Selecting, Storing and Cataloguing the Photos

If you are seriously interested about photography, you will soon end up with hundreds or thousands of photos, and ordering and cataloguing them become a necessity. There are various good systems to organize your images, and you have to choose the one that fits better your way of work. A simple and rational cataloguing strategy can really improve your work, avoiding waste of time and energy; personally, I prefer to avoid file-cataloguing programs, and I use a very simple system of naming and folders.

The first step is to make a selection from the photos that you have taken during the day. Often I came back home with hundreds of photos: after downloading the from the CF to the computer (using a card reader, I never use the USB cable attached to the camera), I check the photo with Adobe Bridge 2.0. Bridge is a very nice file browser supplied with Photoshop; the latest version has many useful features, in particular, a "magnification" tool that allows to check the detail of every photo at 100% magnification, without opening the file.

I immediately delete the photos that are clearly unusable (out of focus subject, blurred photos, and other photos that can not be recovered), and I make a selection between similar photos: I often take many similar photos of the same subject, to select the best one when I'm back home instead of taking just one shot in the field. After this first selection, I make a second selection, to eliminate the photos that are so-so, or the photos that are very similar to images that I already have: this time, though, I don't delete the photos, I just move them into a "RAW_files" folder, where I archive the RAWs of the photos that I don't like too much, but I still want to keep. It is likely that I'll never give again a look to the photos stored into this folder, but knowing that they won't be deleted forever helps a lot to make an "harsher" selection, whithout bein too kind or emotional towards my photos.

When I've seleted the photos, I rename them according to my file numbering; I use a very simple six-digit code (e.g. "012685") and  once I have finished to rename the photos, I note the name of the last image on a "memorandum" text file, to avoid duplicating the names next time that I have new photos. With Adobe Bridge, it is easy to rename large numers of files: select all the files that you want to rename, then click on the menu Tools>Batch Rename. I always recommend to rename your photos with your own naming scheme, instead of relying on the numbering of the camera, that is far from realiable, in particular if you use various cameras. (I've the Canon 20D, but I often try the cameras of my friends or from CPS, so I taken photos with nearly every Canon camera and even some Nikons).

Adobe Bridge 2.0 is my preferred file browser. I use it to select, rename and order my photos.

I process the photo that I've selected and I save them as TIFF, with the same number of the RAW file, but with the name of the subject. For example, if the RAW file is "002269.cr2", the processed file is "002269-aix_galericulata.tif", or course here I wrote aix_galericulata, but the name is the name of the subject.

The last step is to order the photo inside a system of folders. I have five folders (Flora, Macro, Fauna, Landscapes, Various), and every folder contains many sub-folders. The name of each sub-folder is the scientific name of the subject (for Flora, Macro and Fauna) or the name of the place or event (for Landscapes and Various). Into each sub-folder, I store both the untouched RAW files and the processed photos, saved as TIFF. This is a very simple system, but it is very effective: for example, if I want the photo of the Mandarin Duck I just have to browse to the folder Fauna and then to the folder to Aix_galericulata, that contains the RAW and the TIFF files.

The TIFF File Format

I always shoot in RAW format, but I save the post-processed files as 8-bit sRGB TIFF (of course I keep both the RAW and the processed TIFF). The TIFF is, in my opinion, the best format to store image files; it is a widely compatible format and when you save a photo as uncompressed TIFF, you do not lose any information. You can re-open the file, edit it and re-save it as TIFF, without any problem; JPEG images, instead, accumulate artifacts every time that you save them. Since TIFF files are not compressed, they are very large: a 8 megapixels image creates a 22 megabytes 8-bit TIFF. The large size is prohibitive for internet use, but it is not a problem for hard disk storage: a 500 GB hard-disk costs about then $ 200 and it can store thousands of TIFF files.

It is possible to save TIFF files even with layers and wide bit depth (16 bit), if you need the extra data for post processing. On the other hand, I prefer to save the TIFF as flat images (without layers) and in 8 bit mode, since I rarely edit these files: if I want to make minor adjustments to a photo of my archive, even the 8 bit TIFF is enough, and if I want to make major retouchings I repeat the post-processing from scratch, using the RAW file. 

Backup And Storage

The prices of hard disk continue to get lower and lower (currently a 500 GB hard disk costs about $ 100 $), so the storage space is not a problem. Even with an high resolution camera, you can store thousand and thousand of files on a single hard drive. On the other hand, there is always the risk that viruses, software problems or hardware failures result in a corrupt disk: how can you protect your precius photos? The best solution is to make two or more copies of your files. I have two external hard disks that I use for storage - in my opinion, external HDs are better than internal drives, for storage: I turn them on only when I need to use them (one time per week), while usually they are turned off, reducing the risk of failures. In terms of reliability, hard disks are not better nor worse than DVDs or Blu-Ray disks; they are good but not ethernal: the only way to ensure the "ethernity" of your files is to upgrade the support where they are stored every two-three year, or every time that you current support becomes obsolete. I don't use any automatic system to make backup copies: I have the database of all my files on the main hard disk of my PC and, one time per week, I turn on the external hard disks, I make a copy of the current database on each hard disk and I delete the copy of the previous week.

In this way, I've three identical copies of my database on three drives, so the risk of losing my files due to a failure is nearly non-existent. Even in the worst case, if the main HD fails just before I made the backup copy, I'd lose no more than the work of one week - but this is a very remote possibility, and to further reducing the risks I made some additional backup copies after important trips, when I have many new photos.

Do you have comments or questions?

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