Storage of digital images

Apparently the initial thought that CDs would last for ever has been revised. I’ve certainly got a few that are unreadable, due to light degradation. Admittedly, they weren’t stored in a cool dark place and I’m sure dyes have improved over the last few years but I will certainly make multiple copies when I take them off the hard drive.
Snapper commented a few months ago that he re-archives every couple of years. I suspect that’s the way to go.

“Snapper, were you joking when you said “Photoshop 7, that’s a bit old isn’t it?”?”

Umm, no. It’s been replaced with CS (includes PS8) which therefore makes all previous versions into frisbees. So you’ll need £600 again i’m afraid.

Originally posted by TomB

With digi pics, are you meant to re-archive them everytime a new storage medium arrives? Floppy to CD to DVD…..in order to make them future compatible?

[/B]

Hi Tom,

From what I gathered from the article that can be found on dappa, the answer to the above question would be “yes.”

And I agree with the other points that you make in your post as well.

Cheers, Transall.

I am interested in digi photography, although I still have a 35mm SLR. I have one huge concern with digi pics that no-one seems to be able to answer.

Apparently a Kodachrome slide will last >100 years in cool conditions with no degradation. If you burn a CD with all your pictures, archive it & then find it in years to come, who is to say whether the technology will know what a CD or particular formatting is?

Witness the demise of floppy disks – i had some very old scanned images on a couple of floppies. Now I cant read them. it not the end of the world as they were just an experiment, but the principal applies.

With digi pics, are you meant to re-archive them everytime a new storage medium arrives? Floppy to CD to DVD…..in order to make them future compatible?

Call me a luddite, but there is a lot to be said for a physical image you can hold in your hand, put in cupboard & still know you will be able to see them in years to come. In our family, we have an old box of photos of relatives that goes back to 1900 or something that has been passed down the generations. Somehow I can see that happening with a CD.

Digi has its place, I am just not convinced its best for most people.

OK, I just checked. On www.dappa.nl you can still find the article on safely storing digital images.
Click on “news page”.
And it’s in English.:)

Cheers, Transall.

Hi,

Although I’m not exactly the greatest technical genius and I haven’t got a digital camera yet, I had a look at some of the storage possibilities.

My attention was drawn to it by a Dappa newsletter some time ago. Dappa is a small company owned by some Dutch aviaton enthusiasts. www.dappa.nl
In this newsletter there was link to some interesting on-line articles about storing digital images.
Some things there are really amazing: like a CD-ROM that became useless after 2 years because of a reaction with a label.

I’ll check if the link can still be found.

Snapper, were you joking when you said “Photoshop 7, that’s a bit old isn’t it?”?

Cheers, Transall.

Photoshop 7? That’s a bit old isn’t it?

The Pioneer 106 is a great DVD Writer, and I gather they have brought out a newer faster one. If you save images as jpeg onto a CDR you should be able to play them on your DVD player too.

Makes sure you keep AT LEAST 2 copies of all important stuff.

Indexing of your CDs, complete with thumbnails, could be done with a program such as Microsoft Access. If you already have a copy, then you’ll find templates to do just that somewhere – online or maybe even in the standard templates. It would be too expensive to buy just for this purpose, however.

I believe, because you have to store the thumbnail within the database, there is likely to be an auto image shrinking function built in (there certainly is in MS FrontPage, as I use it all the time).

Heres a link to a few Art & Photographic Templates for Microsoft Access.

I haven’t looked at these, so can’t vouch for them.

Its worth mentioning that Jasc also sell indexing software, heres a link to their Paint Shop Pro Photo Album which is probably very good value, and downloadable. There’s an evaluation copy available free too.

Also, if you’d like to contribute to helping Avro Vulcan XH558 get back in the air, visit my website – where you can buy a DVD RW drive or DVD/CD RW – either of which would be very useful. 2% of the purchase price is donated to the cause, if you click on the appropriate link there. The actual items are accessible via the RAMMSHACK Catalogue.

Thanks Moggie, I’ll keep a lookout for this ‘Photoshop 7’ product(available from all good retailers etc) and I’ve changed my mind about buying that dwarf on your advice.

Originally posted by Seafuryfan
if there an easy way to change say, a 3 megapixel image into a smaller size image to so I can email it?

You can set this up as an ‘Action’ in Photoshop 7 and then set the program to batch process an entire folder-full automatically.

Moggy

A good question – an area that I have just entered into with the purchase of my first digital camera. I’ve got all these aviation images off the internet (for my own use). I’d also like to know of a good way of storing them. Simply burn the directories onto a re-writable CD and then update them periodically?

While I’m here, Chris do you mind if I ask if there an easy way to change say, a 3 megapixel image into a smaller size image to so I can email it?