Image storing/organizing software?

[LactoBeeZor]

Goto:

http://www.cyberguys.com/

Search "media storage" and there is a CD carousel that hold 150 CDs. It seems to have a search capability for files. etc., that it uses to find the CD and "give" it to you. I have been looking at this for a while. I only have 7gig of photos, but this might be an option for you "File heavy" people. It even says you can link them togeather.

[jeaniesa]

Now THAT looks COOL!!!!

Jeanie

[Jim Conway]

Probably a naive question here - but are all of you people trying to keep "photo files" on your customer orders?
After too many years in business to count, the only records we try to maintain are financial and market analysis on several thousand active accounts.

As the images belong to the clients and are not our property, we deliver the final job either with the film negative or CD's as the case may be. I can see no reason to keep any of the images - other then the ones that I have releases on for use as samples and that amounts to no more than 600 total. The sample files are well edited for types of work to cover every conceivable kind of assignment that we are likely to run into. They are backed up on 4x5 film in a fairly unsophisticated file that amount to nothing more than hanging files in a fire safe.. The thumbs or photos being used in our literature are all that remains on the computer and I have yet to fill a CD with those!

Just another point on topic, when we farm out work to other retouching artists as some of you know we insist (with written agreements) that they destroy and/or return all work prints and other images. It's a matter assuring that the rights of our clients are not violated by someone sticking their photos up on some wed site or selling them without permission.

My personal photos amount to thousands in shoe boxes and/or scattered across a half a dozen hard drives and seriously doubt that those will ever get organized - but this wasn't about personal photos was it???

Jim Conway

[KevinBE]

Hey Jim. My current storage problem is my personal files. Although I had considered the future storage of customer data. You bring up some points I hadn't considered. I will rethink my plans to keep customer files. I will be glad to not have that headache. I can tell the customer, as I hand him the CD containing his originals and my finished work, that this is going to be the only copy and he should keep them safe.

I have only officially been in the business for less than 6 months so I can count the number of paying customers on my fingers and toes. I have been setting a good example for my customers and archiving all my family pictures, all that I can get my hands on, and have quite a large number of digital pictures.

You have offered some good advice. Thanks.

[LactoBeeZor]

Purely personal for me.

[Jim Conway]

Sounds like many of you have a great deal of experience using CD blanks and maybe can help me out here!

I'd like to know if you have a particular brand, color, etc that you use for photos (and/or audio) and what are the lasting qualities ...or, if your selection is not being made on lasting qualities, what criteria are you using?

Facts based on experience will be very much preferred but I'll be happy with a link if you know where I can find current truly unbiased information..

Jim Conway

[jeaniesa]

Hi Jim,

As to your first question, 90% of my CDs (and 100% of my photos/transparencies) are personal. The other 10% of my CDs are of work that I've done for clients and 25% of those I've asked for permission to use on my website as examples. The other 75% are all from the same customer and is a somewhat unique situation. Suffice it to say that the customer is happy that I am keeping copies of the images.

That said, you do bring up some good points. In the back of my head I've been feeling like I'll keep the CDs of clients work for a year and then destroy them, so if the client came back and wanted more copies, I wouldn't have to rework anything. (Knowing how many people misplace things, it wouldn't surprise me if they couldn't find the their CDs with the images on them.) I don't know where I came up with this idea. In any case, you've given me something to think about.

As for the CD media I use... a while back I purchased three spindles of Kodak Gold Ultima CDs. (They are no longer manufactured.) I'd heard that the gold coating lasts longer and use those CDs for special projects that I really don't want to use. (Actually, if I really, really don't want to lose the image(s), I save both to a Gold CD and a "normal" CD - better safe with duplicate copies than sorry! ) The only client's images I've put on the Gold CDs belong to the "unique situation" mentioned above.

For "normal" CDs, I've been happy with PNY, but I can't seem to find them anymore, so when I'm done with the spindle I've got, I'll look into one of the "better" brands listed in the link below. (I've also used both Maxell and Imation in the past and had quite a few CDs that I had to toss b/c they would burn with errors. I don't know if it was the media or my burning SW at the time.)

I always use the "verify data" option with my Nero burning software - and even then I'll recheck by loading in my CD-ROM drive if I'm paranoid about losing an image. So far, I haven't lost any data using Nero. (I can't say the same for Roxio Easy CD Creator, which I used up until a year ago.)

Here's a link that you might find useful:

CDR FAQ

Jeanie

[Jim Conway]

Wow that link sure answers a lot of questions - including some that I would never have even thought of asking! Thanks!

I've used PNY gold for the clients in the past but like your experience, can find them no longer.

As far as "keeping" their work is concerned, if it's not a job that provides film negatives, we do promise the client that we will keep their work on our computer for 90 days. Our purpose however, is not reorders but rather to give them the opportunity to check everything out and make sure that it all works well on their own equipment. (a real problem with DVDs)

Jim Conway

[KevinBE]

Like Jeanie I have been using the Kodak Ultima Gold CDROMs. I have found that the only company manufacturing the gold CDs using the same technology is Mitsumi. These are available from inkjetart.com and other places online but they are much more expensive than the Kodaks were. I think that they bought the rights to make these CDs from Kodak. I still believe that these are the most archival of any CDs on the market.

I am looking for an intermediate brand to use in everyday stuff. Storing customer data brings up another topic that I had on the back burner. I am going to have to compose a "Privacy Policy" and at that time will have to state what I am going to do with my customer data.

Jim you mentioned problems with DVDs. I am going to buy a DVD burner soon and want some input as to recommendations and pitfalls if possible.

[Jim Conway]

Kevin you said; "I am going to have to compose a "Privacy Policy" and at that time will have to state what I am going to do with my customer data."

Maybe we could get Doug involved in this with a section at RetouchPro on a proposed "Code of "Ethics" for the professionals here.

AIC spent about ten years coming up with some agreement that was acceptable to the members and as there is no association that I know of for "Pro Restorers", this forum may eventually lead to one and it wouldn't hurt to get an early start on discussing what would and would not be considered acceptable.

As far as the DVD is concerned, Sony's currently heads the pack in writing files that will play on just about all of the players out there. They recently had a price drop but are hard to find in stock anywhere.

Jim Conway

[KevinBE]

Jim that sounds like a good idea to get a "Code O Ethics" session here at Retouch Pro. I have already made some mistakes in my business through ignorance. I am learning all this from scratch and am self taught on bringing up a business. Advice and wisdom from others who know would be very valuable.

I just got out of a meeting with the Louisiana Department of Revenue. I was thinking that my restoration service and the initial one print wouldn't be taxable, but, I was wrong . I'm glad I didn't do a whole lot of business before this or I would have been out of pocket several more dollars than I hadn't counted on.

[roger_ele]

Hi

Why not just start a thread in the business section for code-O-ethics and etc.? If it becomes active / large enough I am sure a seperate section would develop from it. I just looked and it is titled Work/Jobs, maybe a slightly different title is needed like Work/Jobs/Business to encompass working, doing jobs and running a business.

Regarding the use of an image management program;

Ours is a photography studio, so we do portraits, wedding, restorations and some commercial. When we have digital images, we burn a CD and put it in a customer envelope with the name and job number on the envelope, filed by year. Job numbers are cross referenced on our customer database. If a customer wants to reorder we don't need an image management database system, we can look up their job number and go to the file.

One problem that I just found the solution to is that we sometimes get jobs that don't fit on one CD. The software is called Archive Creator and allows automatic spanning of multiple CD's which includes a thumb database of all of the CD's on the first or the last CD, no more searching through each one looking for an image. An image managment program could do the same thing but would not automate the process of splitting the files between CD's.

I am always looking for ways to improve our systems, here are the areas that I am thinking this might help in ...

-personal photos
-body parts for restorations from previous work
-from the customers that have given us permission to display the photos; an easy way to select photos for printing samples, or ads, or our web site ... etc...
-large jobs that are waiting for the customer to finalize the order, available for easy & quick browsing by the customer.
-Quick access to the images when the customer orders by phone for confirmation of orders. Cropping / retouching issues addressed easily at the time the order is placed (instead of having to call the customer back later).

That's my list, Roger

[jeaniesa]

Wow - Archive Creator looks great Roger! I think I'll be downloading the demo after I read just a little more. And the price is definitely right ($40)! Thanks for the tip.

Jeanie

[KevinBE]

Hi Roger, thanks for getting us back on subject. I guess we were wandering over to a completely different topic.

Archive Creator looks really good. Like Jeanie I will be downloading it and see if it is what I need. I like the approach the software is assuming it appears very much like the direction I need to be going in.

[KevinBE]

Well, Archive Creator will not do what I want. It is strong on creating CD archives, but it doesn't seems to be able to create a database of previously archived files that is accessable from your hard drive. It appears that you have to put the CD into the drive in order to be able to see the contents of that archive set.

For what it does, which is archiving files, it does that well. I would have to also buy another program to keep track of all the archive sets and be able to retrieve the file or theme of files that I want to see.

I want to features that Archive Creator has but I also want to be able to browse a catalogue of all my images and be able to quickly locate which CD they are on.

Guess I'll look at iMatch next.