The best part about digital photography is that you can just snap away happily without a limitation of number of photos you can capture, as against shooting photographs with film. While this is the happy aspect of digital photography, it also leads up to a big problem - too many photos.
The average amateur photographer captures around 150 – 200 photos in a single major event, like a wedding, a party or a vacation. Assuming there are 10 such events in the year, that is 2000 photos per year. Collecting, storing and processing those many images can be quite a challenge.
Most photographers address the problem by defining a process called a digital workflow. This is the flow of the photograph from the camera to the final product and to storage. There is no standard process for a digital workflow, because it depends on how and what the photographer does with the photos captured.
The diagram above is my workflow. Lets walk through the steps:
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Take the photo: This is the easy part, right?? Go ahead, capture your photographs. I personally like to keep every photograph I capture. A lot of folks I know delete the ones they don’t like on the camera itself. I’d rather prefer to see the picture on a bigger screen before I trash it.
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Copy the photo to the computer: Either you can connect the camera directly to the computer or use a card reader. Using a card reader is much faster. You can delete the photos from the card once you’ve copied them. However, do not format the card anywhere other than inside the camera.
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Copy the photo to an external storage: Use an external storage device like an external Hard Disk to store a copy of the photos from your computer. I know a few buddies who like to keep every photograph they click. I used to be like that as well, until I realised that I’d rather keep the ones I want. Its a personal choice, but remember that you can run out of space rather quickly.
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Make another copy of the photo on the computer: Now you’d ask, whatever for? Well, in the next step you will make changes to the original picture. I advise you work on a copy, with the original photo safely stored. That way, if you’re not happy with the modification work, you have an untouched original to fall back on.
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Post process the photo: Any modifications you make to the original captured picture is called post processing. This includes sorting, resizing, enhancing the colour, converting to black and white…. everything. This is where you can get creative, but remember you’re changing the original photo. So if you did not have a backup copy of that picture of the pretty cherry blossoms from your trip to Japan and you saved the picture accidentally as black and white, you might have to rely on a pretty vivid story to describe it to your friends. [Cherry blossoms also look nice in black and white though]
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Copy the finished photo to external storage: This is my important step. I copy all my creative post processed work to the external storage. This is the precious cargo. An additional step I do, because these are my final photographs, are to make a permanent copy of them on a CD or DVD. This way, I can delete them from my external storage if I need space.
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Copy the finished photo to an online storage: Online photo storage sites provide a nice way to keep your photos accessible on the net and enable a way to keep your photos at a remote location. Most sites allow you to have a small amount of storage space for free, with more storage and stronger security options if you pay a subscription fee.
Flickr from Yahoo,
Picasa Web Albums from Google and
Photobucket are sites which are well recommended.
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Use the Photo: Well now you can send out the picture to your friends, print it, post it on your website.
So there you are, an easy workflow to follow. However, as I said, the workflow is very customized to the photographer. So feel free to add or delete any steps if you need it.
Some things to consider when you create and operate your digital workflow:
One single folder: On my computer and on the external storage, I store all my photos in a single folder. Under this folder, I make subfolders based on what the photos are about and then sort the photos into these folders. So, I’ll have a main folder called “Navin’s Photos” and inside it I’ll have multiple folders like “Bombay Vacation” and “Christmas 2008” and so on. This not only makes it easy to find photos in a hurry, but if I need to take a backup, I just make a copy of the entire “Navin’s Photos” folder and I’m done.
The copy folder: On my computer, I have a folder called “Navin’s Photos Copy”. This is a copy of the “Navin’s Photos” folder. It is from this folder that I do post processing on the photos. I save the finished photos in a third folder called “Navin’s Photos Final”. I make a copy of this “Navin’s Photos Final” folder on my external storage and to the internet storage.
Never use the default computer folder: All computers have a default folder where it stores pictures. In Windows, its the “My Pictures” folder inside “My Documents” folder. In Mac, its the “Pictures” folder inside the home folder. I advise not to use this folder to store your pictures, even if its the default location. Its often possible to miss this folder when you take a backup. But most important, this folder is accessed by default by most photo management software that you might use. It is better to have a separate folder created for your photo storage. You’ll have more control on that folder.
Be paranoid about backup: Trust me, there are more ways that you can lose photos than you can use them. So take multiple backups. My photo backups are as follows:
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Raw photos: One copy on computer, one copy on external storage
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Processed photos: One copy on computer, one copy on external storage, one copy on DVD and one copy online.
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One copy of the raw photos and processed photos on another computer
Told you I can be paranoid!!
Limit the size of your external storage: Technology freaks like me love to indulge ourselves in gadgets. When I went shopping for an external hard disk, I was tempted to buy the big 1000 Gigabyte monster. However, it is more prudent to buy a smaller size, say 350 or 500 gigabytes, and fill it up before buying a new one. That way, if that hard disk crashes or you accidentally format it (it can happen more often than you think), you only lose what was on that disk. Now imagine if you formatted that one single 1000 gigabyte disk, all your photos would have gone. (Scary thought…shudder)
Be careful about what you store online: While the sites I mentioned before can be trusted with privacy and security, anything you put online is, in a way, out there!! So do not store anything online that you would not like others to see. These include private naughty pictures (hey, its your choice, just remember Paris and Pamela), sensitive locations etc. If you are not comfortable with other people seeing it, don’t put it online. Its better to copy it to a CD / DVD and lock it in your safe.
Stick to your workflow: I’ve known folks who get all enthusiastic about making a workflow. Then as time passes, they don’t stick to it and have photos in various folders inside their computer. Neither do they have backups. Take your time, be disciplined and sick to your workflow. That way, you’ll know where to find your pictures and rest easy if disaster strikes.
Have fun managing your photos. Do leave comments, feedback or questions if any. Until next time….
