Photo management

[nrvna76]

I'm curious what folks use to manage their photos. I have a 128gb iPhone and my wife has a 64gb, we also just got a dslr camera. My 50gb iCloud is now full and my wife's is approaching the same. We have all of these pictures and videos of our children that we want to keep for a long time. Do most people offload to a cloud storage and delete from their phones or keep local storage? We got a mycloud wifi hd but it's not all that user friendly and I question its long term durability anyways. I have a MacBook Pro (09) but I rarely use it as its old and getting very slow.

I'm sure there are a lot of ways to do this but I wonder what the more technically inclined people choose to do.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

I use Aperture but that's not available anymore. Photos on the Mac is a good choice. You should use time machine for backups.

 

[nrvna76]

I use Aperture but that's not available anymore. Photos on the Mac is a good choice. You should use time machine for backups.

Thanks for the reply. Yea, that would mean I have to buy a new computer with a big hard drive (which isn't actually common anymore) and then use time machine. Just seems like an expensive option when I hardly use an actual computer ever. I get by with iOS devices almost exclusively.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Thanks for the reply. Yea, that would mean I have to buy a new computer with a big hard drive (which isn't actually common anymore) and then use time machine. Just seems like an expensive option when I hardly use an actual computer ever. I get by with iOS devices almost exclusively.

But what will you do with the photos you take in a DSLR? Surly you load them to a computer for editing?

As for me all my DSLR shots get put on my iMac for editing and cataloging (using LR).
Then backed up on my time capsule and a third copy on a hard drive I keep at work.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

Flickr gives you 1TB in the cloud for free. Their future is a bit uncertain.

In your case - you said pictures from your kids ... You want to keep those for a lifetime. I wouldn't trust any online cloud service for a lifetime. Just look at apples history for all stuff they abandoned.

I would bite the apple and get a Mac mini or iMac with hdd and as I said backup backup backup

 

[Phil A.]

My photos are possibly my most prized digital data and I go to take extreme lengths to protect them: I have 250gb of iCloud storage, unlimited google drive, 1Tb Flickr Pro and 1Tb of OneDrive

My main backup route is via a PC with iCloud and Lightroom. My iCloud Photos folders are on my OneDrive so everything immediately goes to there. I have Flickr Uploadr and Google photos uploader (full resolution) pointing to the iCloud photos folders so all new photos also go to those two services. I use Lightroom to catalog photos and photos from my SLR are added to my iCloud upload folder (so they also go to google and Flickr)
The PC backs up to a NAS and also Crashplan and my google drive is backed up via Spanning Backup.
I also have a MacBook Air that downloads all iCloud photos and is backed up using TimeMachine


This gives me 10 copies of all my photos and means I can be confident that whatever happens I've got a good chance of getting them back: it's not cheap to do it that way but every photo I have taken in the last 17 years or so is Digital and I can't put a price on them!

 

[nrvna76]

Just got the camera a couple of weeks ago, so haven't done anything with editing. To be honest before my kids I was never into photos or photo editing. We can't afford an iMac, and getting the bigger hd would be even worse! I am looking into a pc possibly but haven't made much progress yet. I'll have to look into Lightroom as I have no idea what that does either. I do worry about those online cloud storage sites and how long they'd be around but even local storage wouldn't last forever. Phil A's setup would be great! I'll have to look into some of that stuff. Thanks for the replies folks!

 

[Indydenny]

What many people don't understand (because Apple hasn't promoted it well) is that you can put your photos into "Shared Albums" and then delete them from your photos app. Note: This doesn't solve the issue of backing-up, but does solve the space issue.

You can put an unlimited number of photos in Shared Albums (I have many thousands) and you don't need to share these albums with anyone. They just reside on Apple servers and you have access to all of them as long as you have a wifi or cellular connection. You can, of course, share these albums with your wife, family members, friends as well and they can comment on them or add their own photos.

On a recent trip to Disney, I shared an album with my wife and grown kids and all of us added photos that we took during the week. There are over 1,000 photos now in that album and all of us have access to them anytime. But, as I said, you can also create a Shared Album and not share it just to remove those photos from your phone. These albums are available with all iOS and Mac devices including an Apple TV.

Now, you still need to find a good back-up plan, but this is a great way to have almost unlimited space at no cost. (BTW, you can upload 25,000 photos per month and share up to 100 different albums.) Here is more info: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202299

Periodically, I export all my photos that reside on my Photos app (using my Mac) and then back them up to a second drive. I use lightroom for pics from my dslr, but I realize that you don't have that option for now. You can use wifi (depending on your camera) to move your pics from your DLSR to your phone or iPad and then upload them to Shared Albums. Hope this is not too confusing.

 

[nrvna76]

What many people don't understand (because Apple hasn't promoted it well) is that you can put your photos into "Shared Albums" and then delete them from your photos app. Note: This doesn't solve the issue of backing-up, but does solve the space issue.

You can put an unlimited number of photos in Shared Albums (I have many thousands) and you don't need to share these albums with anyone. They just reside on Apple servers and you have access to all of them as long as you have a wifi or cellular connection. You can, of course, share these albums with your wife, family members, friends as well and they can comment on them or add their own photos.

On a recent trip to Disney, I shared an album with my wife and grown kids and all of us added photos that we took during the week. There are over 1,000 photos now in that album and all of us have access to them anytime. But, as I said, you can also create a Shared Album and not share it just to remove those photos from your phone. These albums are available with all iOS and Mac devices including an Apple TV.

Now, you still need to find a good back-up plan, but this is a great way to have almost unlimited space at no cost. (BTW, you can upload 25,000 photos per month and share up to 100 different albums.) Here is more info: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202299

Periodically, I export all my photos that reside on my Photos app (using my Mac) and then back them up to a second drive. I use lightroom for pics from my dslr, but I realize that you don't have that option for now. You can use wifi (depending on your camera) to move your pics from your DLSR to your phone or iPad and then upload them to Shared Albums. Hope this is not too confusing.

Not confusing at all, but I also didn't know about the shared albums. So if it's in a shared album and deleted from my phone it doesn't take space away from my iCloud backup space? Thanks for the info!

 

[Indydenny]

Not confusing at all, but I also didn't know about the shared albums. So if it's in a shared album and deleted from my phone it doesn't take space away from my iCloud backup space? Thanks for the info!

That's correct. You can move your photos to shared albums, and then delete them from your photo stream which frees up all of your iCloud and iPhone space but the photos in shared albums are unlimited and do not count against the iCloud space that you have. (Again, I would borrow a computer to back them up first! It takes only minutes and is easy to do using the export feature.)

 

[nrvna76]

That's correct. You can move your photos to shared albums, and then delete them from your photo stream which frees up all of your iCloud and iPhone space but the photos in shared albums are unlimited and do not count against the iCloud space that you have. (Again, I would borrow a computer to back them up first! It takes only minutes and is easy to do using the export feature.)

Awesome. Thanks for the info. Surprised that isn't advertised that way more. I think I will get a new computer anyways, probably just a mid range laptop since I can get a 1 tb hd for under 500 and then I'll try using Lightroom for the dslr photos.

 

[robgendreau]

Yeah, a DSLR with just a mobile device is kinda useless I'm afraid.

Apple's storage is pretty expensive, even with workarounds like shared albums. And it's not backup. In theory, somebody could delete stuff from a phone and if you don't notice for X days poof! it's gone. So a cheap laptop, even Windows, with an external is good insurance. Depending on whether you care about those photos or not. Or try culling some.

And there are some cheaper alternatives than Lightroom. And more flexible than Photos. Search around for Aperture alternatives since it's been discussed over and over again in that context.

 

[nrvna76]

I do have a laptop but it's an 09 mbp so I'd have to upgrade it to prevent beachballing. I guess that's my first hurdle is the computer. Thanks!

 

[ChrisA]

Just got the camera a couple of weeks ago, so haven't done anything with editing. To be honest before my kids I was never into photos or photo editing. We can't afford an iMac, and getting the bigger hd would be even worse! I am looking into a pc possibly but haven't made much progress yet. I'll have to look into Lightroom as I have no idea what that does either. I do worry about those online cloud storage sites and how long they'd be around but even local storage wouldn't last forever. Phil A's setup would be great! I'll have to look into some of that stuff. Thanks for the replies folks!

Having a DSLR with no computer is kind of a problem. Have you looked into used Macs? Can cost less then your SLR.

You keep writing about the high cost of a large hard drive. You can have one that is 10 times larger than your Photo Library for under $100. They are not expensive, not compared to the price of two iPhones and an SLR. A 4TB bare drive (that is 4,000 gigabytes) sells today for $120.

If you want to keep your data for a long time, say more than 10 years then you must use a system that follows these rules:
1) the data must always exist on at least three different physical media
2) the data must always exist in at least two different geographical locations

iCloud can serve as one of the three physical media and one of the locations
Your own home can be the other geographic location where you have two copies of the data, one on the computer hard drive and one on a Time Machine disk. Note that the computer's hard drive need not be internal (that $120 4TB drive would be great)

The above rules are the bare minimum. If you want the data to survive for 100 years so any future grand children can see it then you have even more work to do. I strongly suspect that 100 years form now there will be VERY FEW 100 year old photos because people are cheap and don't bother with backup. For 100 year life.I'd add a second on-line backup service and rotate a set of disk drives to your office at work where you keep them in a fire safe. (that's three geographic locations and four different media)

Yes on-lone services can "go away" and you can have a house fire or some guy breaks in the steals your computer equipment. In fact over a 100 year period these things almost certainly will happen SEVERAL TIMES. So even after the massive earthquake and resulting fire you will still have redundant copies of the data.

One other thing, delete most of the photos you take. The overall quality of any large collection is improved by culling.

About your SLR, Sign up for a subscription to Lynda.com ($20 per month) and watch the basic photography classes and the Lightroom classes. Dedicate one hour two nights a week to this.

 

[mjones46]

I do have a laptop but it's an 09 mbp so I'd have to upgrade it to prevent beachballing. I guess that's my first hurdle is the computer. Thanks!

Try taking a look at http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/Models.cfm find your laptop model, maybe ram and an SSD drive will make it suitable for your needs
[doublepost=1460565748][/doublepost]mac mini starts at $499, for basic computing tasks, then get your self a 4TB external drive on sale for about $110 and you should have plenty of room for awhile. Also look into an online photo sharing site like smugmug.com, there are a lot out there. for a monthly fee you can upoad all your photos to their site. they also have apps to view your photos on your phone or tablet so you don't have to use up space on your phone.

 

[ChrisA]

I do have a laptop but it's an 09 mbp so I'd have to upgrade it to prevent beachballing. I guess that's my first hurdle is the computer. Thanks!

For photo management your older MBP will be fine. After all it is like 20X more powerful than a new iPhone. Upgrade the RAM to 16MB. The new MBP is not really all that much faster, RAM matters more. Then if you can afford an SSD get one but your photos go in the external HD not the SSD, the SSD just makes it boot faster, the RAM will help with the beach ball.

 

[OreoCookie]

@ChrisA
Actually, both, the CPU and the GPU of the new iPhone and iPad Pro (which has higher clocks and better graphics) are much more powerful than that of a 2009 MacBook Pro. The CPU in an iPhone is about 80 % as fast as that of a new MacBook that you can buy today.

Of course, hardware is only one part of the equation, and you are limited by software on iOS at this point. There is Lightroom for iOS, but of course it is not on par with Lightroom on OS X.

I wouldn't really recommend upgrading a machine from 2009, after 6~7 years it is time for a new machine.

 

[nrvna76]

Thanks for all of the replies folks. Too much to reply to specifically but in regards to a computer my wife is pretty dead set against a mac and she is the one who takes and manages the pictures. So, we'll be getting a pc at some point if I can ever make up my mind (way too many options). And I may upgrade my mac also just in case. And I have a lot of backing up to do for all of the photos!

 

[tgara]

This gives me 10 copies of all my photos and means I can be confident that whatever happens I've got a good chance of getting them back: it's not cheap to do it that way but every photo I have taken in the last 17 years or so is Digital and I can't put a price on them!

Yep in case of thermonuclear war, an asteroid hitting the earth, or the zombie apocalypse, looks like you're covered!

 

[Hughmac]

If you're on a budget, I have a 2009 Unibody MacBook that was transformed by installing 8GB RAM (the maximum for this model) and an SSD. It now runs as quick as my wife's 2013 MacBook Air.
Bear in mind though that hardware can fail at any time and more especially with older machines, so keeping backups on external drives is always recommended as others have said.

Hope this helps,

Cheers

Hugh

 

[nrvna76]

If you're on a budget, I have a 2009 Unibody MacBook that was transformed by installing 8GB RAM (the maximum for this model) and an SSD. It now runs as quick as my wife's 2013 MacBook Air.
Bear in mind though that hardware can fail at any time and more especially with older machines, so keeping backups on external drives is always recommended as others have said.

Hope this helps,

Cheers

Hugh

I have an 09 mbp anyways that I could do that upgrade too. But thanks for the offer!

 

[Hughmac]

I'm sorry but I wasn't in any way offering my MacBook to you; I was merely citing my case as an example of what can be achieved with upgrading an older machine

Cheers

Hugh

 

[nrvna76]

Haha. Well thanks anyways.