For the past several years I’ve used Adobe’s DNG file format to store the raw image data captured by my digital cameras. I convert my Canon CR2 raw files to DNG early in my workflow and don’t keep the original raw captures. I’ve had great success with a DNG workflow and since DNG files contains the original raw image data, I’ve seen no need to retain the native files.

In every class and workshop I teach, the subject of DNG inevitably comes up. There’s a lot of confusion and uncertainty about DNG. So when researching subject matter for my next book, I thought I’d polish up my knowledge of this essential image file format.

In doing so, I reached out to one of today’s leading imaging software developers, Eric Chan, Senior Computer Scientist at Adobe. Following is a [very minimally edited] transcript of our email conversation. Read more…

B&H is running an amazing deal on WD Passport 500GB portable drives for just $69.95; see it here.

I’ve used WD Passports for years and they have been utterly reliable (knock on wood

B&H is offering a great deal on 2TB Seagate External USB drives. I know I’ll be getting several in preparation for my storage upgrade this spring.

Check out the deal here

A recent question from a client:

“I have already confused myself in my own naming conventions and would like your advice. For FolioSnap (my website) I have been putting the state first, card name (for my named cards), or State, subject, year and number (if applicable). But then getting into it for my designer and GuestGuide site, I seem to be all over the board. I then put SM_season_year_what_number, so SM_winter_skiing_01 (if I had more details like family, kids, or location, I would put that in as well. No one way seems to be correct for all uses- yet I could be starting a real mess here. Any tips on this??”

My answer:

“It’s quite possible that your “internal” naming convention might not be suitable for all outside uses; other people might want you to use specific conventions. This is fine.

For your original, working or master files, do what makes sense to you. When saving your derivative files for specific usage you can use alternate naming schemes. Lightroom’s File Naming Template make this easy.

Also, if you rename files from within Lightroom, LR will keep track of the “original” file names, on the Metadata panel.

Keep in mind that you should use keywords to describe the specific subject matter of a photo. Don’t worry about making your file name too specific; usually date and location is plenty. For example, you can always find your winter skiing pictures later, using keywords.”

A couple of days ago, I moved all my photos and Lightroom catalog to new hard drives. It was easier than I had anticipated; let me tell you how it all went.

First, some history. As outlined in my Lightroom book, I work from one main drive that contains all my image files as well as the master Lightroom catalog. This master drive is frequently synchronized with two identical drives; one which remains on my desktop and one that is stored securely in a fireproof box. (I am considering renting a safe deposit box for this, instead.)

Up to this point, I had been working with 500 GB drives. And I was running out of room; down to about 16 GB free space. Read more…

My buddy Monte and I were discussing the ever-present issue of data storage for our digital photography systems; we have both done several significant migrations to larger systems for our digital photo libraries over the past several years.

Monte explained that he had some tens of gigs (maybe 30-40GB) of client wedding photos that he wanted to offload from his working system and archive. We got into the discussion of what would be the best approach. After just a few minutes, an obvious answer appeared: flash media.

When archiving digital photos long-term, removable USB flash drives (thumb drives, jump drives) represent the current best solution.

The primary consideration for choosing a storage medium is how it will stand up against time. Hard disk drives, with moving components and magnetic data, cannot be relied upon for archival.

Optical media woul be a great choice, but is still not widely available in large enough capacities to make digital media storage viable using optical media.

Enter flash, or solid state, storage. Impervious to all but the most extreme environmental conditions; you can put a flash drive through the washer and dryer and most likely will retain ALL the data.

Capacities are increasing rapidly and prices are dropping an average of 40% annually. Today, a 32GB removable USB flash drive costs around $75; a 4GB flash drive is now around $10. And for something that you’re planning to keep for years, the tiny size of these drives is ideal.

Like Monte, I’m currently in a situation where I have client projects I want to archive. CD or DVD won’t cut it. Hard drives are not archival. For me, spending up to $75 to archive several thousand dollars worth of client files is a no-brainer. And most client projects will fit on smaller drives, or multiple clients on one drive.

My largest client projects are just under 30GB. But I have many client projects that are just 3 or 4 GB. I can safely archive these with long term reliability-in duplicate or even triplicate-very inexpensively.

If you have projects that don’t need to be taking up resources on your working photo/imaging/video storage systems, offload them to USB drives. Buy larger capacity drives as they become available.

Set up a good labeling and organizing system so you can easily find something from within potentially many USB drives. (You can use Lightroom catalogs for this, too; more about this in a future article.)

Using USB flash drives, even a busy studio can store many clients’ projects for many years… safely and cheaply, while taking up very little space.