Photo storage

[Ian 61]

what is the best way to store your photos? I am currently using the photos app on my Mac and iPad but getting a lot of duplicates.

 

[John King]

Ian, .

I never change the camera assigned filename. I add prefixes and suffixes, but always retain the original filename. This makes it dead simple to locate duplicates (in Windows, anyway ... ).

Don't forget backups. LOTS of backups ...
Disks are cheap - your photos (and other personal data) are irreplaceable.

 

[Bushboy]

I use a MacBook.
I put the card in the MacBook, click delete photos from card after download.

 

[John King]

I use a MacBook.
I put the card in the MacBook, click delete photos from card after download.

A suggestion, if I may.

Never erase the card until you have at least one backup of the files you uploaded to your disk.

 

[speedy]

Buy/build yourself a NAS. Bestest things ever. I built myself a Synology 4 bay, with 3 3TB discs running in Raid 5. I was originally just going to use it as a basic, large network drive, but have ended up using some of the supplied software. Synology photo for organising & sharing my photos. It's really quite good. Quite similar to Google photo. I also keep the original photo file names, only changing when editing & saving a sharable version. I just file them in original year/month/date folders, & save the edits in the same folders as the originals. Then, I create either lens, or event albums. The photos in these albums are actually just links back to the edited originals, so don't actually take up any space. The "photos" in the albums also contain links back to the originals, which makes it very very easy to find photos from any event or date, share, or edit them later. It's also very easy to back up the NAS to an external drive. Because everything is all in one spot, not spread around all over the place on various smaller drives/computers Works for me.
Plus you can access it from anywhere you have an internet connection, on any device. I thoroughly enjoy laying on the sofa with my Chromebook, & being able to wirelessly surf through all the photos I've ever taken. I've also set up my phone to automatically back up the photos from the camera to it as well. Very cool

 

[BruceRH]

Buy/build yourself a NAS. Bestest things ever. I built myself a Synology 4 bay, with 3 3TB discs running in Raid 5. I was originally just going to use it as a basic, large network drive, but have ended up using some of the supplied software. Synology photo for organising & sharing my photos. It's really quite good. Quite similar to Google photo. I also keep the original photo file names, only changing when editing & saving a sharable version. I just file them in original year/month/date folders, & save the edits in the same folders as the originals. Then, I create either lens, or event albums. The photos in these albums are actually just links back to the edited originals, so don't actually take up any space. The "photos" in the albums also contain links back to the originals, which makes it very very easy to find photos from any event or date, share, or edit them later. It's also very easy to back up the NAS to an external drive. Because everything is all in one spot, not spread around all over the place on various smaller drives/computers Works for me.
Plus you can access it from anywhere you have an internet connection, on any device. I thoroughly enjoy laying on the sofa with my Chromebook, & being able to wirelessly surf through all the photos I've ever taken. I've also set up my phone to automatically back up the photos from the camera to it as well. Very cool

I also have a Synology 4 Bay NAS. My iPad and iPhone back up to it in separate folders. I can access from anywhere with an internet connection. From the NAS, I send the pictures to a networked drive on my PC that is organized by year, then event. I’m a little behind right now organizing that for 2021. I also have a FLICKR account and everything automatically backs up to that as well. So I am well covered. I highly recommend the Synology NAS, it really works well. I also have my iTunes folder on there so that I can stream from that plus I have my movies on there which get played on my Apple TV or iPad. Again, they can be accessed from anywhere in the world.

 

[alex66]

Here is my system, Import photos on to internal SSD, copy across to 2 external USB spinning drives (I replace one a year or so) auto upload to Amazon as its free with prime, card is labelled and then put in a case, backups are also sent to a PC acting as a NAS in the loft. Some points Redundant Raid is great if a drive fails if the PSU goes kaput not so, SD cards and Hard Drives are now very cheep, I buy the lowest cost decent brand SD cards and alternate between HD makers. There used to be a saying of 321 that you have atleast 3 copies 2 different media types and one off site or you have not backed up.

 

[Web-Betty]

In addition to the great backup strategies that have been mentioned, you need to think through a good and consistent upload and organization strategy. My process has three distinct steps: upload, post processing, backup.

Upload and Organization
I use Lightroom for DAM (digital asset management), and upon upload is where organization happens. Like @John King, I never change the file name. I can automatically add what's relevant to me (camera model and date) during upload into Lr. My folder org structure is date based because that's how my brain works and using Lr, I can automatically upload to folders based on year, month, and day. You can establish any folder structure you want — the key is consistency. Think through a folder structure that makes sense to you and can be used for long-term organization.

Post Processing
This is where there's the potential for a lot of duplicates, especially if you use multiple software applications that don't 'work' together. Even though I use Lr to upload and organize, I don't use it (in most instances) for post processing — I use DxO. Luckily, these two applications play nice with each other. Once my images have been uploaded using Lr, I can open them from their existing location, in DxO. I process the RAW files in DxO and use the very simple "Export to Lightroom" button. In a few minutes, a new .TIFF file is exported into Lr, alongside the original file. DxO appends the filename with "_DxO," so while I do now have 2 versions of the image, they are easily differentiated from each other. Some people, at this point, get rid of the original RAW file. I'm a digital hoarder, I do not.

Backup
As many have already shared, it's important to backup and I use many of the strategies already mentioned. 3-2-1 is a great rule of thumb. Once I know my original are backed up, I re-format the SD card (I reuse them, I don't save them) and start over! For my iPhone photos, I make sure I delete them from my phone. (TBH, I get most of my duplicates from my iPhone because I use some syncing features and Apple is tenacious.)

If this was TL;DR, the key point is to think through your upload and organization strategy and be consistent, find a way to manage files if you post process in multiple apps, and backup then delete.

 

[PakkyT]

Never erase the card until you have at least one backup of the files you uploaded to your disk.

I even go a step further and don't erase the card until the card is nearly full (or at the beginning of the calendar year if the card never got close enough to full). My habit is I download my photos, put the card back in my camera, then take a photo of my computer keyboard as a marker indicating everything up to here is downloaded. Next time I go out to take photos, back at my computer it is very easily to select the newest bunch since I select from the last photo backwards to the last keyboard shot. This gives me yet another temporary but medium term backup to my stuff.

 

[Bushboy]

You guys are amazing! Such dedication.
Thanks for the tip John.
So Ian’s duplicate pics are the result of post processing?
That must be why I don’t have any.
I’d rather the delete button panacea... you guys would spin at my work flow, lol!
Before I forget, a big warm Welcome to Ian, a new member! Good on you man.

 

[Keeth101]

After a photo session, I just download the new RAW & JPEG files in to a new dated folder on my computer (I shoot RAW + JPEG).
I then immediately put them on to three different external hard drives.
I then continue to pp the picture on my PC knowing that the originals are safe and sound.

 

[speedy]

I even go a step further and don't erase the card until the card is nearly full (or at the beginning of the calendar year if the card never got close enough to full). My habit is I download my photos, put the card back in my camera, then take a photo of my computer keyboard as a marker indicating everything up to here is downloaded. Next time I go out to take photos, back at my computer it is very easily to select the newest bunch since I select from the last photo backwards to the last keyboard shot. This gives me yet another temporary but medium term backup to my stuff.

I use SD cards like film. When they're full, I buy a new one. After deleting all the rubbish shots off them. Cheap as chips now days, it's not difficult at all to buy decent speed and known brand 32GB cards for 10 bucks or less. I don't do video, so they last me for ages, even shooting raw.

 

[doady]

I only have an external hard drive plugged in to transfer files and no other time, and maybe that's a few times per month, or 30 minutes per year. As long as the drive is only used for backup, not in operation for any other purpose, there shouldn't be a significant risk of failure. All my external drives, even from 10 years ago, still work okay. I do have duplicate backups for some photos, we should think about duplicates, but I am not sure it is really so urgent. As long as you don't use them often and you physically handle them carefully, an external hard drive should last a really long time. The hard drive you should worry about is the one inside your desktop or laptop computer, because that is the one that is actually operating most of the time.

 

[speedy]

Here is my system, Import photos on to internal SSD, copy across to 2 external USB spinning drives (I replace one a year or so) auto upload to Amazon as its free with prime, card is labelled and then put in a case, backups are also sent to a PC acting as a NAS in the loft. Some points Redundant Raid is great if a drive fails if the PSU goes kaput not so, SD cards and Hard Drives are now very cheep, I buy the lowest cost decent brand SD cards and alternate between HD makers. There used to be a saying of 321 that you have atleast 3 copies 2 different media types and one off site or you have not backed up.

I was going to do the old PC>NAS thing, but not being particularly computer/network literate, I went the easy way and bought the Synology. One of my mates, who is a bit of a guru, warned me about security when connecting things online 24/7 The Synology makes it absolute child's play, with its inbuilt features. I've set 2 factor authentication, as well as after 5 failed password attempts, it blocks the IP address forever. A couple of minutes work, done.

 

[alex66]

I was going to do the old PC>NAS thing, but not being particularly computer/network literate, I went the easy way and bought the Synology. One of my mates, who is a bit of a guru, warned me about security when connecting things online 24/7 The Synology makes it absolute child's play, with its inbuilt features. I've set 2 factor authentication, as well as after 5 failed password attempts, it blocks the IP address forever. A couple of minutes work, done.

I had the old PC so it was a no brainer, use open NAS that makes it pretty easy. If I did not have the PC I would probably use a Raspberry Pi and USB drives.

 

[speedy]

I had the old PC so it was a no brainer, use open NAS that makes it pretty easy. If I did not have the PC I would probably use a Raspberry Pi and USB drives.

I have a couple of old PC's laying around, but they can get reasonably power hungry. My NAS only runs at 7 watts I think, when idling. Which adds up when running 24/7

 

[Will Focus]

You guys store photos? Huh...I suppose I better start thinking about a system. No wonder I can't find anything. I know I have about 3000 photos from a 3mp Bell and Howell point and shoot on a Dell Inspiron that ran XP pro. I'd like to see them again someday because they pretty much documented 3 years of my life in the USVI from 2000 to 2003. However, the laptop came down with what I called The Easter Egg Virus at the time due to the heavy striped colorization of the screen on Easter Morning. I tried to fix it. I even took it in to "The Geek Squad". I thought it was hopeless until I watched the tech literally hit the keyboard with his fist and suddenly the screen sprang to life. It struck me that I might have tried that approach, in fact I had thought about doing just that.

Unfortunately that was the last flicker of anything to grace that screen and the laptop has been sitting in the bottom of a dresser drawer ever since. There is some debate as to whether I should have it cremated and sprinkle the ashes in Best Buy's parking lot. Someday I may try to find someone who can resuscitate it enough to harvest all the drunk images at the Island beach bars throughout the Carib. (there were a few Limbo keepers as I recall) Perhaps if I were able to view them I may be able to spot exactly what it was that convinced me ( especially this winter) that leaving there was a good idea.

Oh well, maybe someday.

 

[John King]

Maybe remove the HDD and put into a functional PC?

 

[Will Focus]

Maybe remove the HDD and put into a functional PC?

That sounds like a great idea. Now, if I could just find someone who knows what or where the HDD is, because I certainly don't, and even if I did I'd have a heck of a time figuring out how to put it into anything. Ctrl Alt Delete is as close as I come to fixing computers.

 

[Bushboy]

That is easy fix for any computer savvy person.
Just remind me Will, not to take my computer to the guy who fixes them with his fist! Lol.