What way do you organise your shots?

[isityourself]

I couldn't find a topic like this, so I'll delete it if one exists. What way do you store you shots? What's your post processing procdure like? Do you keep raw backups and finalised jpgs?

Generally after a days shooting I transfer everything to a temporary folder, which I then work on and see what's good and bad, what needs adjusting etc. Anything which is decent and I like I will generally convert to jpg, with oly jpg's being a hefty size. I then keep a backup of the raw files on another hard drive which I burn to dvd regularly.

Files are then in various categories, from family, wildlife, etc, and also some unusual ones such as statues (I live in Paris so we have a lot of those here )

Once I've sorted that out, I share the ones i'm particularly proud of with family and friends.

Please share your storing and post processing style with the rest of us

(Was going to post this over on fourthirds users but figured it wasn't specific enough )

[Stephen]

Re: What way do you organise your shots?

I couldn't find a topic like this, so I'll delete it if one exists. What way do you store you shots? What's your post processing procdure like? Do you keep raw backups and finalised jpgs?

Generally after a days shooting I transfer everything to a temporary folder, which I then work on and see what's good and bad, what needs adjusting etc. Anything which is decent and I like I will generally convert to jpg, with oly jpg's being a hefty size. I then keep a backup of the raw files on another hard drive which I burn to dvd regularly.

Files are then in various categories, from family, wildlife, etc, and also some unusual ones such as statues (I live in Paris so we have a lot of those here )

Once I've sorted that out, I share the ones i'm particularly proud of with family and friends.

Please share your storing and post processing style with the rest of us

(Was going to post this over on fourthirds users but figured it wasn't specific enough )

I think it will do just fine here.
The fact is that everyone has their own personal way of doing things, that they feel comfortable with.

My own method entails software that not everyone has or can justify, so what I tell you is going to just one of many ways of having a workflow regime

Since not long after Adobe Lightroom was released,I've been using that as my main way of organizing and processing my potos. Essentially, all my Raw files are loaded onto my PC or more usually these days straight onto an external drive. Then using Lightroom, I import those images into the program which creates virtual copies, sort of shortcuts to the original. I can treat these files as I would jpegs, because Lightroom allows you to work in that way.

I am selective, and with personal work, I may take 100+ shots but go through and flag the ones I particularly like therefore making a selection. These I will work on and if there are any I want to print or create a web version of then they are Exported to another folder. Out of a 100 I may end up with perhaps 10.

For me there is absolutely no point in processing the whole folder of raw files and storing that somewhere else. All changes to the Raw file made in Lightroom are stored with it as a 'sidecar' file so I easily recreate an exact copy as a jpeg if need be. If I'm producing work for a client then my selection is processed and converted to jpeg and put on a CD. The folder can then be discarded, there is no need to keep it.

Now if I was really security conscious I should create a CD/DVD with the raw files on. All to often these days I don't bother, its a bad habit. However storing to an external HD is perhaps one of the safest way of archiving digital files.

Lightroom,and a few other programs allow you to catalogue your work into folders and use Keywords in order to quickly find them again. Some people don't bother with this, but I took the decision when I started using it to try and be more organised, so I do

For me unless I need to put a file into Photoshop, which I often don't these days, then I never need to come out of Lightroom. I don't actually need to convert a Raw file, unless I need to give a Jpeg version to someone, or post it on the web. I can create prints, web galleries and slideshows without the need to create loads of jpeg folders. In short it has speeded up my workflow and made me more efficient.

[DTD]

Re: What way do you organise your shots?

Similar to Stephen but with Apple Aperture.

Back-up my Aperture library to an external hard disk that's kept elsewhere.

Some stuff is also burnt to DVD.

Organising files and creating an efficient workflow has become the thing since I moved a lot of my work over to digital. Edit pretty ruthlessly to start off with – again this is Aperture's forte. Pretty much always work on long-term projects so things are organised by project.

[Josh Bear]

Re: What way do you organise your shots?

I'm not as sophisticated.

So the raw files come off the memory card, or P3000 if it has been a big day. They go onto an external drive where they are stored in separate folders named by shooting date.

Then are then imported into light room and selected (flagged) / and then converted to tiff. Where necessary I do a little work in photoshop and save the tiff. The tiffs are saved again into a folder named by month taken, with a sub folder the the particular year.

Both the raw file folders and the tiff file folders are then copied onto two other hard drives so that at anyone time I should have 3 copies of the files. Finally every 4-6 months I copy all the tiffs onto DVDs and send to my parents house. Am I paranoid?

That is about it.

Best regards

Josh

[jds9000]

Re: What way do you organise your shots?

I'm pretty much the same as Josh ...
All files downloaded off the memory cards onto main server drive in a year/month/date folder, and then the 'rubbish' is cleaned out and the rest 'touched' in Photoshop, ..... and then they get copied onto another external drive (500GB), which has all the 'masters', and also if I've got some shots that I would really like to keep, then they get burnt onto DVD as well, and if their really impressive, then they get copied onto the Media Centre PC for the xmas lunch party !! ..... ha ha ..... there is no escape from all those embarassing shots through the year !!