What's your system for archiving images to avoid running out of space on your drives?

Seeing as we have lots of film shooters who are probably facing hard drive space issues on a regular basis, I wanted to see what system or workflow people are using to keep enough free drive space. I know some people will archive images older than x-amount of months on DVD and then not worry about them.

What's your system to always have enough free hard drive space?

Don't forget to backup your photos

Making regular backups is critical. I've only heard a few horror stories about photographers loosing all their photos (usually on a laptop). These mishaps could have been prevented if backups were part of their workflow. Ideally, if you use a laptop:

• Store all images on an external drive, not on the laptop
• Backup all images to a second external hard drive
• Make an updated backup every time you import new (good) images

If you own a desktop:

• Backup images to an external drive (or another internal hard drive)
• You can use Time Machine to make backups for you automatically

If you shoot a lifelong project, best to backup the most important images and keep them off-site, in a safety deposit box, so that a fire, flood, etc., would not annihilate your images. Safety deposit boxes are cheaper than you think ($20-40/year for a small box). The peace of mind is well worth it. How to make backups:

• I use iBackup. It's free, mac-only, and has a lot of options. I don't use Time Machine, because it requires that the hard drives be in a mac-only format and will not backup from one external hard drive to another.
• iBackup is great because it can make incremental back-ups, meaning that it will only backup new and modified files, instead of everything all over again. When I backup new images it takes about 1 minute per GB, and usually completes a backup in 10 minutes or less. If you have firewire external hard drives, it's only about 30 seconds per GB.
• I also use the profiles feature in iBackup to backup documents and photos separately.
• To remember to make the backups you could setup a reminder in Gmail, iCal, etc.

If you want to go much further and backup your entire Mac system, check out Carbon Copy Cloner. I hope everyone is having a great summer!

Websites for Photographers

For all my fellow graduating seniors and any photo students looking to market your work, here are my highest recommendations for getting a website up and running. All of these companies allow you to add images and manage the content of your own site.

• Visual Server
• LiveBooks EDU/LiveBooks
• BluDomain

• Visual Server samples: Chris Anderson | Leslie McDaniel | Brittany Nelson
• LiveBooks samples: Cali Frankovic | Ryan Krueger | Jay Maidment (non-MSU)
• Bludomain sample: Megan Thompson

Or if you still want to manage your content but are willing to learn a more in-depth system:

• Wordpress

Making your CD for Senior

Don't forget your CD of images and artist statement for critique on Monday. According to the syllabus: "Images must be resized to 3000 pixels (10 inches at 300ppi) on the longest dimension and saved as level 10 JPEGs." Here's an easy way to do this, without having to resize and save each image one by one.

1. Create an action in Photoshop for the listed dimensions, editing the horizontal dimension
2. Create a second action, but edit the vertical dimension to the specified size.
3. After these two actions are created, open Bridge, navigate to your folder of final images (ideally the JPEGs you printed from), select all the horizontal images, and select Tools > Photoshop > Image Processor.
4. In the image processor window, choose where to save the new images (saving in same location is easiest). Check the box to save as JPEG. Warning: if you forget to check this box, you risk overwriting your full size images. Type in '10' for the Quality box.
5. At the bottom, check the "Run Action" box, select your action for which orientation of images you selected in Bridge, either horizontals or verticals.
6. Click on the run button, and your images will automatically be saved for the CD. Make some coffee, take jog, or put on some music, as this processing can take several minutes.
7. Don't forget to repeat steps 3-6 for your vertical images.

When the image processor is done, a folder called "JPEG" will be created containing the resized images.

Image sizes for the blog

Just a little note to help everyone see the full images without scrolling.

When resizing your images in Photoshop for the blog:

• Horizontal image dimension should be 1000 pixels or less
• OR
• Vertical image dimension should be 700 pixels or less

Note: the most common screen resolutions are 1024 x 768 and 1280 x 800.

Camera and Gear Tips

With the start of the new year, here are some tips that will help save time and headaches:

• Always reformat memory cards in-camera, after every use. (Don't format or erase files in the computer.) I already know several people who have lost or almost lost images because they don't format their cards. This is especially important when you buy a new card.
• Backup images before formatting your memory card.
• Label your memory cards with your name and phone number. Hopefully an honest person will return your cards. Otherwise you might be out of luck.
• Label your batteries with your name and phone number. Most cameras in the same product line now use the same batteries, so you won't mix up your batteries with someone else. The Nikon D80, D90, D300, and D700 all use the same battery. The Canon 20D, 30D, 40D, and 50D also all use the same battery.
• Don't buy cheap, generic memory cards. Cheap cards are not as temperature or shock resistant as their higher quality counterparts. They tend to have crappy warranties. Better cards typically have lifetime warranties. Even good, high end cards cards are so cheap now, why settle for anything less?

• Rename your images during import. When transferring new images, it's much easier to have Bridge automatically add the date to your filename and replace the generic DSC_001 or IMG_001. You can also have Bridge add your name, or any word of your choice when importing images. This can be done under File > Get Photos From Camera. If you don't already import your images with Brige, I highly recommend it.

Contrary to depth of field, most lenses are sharpest at 1-2 stops down from their maximum aperture, for current 35mm and digital lenses. Large and medium format lenses may be different Diffraction causes images to become softer the more you stop down from the sharpest aperture of your lens. See examples here. Another example here.