Digital Image Workflow
Tim Johnson Photography
The ease with which digital images are created, moved and deleted needs to be balanced with the way they are preserved. “In my computer” is no comfort when “my computer” crashes or is stolen. The following is a protocol for you to follow with your images.
save the originals
Most professional and serious amateurs shoot RAW files. These should be maintained separately. They are large and could be considered to be like slides or negatives. Most camera manufacturers have raw file converters as do Microsoft, Mac, Linux. Even if you are taking JPGs, I suggest taking the largest images possible and saving the originals intact until you are through with your projects related to those images. Even then, I would suggest saving the original shots to multiple drives and an archival DVD. Film and slides go in archival sleeves and the sleeves go in archival boxes. The boxes go into heat and humidity controlled rooms. Get in touch with Light Impressions for your archival storage materials.
organize
Picasa, Adobe Products, Corel PSP and many other software packages will organize your images by type and/or date. This will help you keep up with them and prevent you from keeping redundant copies in multiple folders on your hard drive or drives.
work on copies
Copy or convert the images into the format you will be working on in your software: Photoshop Elements, Paintshop Pro, and Quark all have native, proprietary file types that save your steps and files. Adobe products create PSDs, Paint Shop Pro creates PSPs and so on. The GIMP, an open source product, uses its native XCF. They can also save your files in web and transfer friendly (smaller) formats. Most printing services want files outside of folders. Loosey-goosey files on the drive work for most kiosks. They generally want JPGs. Some will work with TIFFs. A little-known item is that many photo kiosks do not like the U3 firmware built into some thumbdrives. Be prepared so that you are not disappointed or confused.
be nice when you share
Small files are faster for sharing. Most software has file-optimizing routines. This allows a file to maintain good quality and travel quickly. Some photo sharing sites automatically resize images. Kodak, Wolf, Ofoto and others just make the changes for you and post your images for others to visit.
back up your backups so there are no hiccups
At best, digital storage is transient. Hard drives crash and CDs and DVDs are fragile. The test of time simply has not been applied to digital formats. For instance, if you have some 8 track tapes, 8 inch floppy disks or SyQuest disks, what are the chances you can read the information that is stored on them? I recommend using internal, external and off-site storage services for your images. Migrate your images when you are able. Storage is cheap and your images are precious. Keep moving your images forward. Soon they will fit on a solid-state chip and 2001 & 2010 will be a memory complete with our images and memories.
Tim Johnson http://www.timjohnsonphoto.com/
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment