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How should I permanently store digital photographs?



 
 
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  #3  
Old December 22nd 04, 05:04 PM
Owamanga
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On 22 Dec 2004 06:28:48 -0800, wrote:

Trolling babble removed

For images of VGA resolution, the best way to store them is in a
shredder.

--
Owamanga!
  #4  
Old December 22nd 04, 05:04 PM
Owamanga
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On 22 Dec 2004 06:28:48 -0800, wrote:

Trolling babble removed

For images of VGA resolution, the best way to store them is in a
shredder.

--
Owamanga!
  #5  
Old December 22nd 04, 05:19 PM
Jeremy
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wrote in message
oups.com...

First concern is the availability of current file and data format.

So what would you guys say is the best file type, media format and
media type to use if I want them to be easily accessible for decades?


Welcome to the world of digital image preservation! Sorry that you were hit
so hard by your experience with your "ancient" 8-year-old image files.
Actually, you received a valuable lesson from the School of Hard Knocks, for
which you should be grateful. You learned while you were still able to
correct the problem. Others will not be so lucky.

The short answer to your question is to store files in UNCOMPRESSED TIF. It
is the format of choice for virtually all libraries. Do not compress the
TIF files, because the various compression schemes might become unreadable
by editing programs in the future. Already there are reports of old
compressed TIF files not being able to be opened by modern editing software.
Forget compression on your archived image files.

Use the "Master and Derivative" model for your storage media: in other
words, make TWO "Master Disks." Store one off-site (bank safe deposit box,
relative or friend's home, etc.) Store it in a jewel box, keep it in a dark
place and don't touch it. Store a duplicate "Master Disk" at home, under
the same dark/temperature/humidity optimum conditions.

These "Master Disks" are used only to make derivative copies. If you work
on your images, always work off the expendable Derivative Copy. If the
Derivative ever goes bad, use your on-site Master Disk to make a new
Derivative Copy, and then return the Master Disk back to hibernation. Never
use the Master Disk for any other purpose. If your on-site Master Disk goes
bad, or if it is lost in a fire, flood or theft, then make a NEW on-site
Master Disk from the one you stored off-site, in the Safe Deposit Box.

You might consider including an Index Print along with your Master and
Derivative Disks, just so you (or your descendants) can see what is
contained on them.

This is a far cry from storing negatives in archival plastic pages, and
storing prints in albums (or in shoeboxes).

Even after taking all these precautions, you will have to provide for
migrating the data to the latest file format and media type as time goes on.
Plan on doing this every 7-10 years. This is the Achilles Heel of digital
preservation: you cannot be assured that this migration effort will continue
after your demise. Just think about the proverbial shoebox full of photos
found in Grandma's attic: for one thing, people tend to move more often and
there is less chance that our historical images will be left undisturbed for
generations. And (more importantly) the photos Grandma stored were visible
without any special equipment or software. What if those Mac images that
you had were just a few years older? You might not have had the means to
decode them, and you would have probably discarded them, rather than pay to
have them converted onto a current medium.

Kodak, on their website, even recommends that you consider long-term storage
of your important images by making PRINTS of them, and storing them in
archival albums, in appropriate temperature/humidity/darkness conditions.
The fact is that, for the typical consumer, the lowly PRINT stands the
greatest chance of long-term survival, because it requires little long-term
maintenance.

If you are starting to have reservations about digital file longevity, you
are not alone. I recommend that you have a look at this article, that
discusses the issue better than I can. "Digital's Dirty Little Secret"

http://www.vividlight.com/articles/1513.htm

Even large digital libraries are affected by the need to periodically renew
their digital assets onto newer file formats and storage media. What makes
them different from us consumers is that they have planned for, and budgeted
for, this continual file maintenance and renewal. We ordinary folks must
rely upon our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren to care for our
image files. There is no assurance that they will have any interest in
doing so. More likely, the piles of disks will gather dust until somebody
decides to throw them out, since they can't read them. At least prints have
a chance of surviving, because their historical value is apparent at first
glance. Not so with those CDs or DVDs.

More photos are being taken than ever before, and I believe that a large
number of them will survive. But the question of whether YOUR particular
photos will survive in digital format is uncertain.

My own solution is to do my important stuff on film. I use digital for
short-time-horizons of under 5 years. And on important digital images, I do
have OFOTO make prints on silver halide paper, and I keep them in archival
albums. I have tons of CDs, with digital images on them, and I have no
reason to think that they will survive long-term. It is a pity that this
problem has not been solved yet.


  #6  
Old December 22nd 04, 05:24 PM
Joseph Meehan
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wrote:

....
So what would you guys say is the best file type, media format and
media type to use if I want them to be easily accessible for decades?


As you have noticed there is no one best solution. I will suggest a few
ideas which you or other may or may not have considered.

Let's face the fact that a good archival quality print is going to last
100 - 300 years and will not require any technology other than our eyes to
view it and it can be copied by many different technologies now an in the
future.

Digital storage of digital images maintains the most data, even more
than a good print. However every time you change formats, you loose some of
that data.

Digital storage is not forever. CD's and DVD's are long lived. Well at
least the commercial ones are. Home burned disk are not the same. Some
last longer than others non meet the 100 year test, at least yet. and as you
have noted, it may well be difficult to find something to read them with 100
years from now.

Making new copies is always a good idea, and if you keep up with
changing technology with each new copy reading them should not be a problem.
However if you are like me, you just will not keep up.

Note: if they are really important, you need to make two copies and keep
one on site and another at a distant off site location. Things like floods
can cause damage within a large area.

I back up to a second computer on my LAN. That gives me two copies.
About every two or three years I try to get around to making a few CD's and
sending them to out of town relatives.




--
Joseph Meehan

26 + 6 = 1 It's Irish Math


  #7  
Old December 22nd 04, 05:24 PM
Joseph Meehan
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wrote:

....
So what would you guys say is the best file type, media format and
media type to use if I want them to be easily accessible for decades?


As you have noticed there is no one best solution. I will suggest a few
ideas which you or other may or may not have considered.

Let's face the fact that a good archival quality print is going to last
100 - 300 years and will not require any technology other than our eyes to
view it and it can be copied by many different technologies now an in the
future.

Digital storage of digital images maintains the most data, even more
than a good print. However every time you change formats, you loose some of
that data.

Digital storage is not forever. CD's and DVD's are long lived. Well at
least the commercial ones are. Home burned disk are not the same. Some
last longer than others non meet the 100 year test, at least yet. and as you
have noted, it may well be difficult to find something to read them with 100
years from now.

Making new copies is always a good idea, and if you keep up with
changing technology with each new copy reading them should not be a problem.
However if you are like me, you just will not keep up.

Note: if they are really important, you need to make two copies and keep
one on site and another at a distant off site location. Things like floods
can cause damage within a large area.

I back up to a second computer on my LAN. That gives me two copies.
About every two or three years I try to get around to making a few CD's and
sending them to out of town relatives.




--
Joseph Meehan

26 + 6 = 1 It's Irish Math


  #8  
Old December 22nd 04, 05:42 PM
Larry R Harrison Jr
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I am not a certified expert on this, just a normal user like anyone else.
But my advice to you frankly: relax.

Now, by no means am I saying to be cavalier about the whole thing. In my
case, I am blessed with a huge 160 gigabyte hard drive which enables me to
store every last photo EVER taken on it, but of course I backup
periodically. CDs for fine for me when all I had a 2 MP point & shoot, now
that I have a D-SLR and a prosumer 5MP--both shoot RAW, and RAW files are
large--I use DVD+Rs. I typically use Memorex or TDK or Philips, as opposed
to whatever off-brand Office Max has for a low price after rebate.

With CDs, I have used the cheap off-brands lately, but if you want to be
extra cautious maybe use those for non-archival things (making an audio CD
of MP3s which you have backed up) and use TDK, Fuji, Kodak, Sony etc brands
of CD-R for the crucial things.

As for format compatibility--I could be totally naive to say this, but
frankly I don't see JPEG going anywhere anytime soon. The only real format
compatibility issues I saw are for RAW files, which are exclusive to the
brand--and even that is somewhat mitigated by Photoshop's growing tendencies
towards reading RAW files and being able to convert them to JPEG. Getting
back to JPEG--people said much the same thing about MP3s becoming obselete
with iTunes using its own propreitary format, and WMA, and AAC files, et
al--but last time I checked, MP3 was still THE dominant format for
downloaded music. Heck, they even make software (if I'm not mistaken) to
convert the iTunes files back to MP3 format. I've seen software which I can
use to convert WMA files to MP3.

Meanwhile, I mean, look at the newest versions of Word & WordPerfect--they
have converters to convert anyfile from old formats to the new. But if you
keep it simple, you can play it safe--that's why many such files are saved
as TXT files rather than DOC or WPD files, because almost any program can
read them. But anyway, I've seen how Word files can take really old files
from previous formats and bring them in cleanly. You may lose some
bold-facing and italicizing etc, but it can be cleaned up often-times--and
again, if you save in a simple format (and I'd think that equivalent to
shooting JPEG in the digital imaging world), you can often-times import
totally cleanly.

I am not saying be cavalier about the whole thing--by all means, backup
often, and consider a fire-proof safe to store the most "archival" intended
CDs and DVDs in. Label them very well so you know what's on them--and every
now & then, load them up to ensure that they work, and then while you're at
it make a copy of THAT CD/DVD--and label it as such (so you don't get them
mixed up), with the date you backed it up. Have the software verify the
files after burning to ensure the CD burned fine.

LRH



  #9  
Old December 22nd 04, 05:51 PM
Larry R Harrison Jr
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Man, everytime today I've had to reply to my own posting because I forgot
something.

I was talking about labeling the CD to what's on there so you can find the
file easily. What I often do is, when I print out a photo--whether I do it
or the lab does--I write the filename on a label & stick on the back of the
photo, so I can track it down on CD/DVD easily. (Or, if the photo is not
borderless, I write this info in the border-area I have.) I also put the
exact date it was taken (sometimes that IS the filename); between those two
things, I can EASILY track the file down to the CD/DVD it's burned onto.
Then, I can backup that particular CD/DVD often, to double-triple-quadruple
insure such highly coveted images have been covered very well in terms of
being backed up.

Also--consider making a "best of" CD so that the best ones have a CD all to
their own (in addition to the date-organized backups I more commonly do),
and that also ensures your favorites are getting backed up more often--and
are easily tracked down.

Store the 4x6s in a shoe-box--I have one that's actually made for index
cards and has a device to keep the photos from sliding around a half-full
box (an annoyance more than anything else). I hope this helps.

LRH


  #10  
Old December 22nd 04, 06:03 PM
Aerticulean Effort
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Larry R Harrison Jr wrote:
Man, everytime today I've had to reply to my own posting because I forgot
something.

I was talking about labeling the CD to what's on there so you can find the
file easily. What I often do is, when I print out a photo--whether I do it
or the lab does--I write the filename on a label & stick on the back of the
photo, so I can track it down on CD/DVD easily. (Or, if the photo is not
borderless, I write this info in the border-area I have.) I also put the
exact date it was taken (sometimes that IS the filename); between those two
things, I can EASILY track the file down to the CD/DVD it's burned onto.
Then, I can backup that particular CD/DVD often, to double-triple-quadruple
insure such highly coveted images have been covered very well in terms of
being backed up.

Also--consider making a "best of" CD so that the best ones have a CD all to
their own (in addition to the date-organized backups I more commonly do),
and that also ensures your favorites are getting backed up more often--and
are easily tracked down.

Store the 4x6s in a shoe-box--I have one that's actually made for index
cards and has a device to keep the photos from sliding around a half-full
box (an annoyance more than anything else). I hope this helps.

LRH


There is a wonderful consumer product that can accommodate 100 DVDs or
CDs or a combination of both.

It will fit on a desk as the disks are stored by order without the cases

It has software support in the form of a database (althou I expect this
will be a bit inferior to what image handlers require.

Now why should I post this? Is it spam?

Nope - just an idea that's all. Have you seen the desk space / storage
100 disks take up?

Aerticeus
 




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