editing photos and given the run-around

On Thu, 16 Oct 2008 04:19:50 +1000, clandestin_écureuil wrote:

Wow!

I am starting to feel like a technology glutton. I am adding to my photo
archives at the rate of two to four gigabytes per week (I shoot stock
and fill a four gig card every few days). I can't survive without a raid
system. I have a terabyte drive in my primary computer, plus two
terabyte backup drives for photo images alone, and I am constantly
"weeding" through them to restore space. They are approaching
eighty-percent capacity already. I can't imagine using optical media as
a backup medium, it would be an impractical nightmare. I have had *many*
cd's and dvd's fail over the years, I would never rely on them. I have
also had hard drives fail, about one every two years, it is like driving
a car, sooner or later you get a flat. Having three copies of my photo
database gives me some sort of security. Thankfully hard drive prices
are falling as my needs are growing.

Secret Squirrel


Have you ever sought professional help for your OCD?


--
Liverpool. European City Of Culture 2008
http://www.liverpool08.com

clandestin_écureuil wrote:
ray wrote:
My ultimate goal is to delete duplicates

This part is easy. If you also want to catch duplicates where the file
has been renamed then you need to check the actual content of the file.
I would create a checksum, e.g. MD5, and use this as the key identifier
for each file. Then just run through all the folder with your photos,
create the checksum for each image found, and store the full name under
this checksum, always considering, that different files will have the
same checksum. For a larger collection this will probably take quite
several hours, but the task can run at low priority in the background.

Once you got that data then for each checksum if there is more than one
file you should confirm that the files actually have identical content
(different content might create the same checksum), and then either have
a predetermined sequence or interactively ask which of the duplicates to
remove.

If you can do without fancy UI and go with the bare basics then I would
say in e.g. Perl this is not more than probably 50 lines of scripting at
most.

and then edit the number down and

Obviously this part requires human evaluation and therefore there is no
way to automate it.

then transfer to cd or dvd for safekeeping. Keeping if possible the
original number bytes of each photograph so I can do some detailed
editing in the future.

Any backup software will do that. However, as others have pointed out,
this can be a drag for a large collection and other means of backup
might be easier to use.

My photo collection is rather modest compared to some, but I've never
found it necessary to resort to 'photo management software' - I keep mine
in order by using a directory structure to represent months and years.
There would, of course, be several other practical ways to organize your
photos.

The major advantage of "Photo Library/Mangament Software" is not so much
the organization of the files on disk but rather the ability to assign
as many keywords to a photo as you like and then being able to search
for any combination of those.
Example: you took that great photo of the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset
some time ago, but you can't remember on which of your 12 visits this
happened. If you had marked that photo with the tags 'sunset',
'bridges', and 'San Francisco' then it would probably be very easy to
find now.

I can't imagine using optical media as a backup medium, it would
be an impractical nightmare. I have had *many* cd's and dvd's fail over the
years, I would never rely on them. I have also had hard drives fail, about
one every two years, it is like driving a car, sooner or later you get a
flat. Having three copies of my photo database gives me some sort of
security. Thankfully hard drive prices are falling as my needs are growing.

And that is exactly the not so secret secret of a good backup. You can
_NEVER_ rely on any single media or method. DVDs fail, CDs fail, HDs
fail, computers and HDs get stolen with your precious backups, houses
get flooded or burn down and your precious backups turn to ashes or
demagnitized scrap metal.
You need to take multiple backups on different media and store them in
different locations. Depending on you level of paranoia maybe even a
network backup in a different town (I'm sure not many backups survived
Katrina or will survive the big one in SF, no matter if on HD or DVD) or
on a different continent.

jue

On Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:03:42 +0100, Michael J Davis
wrote:

Iapetus was inspired to say
john d hamilton wrote:
In an attempt to delete all my duplicate photos all over the place on
my pc and external hard drive, I opened Picasa and went through all
the folders listed deleting the endless copies.
I wanted to create a 'backup' but was told it would need 2 dvds or
12 cds. since i only have cds (each 700mb capacity) and not enough of
them i thought i would transfer to 'My Documents' on my pc and then
go through all the photos once again deleting a lot of the not so
good photos.
For some reason only about a third of the photos have transferred to
my documents from Picas, and when i went back to the Picasa library,
all the duplicate folders have *returned* to the library list !
Which is very annoying since there are years worth and literally
hundreds of folders and i'm not happy to have to do it all again.
Could anyone give advice to a novice on what best to do here please?
My ultimate goal is to delete duplicates and then edit the number
down and then transfer to cd or dvd for safekeeping. Keeping if
possible the original number bytes of each photograph so I can do
some detailed editing in the future. Many thanks for any advice.


Dupe Detector, for finding... duplicates.

http://www.freeware-guide.com/rareware/DupDetector.html


Interesting; but having lost a whole weeks trip of photos a couple of
years back, (from copying to a temporary drive while reconstructing my
backups - it left two sub-folders uncopied) I need a no-dups detector
program that tells me that 'this photo is NOT backed up'.

Has anyone seen the equivalent software?

It's possible to set it up for yourself if you are prepared to enter
the ancient world of the Command line. Windows still retains the
'Archive' attribute as part of the file data and you can set or unset
this either by a keyboard command or by a simple script.

Once you understand how it all works you will find it is not too hard
to write a simple script to manage your archives and report on what
has or hasn't been backed up.



Eric Stevens

"OG" wrote in message
...

"Tony in Oz" wrote in message
...

I may be just extremely /un/lucky, but totally depending on a HD
is just stupid.


I tend to agree. I lost a heap of photos that were backed up on an
external HD, when it was accidently dropped from a footstool onto a
carpeted floor while reading from it. Yes, stupid place to put it,
specially with kids running around, but if a CD or DVD dropped from
thete, I would still have my pictures. Statistically, because of its
nature, 100% of HD s WILL fail at some point in time. Cheers

A back up is what you have when you have 2 copies of each photo - one on
your main storage and one on another storage device.

If your photos were only on your external HDD then you did not have a
'back up'



Thats what I was implying. I actually meant to back them up before I
removed my drive to take it on holiday to see some rellies, never got round
to it. They should have been backed up to CD or DVD like the rest of them
were. The External HD is IMO a very fragile backup media, and not to be
relied on. Cheers

Michael J Davis wrote:
Iapetus was inspired to say
john d hamilton wrote:
In an attempt to delete all my duplicate photos all over the place on
my pc and external hard drive, I opened Picasa and went through all
the folders listed deleting the endless copies.
I wanted to create a 'backup' but was told it would need 2 dvds or
12 cds. since i only have cds (each 700mb capacity) and not enough
of them i thought i would transfer to 'My Documents' on my pc and
then go through all the photos once again deleting a lot of the not
so good photos.
For some reason only about a third of the photos have transferred to
my documents from Picas, and when i went back to the Picasa library,
all the duplicate folders have *returned* to the library list !
Which is very annoying since there are years worth and literally
hundreds of folders and i'm not happy to have to do it all again.
Could anyone give advice to a novice on what best to do here please?
My ultimate goal is to delete duplicates and then edit the number
down and then transfer to cd or dvd for safekeeping. Keeping if
possible the original number bytes of each photograph so I can do
some detailed editing in the future. Many thanks for any advice.


Dupe Detector, for finding... duplicates.

http://www.freeware-guide.com/rareware/DupDetector.html


Interesting; but having lost a whole weeks trip of photos a couple of
years back, (from copying to a temporary drive while reconstructing my
backups - it left two sub-folders uncopied) I need a no-dups detector
program that tells me that 'this photo is NOT backed up'.

Has anyone seen the equivalent software?

Mike


While not a windows gui program, I use Microsoft's robocopy within a
batch file to sync my image library.

For example, the following will copy all files and subdirectories from
my image library to the f: drive and exclude older and extra
files/directories that may be on my f: drive that are not on my main
image library.
robocopy.exe" \\serv1\camera_images\ F:\camera_images\ /S /NP /XX /XO
/NDL /R:2 /LOG+:d:\robocopy_CameraImages_serv700.log


--

Len

Interesting; but having lost a whole weeks trip of photos a couple of
years back, (from copying to a temporary drive while reconstructing my
backups - it left two sub-folders uncopied) I need a no-dups detector
program that tells me that 'this photo is NOT backed up'.

Has anyone seen the equivalent software?

In your scenario the original and the copy have an identical directory
sturcture, right?
Just do a recursive directory listing for each, redirecting STDOUT into
a file. And then use diff to compare the two listings. Tells you exactly
which directory entries are missing or additional in the second listing.

jue

Eric Stevens was inspired to say
On Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:03:42 +0100, Michael J Davis
wrote:

Interesting; but having lost a whole weeks trip of photos a couple of
years back, (from copying to a temporary drive while reconstructing my
backups - it left two sub-folders uncopied) I need a no-dups detector
program that tells me that 'this photo is NOT backed up'.

Has anyone seen the equivalent software?

It's possible to set it up for yourself if you are prepared to enter
the ancient world of the Command line. Windows still retains the
'Archive' attribute as part of the file data and you can set or unset
this either by a keyboard command or by a simple script.

Once you understand how it all works you will find it is not too hard
to write a simple script to manage your archives and report on what
has or hasn't been backed up.

Yes thanks, Eric, I used to be quite good at command line and batch
files. However, I'm under the impression that these deduping programs
search the whole directory structure and report on dups. I need
something that searches the whole structure and tells me that there
'isn't a dup' in the zipped archive or something. (I take your point
though re attribute flags.)

But you are right - I need a bit more lateral thinking on this.

Mike

--
Michael J Davis
Please note that the Reply-To: address will remain in use for at least 30
days, but the sender and from addresses are not valid.

l v was inspired to say

Interesting; but having lost a whole weeks trip of photos a couple
of years back, (from copying to a temporary drive while
reconstructing my backups - it left two sub-folders uncopied) I need
a no-dups detector program that tells me that 'this photo is NOT
backed up'.
Has anyone seen the equivalent software?
Mike


While not a windows gui program, I use Microsoft's robocopy within a
batch file to sync my image library.

For example, the following will copy all files and subdirectories from
my image library to the f: drive and exclude older and extra
files/directories that may be on my f: drive that are not on my main
image library.
robocopy.exe" \\serv1\camera_images\ F:\camera_images\ /S /NP /XX /XO
/NDL /R:2 /LOG+:d:\robocopy_CameraImages_serv700.log

Thanks Len, noted. I'll investigate.

Mike

--
Michael J Davis
Please note that the Reply-To: address will remain in use for at least 30
days, but the sender and from addresses are not valid.

Jürgen Exner was inspired to say
Interesting; but having lost a whole weeks trip of photos a couple of
years back, (from copying to a temporary drive while reconstructing my
backups - it left two sub-folders uncopied) I need a no-dups detector
program that tells me that 'this photo is NOT backed up'.

Has anyone seen the equivalent software?

In your scenario the original and the copy have an identical directory
sturcture, right?
Just do a recursive directory listing for each, redirecting STDOUT into
a file. And then use diff to compare the two listings. Tells you exactly
which directory entries are missing or additional in the second listing.

Yes that was what I'd set up, but have adopted something different now.
Need to rethink, perhaps!

Mike

--
Michael J Davis
Please note that the Reply-To: address will remain in use for at least 30
days, but the sender and from addresses are not valid.

"Just JT" wrote in message
g.com...



Corporates can't be stupid.


Solid and undeniable examples to the contrary would be off topic.


--
Peter