The not so fun, but rather necessary part: the needed skills and concepts to keep and enjoy your photographs.  You don't want to be the person at the drug store photo kiosk that sticks in their memory card, prints a few and deletes the digital files.  Even burning the CD (for a mere 700% markup) won't help most people organize and catalog their files.

And remember, having the digital image file isn't the same as knowing where to find the file (when you want it, 10 days or 15 years from now).

Skills

Aside from the basic knowing how to turn on/off the machine and click the mouse :), the major skill we need on our computers is file management.  Sounds like a fun way to spend a Saturday night, right?!  Every photographer needs a system to name their files and their folders, and they need to stick with that system (at least for several uploads) as they tweak it. 

Don't trash your numbering system in the beginning or as you add more images to your files.  You'll love having a working library!

Backup

Your pristine (and ever evolving) library MUST exist in 2 or 3 places.  If data does not live on multiple hard drives it does not exist at all.  Why?   Hard drives have a 100% rate of failure.  It could be 2 months or 35 years, but the hard drive will fail to spin up.  So, staggering that failure between drives does improve our chances of keeping data long term.

One place can be your hard drive on your computer.  Another place could be an external drive.  A third place could be a CD or DVD archive.  A fourth option is to store an archive online.  Each of these options are less than several hundred dollars (and getting much less expensive by the minute) to protect those priceless memories!

And Such

Photograph files take up a lot more space than regular text files and Word documents.  Imagine hundreds of thousands of those space hogs, requires a lot of virtual space.  And when we record video, the sizes of our files grow even larger.

So don't put off this important step.  Research, or curl up in your favorite thinking spot, and generate a plan of action.

Jenna Dee's Current Version of File Management

Read that sub heading again, doesn't it send shivers of excitement down your spine?  Me either.  But we're dealing with necessary and important - and we can do lots of fun stuff later (like enjoy your family!).

I have a memory card with a fresh batch of images.

  1. I have a naming system in place, it's just a letter for the year (like "A" for 2010 - to cut down on the length of the name) and a number for the upload.  Then I cap off the name with something that I'll recognize like "Colorado Trip". So, the folder name for this sample upload is "A001-colorado-trip".
  2. Plug in the memory card into a card reader and stick it in the USB on my computer.  Upload the digital files to my hard drive in a number/named folder. (I do not recommend importing through a program as the first step. EVEN IF the cute program pops up and asks me if I'd like to import through it.  This is the #1 way to corrupt files and lose images. You'll import the files into a program later - see step 4.)
  3. I'll remove the card reader from the computer and set it on the desk.  I now have images in two places.  I'm a lot more safe that I was 2 minutes ago!
  4. Now, here's where it gets tricky.  Am I a casual photographer or am I making thousands of images a week?
    • casual - I'm going to import everything as a referenced file if possible into a single library on one of my software programs.
    • crazy - I'm going to import images into individual libraries (or catalogs) as a referenced file in one of my software programs.
  5. Back up!
    • casual - I'm going to backup the program and the new folder to my external drive, CD/DVD, online storage.
    • crazy - I'm going to backup the program (probably embedded in my new project folder) and my project folder to my external drive, CD/DVD, online storage.
  6. Now I'm ready to reformat my card (in my camera ONLY), pick images in my catalog, upload some images to share online, print, put some projects together, or just sleep well knowing I'll be able to find those photograph files when I want them later!

Voila! Now I have a clean memory card and a new folder with my fresh images ready to go.  I'm backed up in 2 or 3 spots. 

When I do edits, I can overwrite my backups to keep everything fresh or I can create a bit more detailed folder structure/procedure to make sure only the edits are updated on my external hard drives.  More on that later, the key groundwork guarantees that we're not leaking digital images.

Being able to see and share your files will only encourage you to get out there and make more photographs.  Do it!  That's what we're all about!