{"id":1368,"date":"2018-08-31T09:00:03","date_gmt":"2018-08-30T23:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nfgphoto.com\/blog\/?p=1368"},"modified":"2018-08-31T09:00:03","modified_gmt":"2018-08-30T23:00:03","slug":"file-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nfgphoto.com\/blog\/file-management\/","title":{"rendered":"File Management"},"content":{"rendered":"

I took 11,693 photos<\/span> in August. That’s 298 gigabytes<\/span> of RAW images, 314 gigs<\/span> including the proofs and assorted detritus from processing.<\/p>\n

It’s a lot of space, because I shoot RAW, and because, well, it’s a lot of 36 megapixel images. Like, a lot.<\/i><\/p>\n

Someone asked recently how I manage all these photos, and settle in, ’cause I’m going to tell you.<\/p>\n

\n

Step 1: Storing the Files<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>My photos are scattered all over several drives, grouped by year.\u00a0 The last 3.5 years are on one drive, an 8TB monster that’s nearly full.\u00a0 The previous two years fit on 2TB, and everything from ~1996 until the end of 2012 fits on another 2TB.\u00a0 Photos and drives get bigger as time goes on, I have proof!<\/p>\n

After every shoot the memory card is dumped onto the current drive.\u00a0 My files are grouped year -> month -> client\/location name.\u00a0 That Japan trip last year:\u00a0 2017 -> 08 -> Japan.\u00a0 That shoot with Lynn?\u00a0 control-F -> Lynn -> there it is.<\/p>\n

Every night the computer runs a backup, copying the current drive to two other drives.\u00a0 I use a backup program for this, but it doesn’t do anything beyond copying the files.\u00a0 No fancy RAID arrays, complicated differential backup schemes, etc.\u00a0 If anything goes wrong, there’s a drive somewhere with every file on it.\u00a0 Nothing gets deleted, ever.<\/p>\n

Step 2: File Triage<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

For client shoots, every file is converted to a low-res proof image, watermarked, and thrown onto the server.\u00a0 It’s automatically converted to a PC- and phone-friendly gallery with a shortlist function so clients can scan through the images, and keep track of the good ones.<\/p>\n

For my own purposes, I rank them all.\u00a0 While this sounds daunting (11,600 photos this month!) it’s pretty easy when you do this after every shoot.\u00a0 It takes 5-10 minutes, and is a crucial part of the process.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I go through the entire shoot.\u00a0 It’s usually immediately obvious if a photo is halfway decent, and I tag it with one star.\u00a0 Typically this will get me down to 10% (my rule of thumb is 4% for every shoot – the rest, while fine, aren’t worth editing).\u00a0 Then, I run through the one-star images, and tag anything that’s actually good with a second star.\u00a0 Along the way I’ll usually find clusters of similar files, and I’ll flick between ’em to pick the best, and occasionally demote anything that doesn’t actually deserve the first star.\u00a0 Rarely, I’ll do a third pass if the second pass doesn’t yield a solid list.<\/p>\n

So I’m down to 5-20 photos from every shoot, and these are the ones I’ll edit up for my own purposes.\u00a0 Sometimes I’ll be so excited I’ll share one immediately, making sure it goes to the right place (Instagram, deviantart, this blog, etc).<\/p>\n

Step 3: The Reason You Never See Them<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The next day, doubt sets in.\u00a0 Is this really good?\u00a0 Hmm, this could have been better, and this is sort of rubbish actually.\u00a0 Augh, I didn’t notice this before.\u00a0 I should have changed this, oh it’s all shit, everything sucks.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then the client sends in their shortlist and none of them are the same as the ones I picked and my worst fears are confirmed: I don’t know what I’m doing and I don’t recognize a good photo.<\/p>\n

Then, through a veil of tears, I edit the client’s chosen images, knowing full well they’ll hate them and expose me as a fraud.\u00a0 I upload these final photos to the gallery, send a link to the client, then turn off the computer and bury my phone in the yard so I never find out how much they hate them all.<\/p>\n

Usually though, they lie.\u00a0 They tell me they aren’t so bad, they love them in fact, and they post them on Instagram with enthusiastic recommendations for my services.\u00a0 I know I’m a fraud, they know it too, but…<\/p>\n

Then someone else books a shoot, and maybe I’m not so bad after all!\u00a0 Hey yeah, I can do this, I got this shit covered!<\/p>\n

And the cycle repeats itself.<\/p>\n

Ah, the life of an artist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I took 11,693 photos in August. That’s 298 gigabytes of RAW images, 314 gigs including the proofs and assorted detritus from processing. It’s a lot of space, because I shoot RAW, and because, well, it’s a lot of 36 megapixel images. Like, a lot. Someone asked recently how I manage all these photos, and settle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[83,23],"class_list":["post-1368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-info","tag-business","tag-processing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nfgphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nfgphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nfgphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nfgphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nfgphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1368"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/nfgphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1382,"href":"https:\/\/nfgphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1368\/revisions\/1382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nfgphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nfgphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nfgphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nfgphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}