slmkhoo:

floppy:

[quote=\"floppy\"]2. Image management software

- If you are a Mac user, you have one of the best option available for free - Photos for Mac.
- If you are not a Mac user, or would prefer something else, you can consider https://www.adobe.com/hk_en/products/bridge.html, which is also free. However, Adobe Bridge relies on a structure / system that you set up (for good examples, see slmkhoo or Zeit post before) and doesn't auto help you sort the photos out.

BTW, while the structure suggested by slmkhoo or Zeit is good, it's still a very old school way of doing things, and fairly ineffective when managing large library. Using folders, you are limited to a linear structure. Until the AI is smart enough to sift out the photos I want using some descriptive words I have in mind (Photos for Mac does a reasonable job), a better way of doing things would be using \"tags\" or \"keywords\". With \"tags\" or \"keywords\", you can simply park all your photos chronologically in a simple structure like \"2016 > August\" and find them using search. Good \"tags\" or \"keywords\" are descriptive words, e.g. Australia, Paris, Eiffel Tower, Husband, Son, etc that's closer to the way our brains work to remember things.

ammonite:

yes, furiously taking note! In fact I am doing both right now after reading through all the suggestions - label photos and adding tags plus colour coding! I typically have folders, but because we have photos from various devices and different people for the same time frame, I have been in photo crisis. I decided to start with one source before crossing with other sources and color coding/tagging for different destination before finally pruning everything down. Hope I can keep it up for this one album. :faint:

floppy:

floppy:

2. Image management software

- If you are a Mac user, you have one of the best option available for free - Photos for Mac.
- If you are not a Mac user, or would prefer something else, you can consider https://www.adobe.com/hk_en/products/bridge.html, which is also free. However, Adobe Bridge relies on a structure / system that you set up (for good examples, see slmkhoo or Zeit post before) and doesn't auto help you sort the photos out.

BTW, while the structure suggested by slmkhoo or Zeit is good, it's still a very old school way of doing things, and fairly ineffective when managing large library. Using folders, you are limited to a linear structure. Until the AI is smart enough to sift out the photos I want using some descriptive words I have in mind (Photos for Mac does a reasonable job), a better way of doing things would be using \"tags\" or \"keywords\". With \"tags\" or \"keywords\", you can simply park all your photos chronologically in a simple structure like \"2016 > August\" and find them using search. Good \"tags\" or \"keywords\" are descriptive words, e.g. Australia, Paris, Eiffel Tower, Husband, Son, etc that's closer to the way our brains work to remember things.

floppy:

2. Image management software

- If you are a Mac user, you have one of the best option available for free - Photos for Mac.
- If you are not a Mac user, or would prefer something else, you can consider https://www.adobe.com/hk_en/products/bridge.html, which is also free. However, Adobe Bridge relies on a structure / system that you set up (for good examples, see slmkhoo or Zeit post before) and doesn't auto help you sort the photos out.

Zeit:

I have some on CDs as well. Those were digitised by Professional studios several years ago, but the resolution isn't too good due to the age of the negatives.

Zeit:

But I wonder how you guys copy and paste over to the new Hard Disk? E.g My UK trip has 10K photos. So I still need to copy & paste them batch by batch onto my laptop first, then to the new Hard Disk. How tiring...


Need to stop taking indiscriminately of every darn pie, every darn cake in various angles.

Zeit:

OK, your images are of hi-res I suppose? How big are each of your images? Must be 2 MB at least to look so good after a decade?

sean wife:

I envy those whose kids love to be photographed...for reasons unknown to me, my kids do not like being photographed at all.. they rather make ugly faces when ‘forced’ to take pictures..I find it a pity when they are not cooperative to let us take pictures of them when the scenery is so nice, but to them they don’t see any meaning in taking these pictures at all.

slmkhoo:

Zeit:

[quote=\"pirate\"]A backup should be kept in another place too, like a safe deposit box. In case of, good forbid, a fire at home.

Fire. Now you got me worried.
But if I keep transferring files to a new hard disk, wouldn't my photo resolution worsen? They get lossy, don't they?

Zappy:

Zeit:

Someone told me if you keep transferring image files, the resolution will drop over the years.

If you simply copy the digital files, they won't drop in resolution. It's basically the exact same file copied to another location.

I think what they mean is that if you open up the file in some program and re-save it again, there may be losses depending on the compression settings on the program.

Zeit:

Someone told me if you keep transferring image files, the resolution will drop over the years.

slmkhoo:

Zeit:

[quote=\"pirate\"]A backup should be kept in another place too, like a safe deposit box. In case of, good forbid, a fire at home.

Fire. Now you got me worried.
But if I keep transferring files to a new hard disk, wouldn't my photo resolution worsen? They get lossy, don't they?

slmkhoo:

No need to write a guide! I use a very simple system:
1) Each year's photos in a folder, eg. 2001, 2002...
2) Each photo labelled: eg. 03_SIN001_xxx; 03_SIN002_xxx; 03_MAL001_x...
(ie. March_Singapore no.1_xxx, March_Malaysia no.1_xxx etc)
3) If there are a lot of photos of a particular event, eg. a vacation, I may put them in subfolder within that year's folder.

The main thing that's important to me is to make sure that the photos will line themselves up in chronological order on my computer, so the month always comes first in the filename. Then I order them by using numbers. If I want to insert photos into the sequence later on, I add a letter, eg. 03_SIN001a_description. The problem is when we can't remember when something happened, or which year we took a particular photo. But we can mostly remember the time to the nearest year or month.

The hard part is retrospectively scanning the thousands of photos, and being disciplined to prune and file new photos before they get too many and overwhelming.

sean wife:

Ammonite/slmkhoo,


For me, photos are also just for memories’ sake. But actually I realise we hardly have time to look back at all the past photos we have taken on our holidays. My kids are weird…they don’t even like to be photographed even if I don’t ask them to pose or smile. When I just snap them in action and they notice it, they will even ask that I delete those photos! As if they are some big movie stars and I am the paparazzi right…lol

Not sure if it is because they are rather sensitive to light, and when they were younger, some relatives have taken pictures of them using flash…and that put them off the experience of being photographed.

Zeit:

pirate:

A backup should be kept in another place too, like a safe deposit box. In case of, good forbid, a fire at home.

Fire. Now you got me worried.
But if I keep transferring files to a new hard disk, wouldn't my photo resolution worsen? They get lossy, don't they?

slmkhoo:

ammonite:

@slmkhoo, thanks for the wonderful tips! I am going to use them today! What type /brand of external hard disk do you use? I am using an old one and the thought of it crashing never occurred to me. so yes, I am going to back up my backup.


@sean wife,
Personally I prefer candid shots, catching the kids at their most natural. I have photos of them at their activities and in different emotions especially when they were young - I think that capture the moments much better. I don’t really like to look at pages and pages of faces smiling at the camera.

I do of course also have semi posed and posed photos. For my child who used to dislike taking photos, what changed for him was realising there were fewer photos of him than of his brother. He was jealous but I laughed and pointed out to him that it was because he didn’t want any. Thereafter he would ask for photos to be taken at places that he wanted to remember.

I never noticed the brand, and it varies. I know we've used Toshiba before, and the current ones are Lacie and WD (whatever that stands for). My husband buys them, and I just use whatever I'm told to! Take note that even backup disks can deriorate with age, so my husband replaces ours every 5 yrs or so.

I also prefer candid shots, but we will take some posed photos now and again. My kids haven;t complained because I take so few. My photography is for record purposes, to jog memories, not for artistic merit. I don't really enjoy taking photos, but my husband is worse!

pirate:

A backup should be kept in another place too, like a safe deposit box. In case of, good forbid, a fire at home.

sean wife:

Ammonite/slmkhoo,


For me, photos are also just for memories’ sake. But actually I realise we hardly have time to look back at all the past photos we have taken on our holidays.

ammonite:

@slmkhoo, thanks for the wonderful tips! I am going to use them today! What type /brand of external hard disk do you use? I am using an old one and the thought of it crashing never occurred to me. so yes, I am going to back up my backup.


@sean wife,
Personally I prefer candid shots, catching the kids at their most natural. I have photos of them at their activities and in different emotions especially when they were young - I think that capture the moments much better. I don’t really like to look at pages and pages of faces smiling at the camera.

I do of course also have semi posed and posed photos. For my child who used to dislike taking photos, what changed for him was realising there were fewer photos of him than of his brother. He was jealous but I laughed and pointed out to him that it was because he didn’t want any. Thereafter he would ask for photos to be taken at places that he wanted to remember.