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I have a A80 and I'm using hoto elements 2. Please keep in mind that I'm new at all this, but I am a experience computer user.
What is the best way to organize and name your photos? Do you store them on your HD or move them to a CD? Do you need a program such as Photo Album or do you recommend other ways? This may seem to be a simple question, but I can't seem to figure it out.

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Decide upfront thats the key, because its really hard to change systems when you have already started another...

There are alot of ways of doing it. If you have the time or money there are some really nice programs out there that fellow photographers in the stock industry are using that allow you to give a photo a SS# and then give numerous captions of BUZZ words to search under. But my use with them is limited...

Other photographers organize by date, I find this works well unless you take a tramendous amount of photography this it can get crazy trying to find a specific shot.

The method I am current using is a no brainer I adpted from some of my stock industry friends. Mainly I break all my photos down into major groups (Ex: Animals, Senics, Travel, Family, Sports, & so on). Some of these will overlap such as travel and senics, but thats a con I have decided to live with. Then from there I break it down as far as I need (Ex: Animals-Birds-Wild-American Gold Fench-winter-on cedar branch). You are probably getting the effect here.

This works good because it allows me to easily expand. Orgianlly you may only have 3 bird photos so a bird folder works. Then say you get some more and need to devide them. And as your stock grows you can easily expand and find a wanted photo. And if your looking by date, windows can easily search that out for you...

As for storage medium I am currently using external hard-drives since they allow me to carry them with me if I travel or such. It also helps me from clogging up my operating system HD. I usually run a back to multi CD's or DVD's about every 2 months which I store elsewheres incase of a fire or something, but thats really a personal choice if its worth your time...

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I do not think anyone has totally "figured it out". There are so many possible solutions all of which have strong and weak points that the final solution has to be what feels natural to you.

filing system

A good start is the free copy of Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0SE.

http://www.adobe.com/support/downlo....jsp?ftpID=2176

This will allow you to tag your pictures with labels to use for a quick search. Even the full version of album has gotten mixed reviews. It has good points and is missing many features other people feel are necessary.

I expect that as Adobe gets feedback from users, that future versions of the software will keep getting better.

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For storage

Hard disk storage is the fastest retrieval system. The biggest problem is disks have a limited usable life. Usually rated at about ten year lifespan, I have crashed so many disks in the last 30 years that I will not trust a disk longer than 5 and often not that long. Laptops have a useful life of even less. I think 2-4 years is the most you should trust.

End result is keep backup copies. A second hard disk in your computer is one solution. A second removal hard disk is another popular solution, and writting to CD roms and DVDs are the third method.

A second disk in the computer will not protect you form thief, fire or flood that destroys the computer. It will protect you from software or disk crashes on the primary disk.

A removal disk is more convenient, but will give you more protection only if it is stored separate from your computer equipment. Since getting it and hooking it up to the computer is tiresome bad habits develope into keeping it attached to the computer and thereby losing its advantage.

CD roms are very cheap and good storage with a 5-10 year lifespan. The technology however has a life span of even less. You should expect to see CD technology to disappear in the next few years like floppy disks have gone. Just expect to need to move your images to whatever is the replacement sometime in the future.

DVDs hold more imformation on a disk. They are more expensive and have a slightly less life expectancy than CD roms. There are competing formats R; +R; DVD ram and again the technology will disappear in about 5 years. HDVD is alreading hard in development.

Considering each item will help you chose what is good for you. I had a small disk and was moving everything to CD roms. I just installed a big disk and now use it for everything and still make two copies of everything I want to save. One copy to keep at home and a second copy to be stored somewhere else.

Everytime florda has a hurricane people first (after family) go to save their photo albums. The memories are irreplacable. Store an extra copy of CD roms away from your home and you are protected from fire, flood or other disasters. And it is very cheap.

I do not see any advantage in DVDs except smaller storage space, which is not important to me.

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jerry

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