Important elements of your digital processing workflow is going to be dictated by your image manipulation program, but physical storage will depend on how good you’re organized.

It’s good to get into a routine for workflow management which includes on and off site backups. I really believe for making backups before moving them into my image manipulation programs. That way basically accidentally save over a graphic, the first image can nevertheless be recovered.

Starting these habits on the beginning when you get a brand new camera prevents losing those initial few photos from the new camera or getting your pictures scattered around folders all over your computer.

There's no excuse because of not having good backups of the images. Despite having the flooding in Thailand driving up hard disk drive prices, back up storage remains cheap by historical standards. You will get external drives similar to this Buffalo MiniStation Stealth 1 TB backup drives for about $130.00. I prefer these because they’re an easy task to store and don’t need external power. For that price you will get two and a copy of the backup files off site.

One other good practice is encrypting your files when stored. Programs like TrueCrypt cost nothing and fantastically secure, a regrettable fact you’d discover should you ever lose your encryption password. That way if a person steals your backup drive they don’t get a free copy of most your projects. Do take time to read the directions before encrypting volumes or drives.

RAW and JPEG

I shoot RAW + JPEG on my small camera though it burns from the card space faster. When dumping the charge card, job the first is building a permanent backup of the RAW files by copying them to a different folder that’s automatically copied. If my backup drives ever got stolen, the thieves could either attempt to hack my encryption for 10 or 15 years or reformat the drives.

Be Cautious of Cloud Storage

I take advantage of Photobucket for proof size images of client are employed in password protected albums but never production quality images. Online storage that let’s you store your encrypted containers is better if the company goes bankrupt, you don’t worry about your images offered as assets in bankruptcy court. Ownership of digital images in bankruptcy just isn't settled law and you also don’t want the truth selected your pictures!

Even though the amount of risk you’re willing to tolerate can be you, make sure and study those EULAs, you’ll be blown away what you’re stopping sometimes.

Okay, that’s the workflow in the perspective of physical drives and making backups. Next time we’ll speak about the image workflow for your working copies.


how to take pictures