How to archive unedited photos?

[Jemmind]

I have been reading that you should save the original file and never just edit a photo, but to only edit the copy. I use Windows "My pictures" and "Picasoa" for my storage. How do I go about having a separate archive for my unedited phots? I don't know the right way to ask what I am trying to ask! Should I just get the photos off of my compact flash twic and save the first batch under a huge file called originals? And use the second set to mess with? I want them clearly separated so that I won't have to be looking at duplicat (almost) pictures all the time.
Thanks
Julie

ALSO,
I use a program called photo resizer to make the pictures small enough to post on the web. I "save as" so it saves the smaller one without harming the first one. Should I have a separate folder for web-sized images?

[Roger_Cavanagh]

Julie,

You don't need to download images files twice from the CF card, just copy on your PC. I download images to my PC to a folder called "Photo Originals". Within this files are arranged in year/month/day folders, e.g.,

L:\3 Photo Originals\2004\03 Mar\24

I use DownLoader Pro from www.breezesys.com to download files and DL Pro will automatically create these folders.

I make a back-up copy of the originals onto CD, and convert the raw file to 16-bit TIFF for processing in a different folder. If you shoot JPGs, I would suggest you select images you want to edit and copy them to another folder, say "Photo Edits". BreezeBrowser (same URL as DL Pro) is a good tool for reviewing and selecting images for further work, but Picasa may do the same thing for you. I tried the demo a while back, but didn't buy it because it does not work with raw images, so I can't remember too much about its capabilities.

If you create a lot of web images, I would say it is a good idea to store them in a separate folder, but you should be sure to name the web versions differently to avoid getting the different versions/sizes of a picture mixed up.

Regards,

[Jesper]

I think it's a good idea to have a separate directory with the originals to keep everything organized for yourself - but like Roger said, you don't need to download from your CF card twice - a copy of a digital file is identical to the original file, so if you make a copy of the original file on your harddrive, it's always an exact copy.

I copy my photos with a CF card reader, just using Windows Explorer. I have a folder for the originals under My Pictures with subdirectories by date. I have a directory for each month, with subdirectories for each day. In that directory structure, I put the files copied from my CF card and nothing else. I backup the new files in the directory structure every two weeks or so to DVD.

When I want to work on a photo, I make a copy of the original file in a work directory outside the directory tree with originals (most of the time somewhere under My Pictures\Work) and I work on that. I don't backup the work directory, except for some files which I did a lot of work on that I don't want to loose.

[cpc1225]

What I do is, after downloaded the image files to computer, I will rename the originals and back it up in CD-R. It will be safe to play around with the original files on the hard drive then.
The sequence of file name I would use is yyyy-mm-dd-001, yyyy-mm-dd-002, ...... In this way, all image files will be sorted according to times taken and easy to find at later stage.
The software I used for renaming files in batches is "File Renamer", it can be downloaded free at " http://www.code.gr/filerenamer/ ".

[PhotosGuy]

All good advice, & there are probably 1M different ways to do it. I just archive everything to CDs which are kept at a different location. CDs are cheap, & sometimes free if you find the right rebate offer. It takes less time than it would take to redo everything and is a backup to a separate archive on a separate hard drive.

I keep a copy of these empty folders in another directory (folder) & then just copy the whole thing to the main pic folder & rename it before I transfer the images from the card.

The folder structure looks like this:

(Folder) "Name of the shoot including date", as in "Autorama 3-04"
Inside this are finished JPEGs. Also inside are folders named:
(Folder) 4 X 6 prints
(Folder) 8 X 10 prints
(Folder) Larger prints
(Folder) Originals
(Folder) PSD
(Folder) TIFF 16 bit
(Folder) TIFF 8 bit

Good luck!

[JZaun]

Julie,
You are where I was a few weeks age. I had pic's mixed. Web, original, edited/enhanced etc.. It was a mess. Now I have a seperate file for Original/un-enhanced,Finished photo and Web size. Every photo I save to my finished file I also save a Web pic in the web file. I may or may not upload that pic at that time but it is ready quickly if I need it. Keep reading, every one posting here has a good idea. Just pick the method you want and go for it. Everything I do is something I picked up here!
Got nerveous,, put in a second HDD and back up there ever week. Put in a DVD and back up to that monthly.

JZ

[CoolToolGuy]

I use Paint Shop Pro and Paint Shop Album, and I just make sure that I save any images that I modify into a different directory. That usually covers it. PS Album uses directories as albums, and allows you to add information about the album as well as the images.

Have Fun
Rick 8)

[chris.bailey]

Everyone here seems to have developed their own workflow. So this is just mine that works for me.

I use 512mb CF cards and make a backup of the RAW files straight to CD which I date and hide up.

I then copy all of the files into a folder called RAW inbox and I have one of those for each month. So my directory for this month would be Pictures/2004/April/Raw Inbox. I then have another directory called negs (from the old film days) i.e Pictures/2004/April/Negs in which I keep TIFF image made from the RAW's that I colour balance and tidy up. Under Pictures/2004/April I just keep those pictures I have used for something so if I have taken one of the TIFFS and cropped it to 10x8, sharpened etc it may well be called CRW2645_10x8.tiff etc. I thus always have the original RAW to go back to if RAW converters get better but have the TIFF as a first pass negative.

Its a bit of a film based workflow but I know where I am and can always get the RAW back off of the CD I took before I did anything else.

I hope that makes sense.

[Motorsports Photo]

Heres my easy to use method:

Never EVER use the "save" command. If you work on a pic you need to save always do a "save as" to another directory.

Archive images to CD or DVD as needed.

I do my archiving from my laptop and then load the pics from the CD to my desktop. This confirms the CD was written OK, and also creates another copy for safe back-up. Then wehn the laptop gets filled up I can delete the oldest pics safely.

-Pete