How Long ?

Im shooting 18-20 a year and the drives are filling fast. How long do you guys/gals keep your digital files ?

My original plans were to keep them on file for 5 years then offer to sell the raw files to the client for dirt cheap before i dumped them. Now that the markets have changed so drastically and everyone provides digital files for the brides and grooms im thinking whats the point. They get the files anyway, im just not providing the full size ones for albums and wall prints.

Right now we give them 1800x1600 files which could easily print 8x10s. Print sales for us, like most others, is starting to become a thing of the past, so im really in deep thought about this subject.

I would appreciate some feedback. I know some in here have been doing weddings longer than i have but my safe and tops of my closets are starting to look like a storage locker with all the DVD's

I buy 1 TB of drive space every season, and promise to keep images for one year. In reality, I have all the drives in a big box off site, with an index so if I need to I can find the right drive. So really, I'll have them until it stops spinning.

PMCphotography wrote in post #12574250
I buy 1 TB of drive space every season, and promise to keep images for one year. In reality, I have all the drives in a big box off site, with an index so if I need to I can find the right drive. So really, I'll have them until it stops spinning.

Thats kind of what im doing. But, my question is why ? I have not had any wedding clients contact me for prints or products after 2 years. Ive had them come back for baby pictures, family shots and ive seen them at their friends weddings, but i reality, im trying to really justify why im storing these files. Im storing 2 TB drives for 2007 and 2008 and i have not touched them in over a year. Just collecting shelf space. But ive gt al the files. Maybe an EGO thing with us photographers ??

Well, I don't really think drives take up all that much space, really. Just in case a couple has a fire or a catastrophic hard drive failure in 5 years, it would be nice to be able to reburn a cd for them.

The first thing I tell the couple (I even have it on a form) is to BACK UP the files to multiple drives and keep the disc in a safe place. For the really paranoid, burn another disc and keep it someplace safe.

Not really sure how many couples listen though

I also buy a 1 TB per season and offer to keep the files for a year. Then what I do is dump the RAW files and keep the edited TIFF files. After another year I convert all the TIFFs into JPEGs and dump the TIFFs. I can keep several years worth of work on two TB drives by keeping only the JPEGs.

I hold onto the edits mostly for my own use. I revamp my website banner and marketing materials several times a year and sometimes I like to dig back to find a picture that would fit.

umphotography wrote in post #12574260
Thats kind of what im doing. But, my question is why ? I have not had any wedding clients contact me for prints or products after 2 years. Ive had them come back for baby pictures, family shots and ive seen them at their friends weddings, but i reality, im trying to really justify why im storing these files. Im storing 2 TB drives for 2007 and 2008 and i have not touched them in over a year. Just collecting shelf space. But ive gt al the files. Maybe an EGO thing with us photographers ??

My March '08 clients contacted me in June of '10 saying they accidentally deleted half of their wedding pictures and were wondering if they could be replaced. It was nice to be able to say "of course" rather than "sorry, don't have them anymore".

PeaceFire wrote in post #12574586
My March '08 clients contacted me in June of '10 saying they accidentally deleted half of their wedding pictures and were wondering if they could be replaced. It was nice to be able to say "of course" rather than "sorry, don't have them anymore".

Definately where my head is at. Thanks. Sounds like you have a good system down. Im trying to find a happy medium and a system that is going to work well.

- I advise clients that I only keep digital jpeg files for one year only.
- After about 6 months I delete the raw and keep jpegs.
- I do however keep raw files of the better weddings, about 1 in 10.
- Despite the fact that I tell clients I only keep jpegs for a year I will keep them all, you never know.

PMCphotography wrote in post #12574250
I buy 1 TB of drive space every season, and promise to keep images for one year. In reality, I have all the drives in a big box off site, with an index so if I need to I can find the right drive. So really, I'll have them until it stops spinning.

Pretty much what I do every spring also.

I assume you delete the photos that aren't delivered to customers? I keep the keeper raws, and psd or jpeg files I make, psd album layouts (28x10 @ 300ppi) and my average customer folder size once it's cleaned up is 10GB (I deliver 400-500 photos on average). That means a 1TB drive would hold 100 weddings.

I keep the final edits on external hd's for one year and then burn them to DVD so I can reuse the hd's again.

Ive also had only one couple come back after a year saying they lost their images but it was nice to be able to give them another disc.

I only keep my RAW's until they've ordered their album. After that, it's very rare that I receive a later order. And on that odd circumstance, it never requires that I go back to do editing at the RAW level. As a result, I only need to carry RAW's for 6-10 weddings at any time and after that it's only the jpgs that I archive which obviously don't take up nearly the space.

I keep everything I shoot and store in a 1 TB hard drive and make a DVD of the final edited images. Some of my HD's now are pretty old, and an engineer friend of mine says that HD's and DVD's are not forever, so printing out my own family pictures is most important even if wedding images are scraped or corrupted. This is why I miss B&W negatives. They last forever if you store them well.

[QUOTE=SuzyView;125791​78] Some of my HD's now are pretty old, and an engineer friend of mine says that HD's and DVD's are not forever quote]

I've had several DVD's fail badly after 4 years, stored safely etc.

PeaceFire wrote in post #12574586
saying they accidentally deleted half of their wedding pictures and were wondering if they could be replaced.

pardon, deleted from what? A hdd, ok possible. but not from a DVD. Did you email the pics to them?
My bro lost his wedding DVD of photos and video. He didnt want to get a 2nd copy as photog wanted too much $$$. Ifcourse, he ended up losing his wife 2 years later anyway, so no big deal.
About 80% of people I know got divorced, so I avoid weddings like the plague. I'd rather spend the money on a trip to Vegas than seeing cousins I cant tolerate sitting next to.