[LRflex] Re: Digital Workflow - How Do You Cope?
- From: David Young <dsy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: leicareflex@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 08:16:42 -0800
Good Morning, Miha!
You wrote:
Great tips!
:-)
David, your contact sheet idea is great. Will start to print my own.
Lightroom (mentioned by Philippe) seems great tool too! It`s popular
among photographers (so I read on forums) and It`s on my shopping
list. And as Doug said, we (he) spend(s) much more time with each
photo on the computer. And I HATE that. I wish CCD/CMOS sensors were
more clever.
Rose and I enjoyed dinner, last night, at the home of a
photographer-friend who started with Silkypix, but now uses
LightRoom. Interestingly, he said that although he likes LightRoom,
every now and again he comes across a shot which will not develop
quite right, in LightRoom. (I believe they are shots with a large
contrast ratio. such as Porcupines walking on snow.) For those
pictures, he reverts to Silkypix and they develop just fine. Curious!
And as a side note, backups on DVDs or external drivers wont last
forever (well nothing does). And reading a DVD after 10 years is
very questionable. Even if the DVD itself holds, the format (and the
software to read) might be well forgotten in 10 years (do you still
remember floppy disk ;-)))
You are right, DVD's are a problem ... but then, so are hard
drives. I date each DVD I write, with the month/year it is
written. The intention is to copy each DVD to HD and then rewrite it
to a new DVD (or whatever newer storage medium is out, by then),
approximately every 4 years. (I plan on 4 years, so that when I run
behind schedule, they're still done every 5 years.) A lot of work,
but a necessary evil.
I know people who purchase external hard drives, and back-up to
them. However, I also know at least one of them who has found the
drive no-good, when remounted.
I prefer DVDs because if one goes bad, I might lose 250
exposures. And with two additional backup DVDs, I might still manage
to recover my shots from one of these. If you back up to a HD, and
it fails, you can easily lose 1, 2 or more years of photos (depending
on the size of the drive and the number of shots you make) and it is
unlikely that you will have them on a second, external HD, if only
because of the cost.
When using DVDs, always (a) store them in the dark (continuous
exposure to light is damaging to the organic dyes which hold the
data) and (b) always buy top quality discs. Cheap discs can lose
their data in as little as 1 to 2 years! I've had consistently good
results with FujiFilm DVDs (No, I do not own any Fuji stock!), but
I'm sure the discs sold under any major brand would be fine. But
stay away the many cheaper, "no name" blank DVDs. It is likely that
you are buying trouble!
Also, I never record a DVD at anything more than 3/4 the max speed
that my burning program says I can safely use. This avoids burning "coasters".
Lastly, always handle your discs with care. A dropped DVD should be
recopied to a fresh one, immediately! The reason is that your
precious photos are held in a thin layer of organic dyes. Dropping
can make microscopic cracks which cannot be seen, but will, over
time, allow air into the dye layer, which then destroys the dyes and
your photos. This is, of course, also the reason why DVDs don't last
100 years... for eventually air moves through the protective plastic
layers ,by osmosis, damaging the dyes and your data.
Glad you like the "contact sheet" idea. Over the years I have tried
many systems to organize my negatives and digital images. This
simple system is, by far, the fastest, easiest I've ever found, for
locating digital images. Our photographer friend & his wife are
coming over, tomorrow evening, to get a full lesson in how to do it!
Cheers!
---
David Young,
Logan Lake, CANADA
Limited Edition Prints at: www.furnfeather.net
Personal Web-site at: www.main.furnfeather.net
Other related posts:
