponsor shot (or even a non-car shot), you have to know or guess what CD its on. That may be easy for some, but you may get a request from left field and have to look a long time.

Of course it is implied that you would have to enter all of these references, but perhaps that happens in the off-season.

I don't know if this is making sense to you, but I'm trying to imagine how you will manage a large inventory of images and find the one(s) you want quickly.

Hope this helps

Have Fun
Rick 8)

[CoolToolGuy]

Ian good to know I am on the right track.

If you weren't on the right track, would there still be a race to photograph? :roll: :) :D :lol:

Have Fun
Rick 8)