Image Storage Options

[Jocelyn Northey]

Hello dear cloud enthusiasts. How do you store your images?  I use Flickr, but it is not really what I want. I am trialling dropbox, but it is constantly telling me to login. I would like to add tags and notes to my images.

Thank you in advance, Joss N

[Michael Lerch]

JN..I store all my photos on a back up harddrive…actually everything on my computer is saved and stored on inexpensive tertabyte backup harddrive. Raw photos are catalogued by date taken. Processed photos are stored /coded by date taken, B&W/Color ,number and brief description: Cum, Asp, Len etc.  I gave the Flickr et al a chance a few years back but decided I didn’t need them.

[Jocelyn Northey]

Thank you for sharing your sysyem Michael. I thought that this was probably the answer and I have done the same in the past. After having difficulties with Windows 10 in 2015, both my partner and I changed over to Apple Macbooks. This meant all my old images are stored on portable drives, which are just another thing I have to worry about in the ever increasing event of natural disasters. Bushfires are a ever present threat where I live. I was hoping to find a cloud storage site. However I do think putting them on disc is the best thing to do.
I am intrigued by how you tag your images, which I must confess I have never done on a back-up drive. I do tag in Flickr. I use a Canon DSLR with various lens.
I am still struggling with Dropbox, but need to improve before spending another $200pa on subscription.

cheers, JN

[Hans Stocker]

Hello Jocelyn, I do it much the same as Michael described. But your wishes made me (re)think about my own way of doing it. So here are some more thoughts about it.

Your wish to tag pictures triggered me to do some research and therefore I checked the possibilities of Google Photos. Unfortunately I only found features to tag people in Google Photos. So there seems to be no possibility to tag a picture as pileus, sunset, mammatus, asperitas or whatever cloud classification. Please correct me when I am wrong. Nevertheless it is a safe way to store your pictures, since the cloud protects you against loss by a bushfire. When tagging is possible this seems the perfect fit to your wishes.

For the tagging and organizing your pictures Lightroom has the possibility to define your own keywords for any picture. Lightroom is not only a tool to develop and modify pictures but also a tool to organize your pictures. Finding an example of KH in your own collection will be easy when the pictures have their right keywords. In the case of LR an external backup device still is necessary to protect your pictures against loss in case of a calamity.

Are there more thoughts and practices on this subject?

[Jocelyn Northey]

Thank you Hans. Lightroom sounds close to what I want. After Michael replied I checked the price of both SSD and HDD in Australia. Here SSD cost upward from $200 and HDD not much cheaper at $120 for 1T. It seems Macs are more expensive here.

I was intriqued by Michael’s system of numbering images and that got me thinking of all my images strewn over many portable hard drives. Like Michael I also shoot in Raw, but for a more portable solution, I upgraded my phone to i-phone 11 Max Pro. Getting older it is hard to lug around a 3kilo camera when out walking. It seems a pity with all the renewed interest in photograhy via smartphones, someone hasn’t come up with a better storage system for avid special interest buffs, be it clouds, train or anything else.

I have tried Google Photo and run it on some of my devices. In the meantime I will trial lightroom and still think about backing up on an SSD

Cheers, Joss

[Jocelyn Northey]

Hi all! I downloaded Lightroom and subscribed to Lightroom Plan, but I am not sure if it is the right LR. This is the photo organiser and does not come with photoshop. However it does come with 1T of cloud storage. Hans mentioned that I might still need an external storage device. I had a 4 year old, never used 3T WD Passport for Mac, that I bought for my partner and it was never used. So today I decided to use it, but  found it is no longer compatible with Mac Catalina OS. It cost $350AUD so I am ultra annoyed.

Michael said he uses cheap disks, however there does not seem to be any cheap ones here that run on the Mac OS. Any suggestion of external devices that are compatible?

JN

 

JN

 

[Hans Stocker]

Hello Jocelyn, as far as I know LR classic has all facilities to develop pictures. You can switch between library functions and development any time (among others). I hope you have found it already. There is lot of tutorial material on the internet, but I once did a workshop (two times half a day time) to get started. It turned out to be an excellent investment since there are some things that are not that easy to find out yourself about organizing your pictures and development as well.

I am a windows user so I have no advise on compatible hardware.

[Jocelyn Northey]

Thank you Hans. I tried LRClassic this week, but it was rather clunky. So I went back to LR digital plan, which works on all my devices too. This one has its problems, but it is easy to use and it has great developing tools and organisation. This is a Cloud based system with 2t of storage. I rang the Apple shop during the week and they will mount my HDD for $60 or less.

[Hans Stocker]

That seems to be OK now Jocelyn. Success with using LR!

[Jocelyn Northey]

Thank you Hans and Michael for your advice. I am happy with Adobe Lightroom Plan with 2 T of storage. It has great developing tools and I can use it on all my devices. I would recommend this platform to anyone who needs to organise their images

 

JN

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