Digital photos storage

[boo98]

Hi everyone, I was cleaning out some of my digital photos on the external drive and was interested in knowing how others organize their own digital photos.

What I've been doing for the longest time is organizing them through iPhoto/Photos app on my Mac and saving a folder in my external drive organized by month. Seems like doing twice the work but my question is it even necessary to crate another copy in my external if everything is in the Photos app, and to backup I could drag the whole Photos database to my external instead of creating separate folders?

 

[MCAsan]

I use Lightroom as my digital asset manager (DAM) which uses a referenced file system, not of those hidden database package like Aperture used as the default and Photos now uses. I import to the rMBP SSD to the folder "2016" and have Lr create subfolders for each date with images. I then cull, ad keywords, and edit using plugins. When the images are finished editing, I use Lr to move the subfolders from the SSD to my external RAID 0 array which is a library for pictures, videos, documents,...etc. The entire file system is backed up by a separate 6TB drive using Time Machine.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Hi everyone, I was cleaning out some of my digital photos on the external drive and was interested in knowing how others organize their own digital photos.

What I've been doing for the longest time is organizing them through iPhoto/Photos app on my Mac and saving a folder in my external drive organized by month. Seems like doing twice the work but my question is it even necessary to crate another copy in my external if everything is in the Photos app, and to backup I could drag the whole Photos database to my external instead of creating separate folders?

You're doing a lot of work just for the sake of a backup. Yes, you could just drag the library icon to the external drive, but each time you do that, you'll be copying the entire library, which can be pretty time-consuming. Also, it'll only backup when you remember/choose to do it.

For a true backup, use Time Machine. Backup your entire computer.

If you're satisfied with Photos, there's no real reason to maintain a separate copy organized by date. If you were to look inside your Photos library, that's how things are organized anyway (folders for Year, Month, and Day). If you ever wanted to abandon the Photos approach you could go into that library and make a copy of the Masters folder - you'll have exactly what you've been spending all that time creating on the other drive.

 

[bent christian]

I burn a set or two to disc. DVD now, soon Blu-Ray. I also keep a copy on an external 3.5" drive that is kept on a shelf and isn't used for anything else. Photos and video get run through Lightroom to organize by Year, Month, and Day. I don't keep video clips in the Lightroom catalog. Video is run through for organization and then removed.

 

[mofunk]

I started with iPhoto 1.0 and now I'm working inside Lightroom. What I learned from using every version of iPhoto is that you should have more than one backup system. I still back up to a DVDr and an external drive. Normally I will back up within the month or every 2-3 months. Make a copy of Jpegs, save both Jpeg and RAW in folders dated by Year - Type of Event (i.e. Concert, Family, etc) - Event listing. The same is written on my DVDr.

 

[Ray2]

How are you backing up now? If you "could" implies no backups.

Do you ever use the second copy organized by date?

What I do is use Lightroom. It gets backed up along with the entire Mac and externals drives. Photo organization is events in calendar order and certain genres I'm interested in in separate folders. In Aperture I used to use virtual copies for the genres. But Lightroom has its quirks in this area and, for the limited volume in these folders (very high rated) I export a duplicate.

 

[Badrottie]

I use Aperture as file groups and stored in my rMBP also back up to external hdd using time machine