need, considering, of course, probable future increases in your railfan photo collection. As an example, after only 12 years of digital photography, my digital photo files total a little over 6000 photos, mainly ranging from 4mb JPEG’s from a 10mp DSLR to 186mb TIFF files for 24×30 inch color prints, for a total file size of about 170gb. As my decade-old computer has a hard
drive capacity of only 112gb, I long ago had to move all my “surplus” photos (such as original JPEG’s after converting them to TIFF’s, extra compositions of the same sub- ject, images that I might someday need for an article, etc.) to an external drive for stor- age, keeping only about 400 of my main pho- tos totaling about 28gb on the computer. But now, with those 170gb of photos along
with other backed up computer files, I have also almost reached my old external drive’s 232gb capacity. But my current 465gb portable drives each hold everything while leaving about 230gb of space still available for many years of future digital photo backup. In that DIGITAL HORIZON column on photo
archiving, I detailed the use of multiple CD’s/DVD’s; these are no longer an option for archiving large numbers of photos. Hav- ing only 700mb of capacity, CD’s will store maybe thirty or so 20-25mb images, and 4.7gb DVD’s maybe 200 images. Handling dozens of discs to archive a large photo col- lection will be a huge hassle.
Trackside Archiving If you carry a laptop with you on railfanning trips, you have the option of archiving new photos from your digital camera while wait- ing between trains, or at night in a motel. Not only can you load new photos from your camera into the computer, you can also use a USB thumb drive or portable drive to make an immediate backup of your new photos, as USB drives take their power from the USB connection in the computer rather than a power cord.
Archiving Negatives & Slides If you have also railfanned with film, you will probably want to scan your negative and slide collection (and darkroom prints) to digital files to protect them from loss by flood or fire. However, for a long time railfan with thousands of photos, this can be a daunting task. Edit them down to not in- clude duplicates and any less important photos and you will make your film to digital conversion for archiving easier. My 6000 im- age count I mentioned above does not include many more thousands of negatives and slides from over 40 years of photography, stored in plastic pages that I select from and scan only when I need the image for an image show, web use or submitting for publication. As an extra precaution, I have my most treasured negatives and slides stored in plastic pages in a ring binder, which I keep in a fire resistant safe. This too might be an option for you to consider to protect your physical photos.
A Good Filing System Makes Archiving Easier You do not have to backup all your photos every time you perform a back-up, only new photos you have taken. If you are fairly new to photography and are still dumping all your photos into your computer’s default lo- cation (such as “My Photos” or “Pictures Li- brary”), searching through hundreds or thousands of intermixed images in the one
folder to find specific images to backup or use will be very time consuming. In my DIGITAL HORIZON column on Filing
and Cataloging Digital Photos in the No- vember 2007 issue, I outlined a simple filing system you might use in place of your com- puter’s default location, by creating sub- folders (by railroad name, by train type, by location, etc.) under a main folder titled “TRAINS,” and using other main folders for vacation, family photos, and other specific subjects. Then when you take a new series of —say —BNSF coal train photos, you can save them into a “BNSF” or “COAL TRAINS” sub-folder, without having to search for them through all your photos in one big folder. You might also like to use one of the many
file management programs designed for ed- iting and categorizing photos for easy re- trieval, such as Adobe Lightroom, Apple Aperture, Picasa, and ACDSEE to name just a few (do a web search for “photo filing sys- tems” or similar words). As the photos created in your camera will
have a file number (“
img0003.jpg,
img0004.jpeg”, or something similar), you should rename them so they can be easily recognized when in your sub-folders. (Re- name your photos while they are all in the main “TRAINS” folder, before transferring them into the sub-folders.) Jim Boyd always cautioned to use as
much caption information as possible, espe- cially the date and location, for possible book or magazine use down the road. Jim was talking about writing on the slide mount, and of course digital cameras record at least the date and other information in the meta- data of the photo. But to this basic meta-data information you can add other details, and if you are naming a film image you have scanned, you will have to enter all the impor- tant information. Without this info a wanted picture might be useless to the publisher. Another consideration is to have your
photos endure past you. Having your photos filed logically with detailed caption informa- tion will make them more meaningful for your kids and grandkids, rather than just being a somewhat meaningless (to them) collection of train photos. (In genealogy cir- cles, this generation is known as the “lost generation” as they tend to keep all their family photos in their cell phones, without caption information!)
Data Recovery Services Often, your “lost,” mistakenly deleted or cor- rupted image files are not really gone, even if the disc has had other data recorded over them. Possibly, a “data recovery” service may be able to retrieve them for you. There are even free programs available on the internet that you can download and use at home. Do an internet search using “data recovery services” or similar wording to locate a re- covery service.
The Final Determination If you are like me, you may never feel totally secure about one day losing all your digital photos, no matter how many backups you have made (an uneasy feeling that was prob- ably never present with film, although it, too, can be easily destroyed by disasters and there is no convenient method for archiving film). The only solution to this uneasiness is to do all you can to protect your digital pho- tos, then go out trackside and continue shooting!
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