# what is the best way to store photos?



## Miss.Soul (Jan 30, 2013)

I have a 250 gig hard  drive on my netbook, and given that my camera takes pictures at 18 MP, and I use it for music also,  I am running out of room.  What is the best way to store photos? I have a few removable hard drives, I was thinking of storing on one and using the other as a redundant backup.  Does anyone have any other nifty solutions? I don't want to pay for online storage, I am a student on a limited income.  I would like to be able to take them with me without carting around removable drives, I don't trust those things, and I have seen them fail time & time again.

I was also wondering how to speed up deleting photos that didn't turn out.   It is not uncommon for me to take 500 pictures in an afternoon, but going through and choosing the best ones to keep can take a long time.  How do you guys do it?  Any great ideas for me?

thanks all, and I look forward to any input you have!


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## Sarmad (Jan 30, 2013)

The best way to store photos for me is:

Amazon.com: WD My Passport 1TB Portable External Hard Drive Storage USB 3.0 Black: Computers & Accessories


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## JDFlood (Jan 30, 2013)

Redundancy is the most important. Hard drives are the most reliable. Above recommendation is good. If you don't mind being a little geeky. This little device makes an internal drive work. You can get two or three drives and rotate for backup and storage. Also if you want to replace your internal drive with a larger one it will do a bit for bit copy and you can swap in a bigger  hard drive. ( then you do a simple but geeky resize of the partition so you laptop sees all the space. I have 2.3 tb of photos and nearly 1tb of music.. Hence am pretty good at this.



http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...kwCjCV1-CjCE&gclid=CIGPwJipkLUCFWPhQgodIR0ANw

JD


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## JDFlood (Jan 30, 2013)

On sorting photos. Sounds like you are new to this ( the math 500 photos times 18mb and you have a 259 gb hard drive). Most folks process there photos through a workflow. The best program for amateurs ( many pros use also) is Lightroom. It has facilities to rate, store, and process. If you are just pulling the files from you camera and not adjusting you are missing half the process. For instance any bright shot with clouds and dark landscape will look terrible out of the camera. A couple slider changes and you get the cloud details back and pull the silhouettes to colored detail. Lightroom also can the create different sized files. I do a full sized jpg and a web sized file, and on for my iPad (2500 by 1600). Lightroom is an amazing, built from the ground up for photographers unlike Photoshop which one might get once you want to go beyond Lightroom ( years if your just starting) . JD


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## .SimO. (Jan 30, 2013)

Redundancy you mean.  No problem with harddrives at all regardless of mirrors or solid states.  One thing you should do and I suggest to everyone is get two drives and setup a raid.  If you truly want redundant and high-available data, you need to setup a backup such as a raid.  Always have more than one option available.  And for the harddrives, I swap and transfer every 5 years. I just have too many old memories and documents saved on media that I don't want to risk losing.  And trust me when I tell you, a spare hdd setup as a mirrored backup is tremendously cheaper than having the platters lifted off, analyzed and transferred (regarding hard drives that use magnetic platters). 

Hope that helps.


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## KmH (Jan 30, 2013)

Miss.Soul said:


> It is not uncommon for me to take 500 pictures in an afternoon, but going through and choosing the best ones to keep can take a long time.  How do you guys do it?



I used my image editing software in 'light box' mode to cull the shots that were not usable.

As suggested, you need some external storage


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## ghache (Jan 30, 2013)

3 X 2 tb hard drives. mirror them until they are full. buy 3 more.

Work on 1, backup on the second and keep the 3rd off offsite as much as possible.


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## 12sndsgood (Jan 30, 2013)

sounds like the backup has been pretty well covered.  what are you taking photos of that you normally rip thru 500. is there really a need for that. when i first started doing portraits and such i thought i needed to shoot that much and then soon realised I was just wasting more time going thru them so I started slowing down and thinking about the shots I was taking and started coming back with half the shots i origonallywas taking and the shots were better.


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## Miss.Soul (Jan 30, 2013)

12sndsgood said:


> sounds like the backup has been pretty well covered.  what are you taking photos of that you normally rip thru 500. is there really a need for that. when i first started doing portraits and such i thought i needed to shoot that much and then soon realised I was just wasting more time going thru them so I started slowing down and thinking about the shots I was taking and started coming back with half the shots i origonallywas taking and the shots were better.



I still haven't taken any classes, once I have I am predicting I will take fewer and get the shot right the first time.  I mostly just play around, seeing as I really don't know how best to use it.  Then I end up with 4-10 of the same shot, and have to decide after which one I liked the most.  I am starting to be more discriminate and save only the best of the best.  I started off hoarding, but I now see why that will never work 

thanks for the advice all  I am definitely going to look into that program, Lightroom.


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## fokker (Jan 30, 2013)

Lightroom.


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## o hey tyler (Jan 31, 2013)

I store them in the 'fridge. ;-)


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## Awiserbud (Jan 31, 2013)

12sndsgood said:


> sounds like the backup has been pretty well covered.  what are you taking photos of that you normally rip thru 500. is there really a need for that. when i first started doing portraits and such i thought i needed to shoot that much and then soon realised I was just wasting more time going thru them so I started slowing down and thinking about the shots I was taking and started coming back with half the shots i origonallywas taking and the shots were better.



I agree with this, Its so easy to click away hundreds of shots at a time with digital, but it really is a fruitless excercise, take your time, think about the shot you want, and set you and your camera up to get it perfect, Its much better to have a dozen great shots than 200 average ones. 
Years ago when every click had to be paid for (film, developing, printing) you had no choice but to try and get it right first time.


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## skieur (Feb 8, 2013)

o hey tyler said:


> I store them in the 'fridge. ;-)



Why am I not surprised?:lmao:


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## skieur (Feb 8, 2013)

The most reliable back-ups that I have found are either the large thumb drives or the solid state drives because there are no moving parts.

skieur


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