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iPavements Guide to Photography continued

Archive AND Retrieval


Have you ever gone through every drawer and cabinet in your office to find "THE" picture. The one you know you have and that would be perfect for that new presentation? We all have. No matter how you capture your images and store your images, you must use a system that provides safety for the images and easy retrieval. You don't have to use our methods, there are many sources of information on the web, at your bookstore, and your local camera shop.

The key to easy retrieval is consistent filing methods. You must have a system that works for you and your associates.

  1. Now.

    The best time to plant a tree was 30 yrs ago, the next best time is now. Its the same with your filing strategy. Start yours today. Every image you make from now on will adhere to the new filing strategy. Don't worry about last year's images now. You can go back and incorporate older images into your system as you have time. (winter and rain days are perfect for this)

  2. Have a Key.

    You need some way to make your images unique. How do you think about your work? Do you think in terms of projects? Do you think in terms of system or process? Its important to understand how you naturally think of things. The way you naturally organize now will probably be the way you naturally organize five years from now. And that's when retrieval is important. We can all find last week's pictures. We suggest that you use three keys on all of your images.

    • Date
    • Client
    • Project

    Unless you have a few well defined clients, we recommend sorting by date. Then by client, using the project as a discriminator. If you have a very finite client list, use that and then store by date. Just be consistent. If you have separate divisions within your organization that have sufficiently diverse work which is done independently, you may also sort with that. Grading, paving, crack sealing may all be ways for you to store and retrieve the images.

    Date. This is the date you take the picture, not the date you file it. The precision of the date will depend on the scope and size of the work. For some, the year will be sufficient. For others, the day is significant. Until you find that it is extraneous, keep records down to the day. You can always discard information later.

    Client. For those that need to reference multiple projects for one Client in a given year, the Client key will be helpful.

    Project. Define the project in way meaningful to you and your associates. This may be by project number or just the name of the road. Make it something that will be significant and memorable five years from now.

  3. Have a Plan.

    Your original image format will determine the best way to store your images. The usual formats are transparencies (slide film), negatives (print film), and digital.

    Transparencies. For many of us, those who remember Carousel trays, slides where the only game in town. These are easy to store and sort with nothing more than a window or good reading lamp. Nothing wrong with slides. They can be scanned for electronic use, often at process time, and are ideal for printing needs. We recommend using the hanging letter sized clear pages which hold 20 slides. They fit in a standard file drawer and have space to write details for retrieval. These can always be scanned at high resolution for any need in the future.

    Negatives. These are a blessing and a curse. You can get print film nearly anywhere. You can drop your film off while at the mall, and its ready before you leave. Most labs offer (and we recommend) a CD with your images in addition to your prints. Negatives can also be scanned by any future technology for any use. The problem is that you now have three formats that need storage. The negatives themselves, the prints, the CD, and of late a mini-proof of the whole roll on one 4x6 print. What to do? Divide and conquer!

    We recommend that all negatives be processed at a lab offering a high quality CD of your images. The mini-proof isn't a bad idea either. Store the negatives and one copy of the prints in their processing envelope. Write your 3-4 keys of date, client, project, and any additional keywords on the envelope. (Yes, some of these have no space to write or are made of plastic so that you can't write on them. Your lab may have alternate envelopes. ask) Some of the envelopes have a window in front for one picture. This is where the mini-proof is helpful as a visual reference. File by date. You can get boxes made for storing the envelopes at the home center. You can pass around the 2nd prints as you like.

    Use the CD as your image. Write the corresponding key data on the CD so that when you need it you can find the original negative. Use the CD as if it were a copy of a digitally captured image as below. Once transferred to your computer, the CD becomes your backup.

    Digital. Digital is easy. Easy now that good quality cameras are available in every budget. Easy to store on CD or DVD. Easy to reproduce since its just an electronic file. We recommend digital to most people who are looking for a new camera. Depending on your use, you will need several memory cards, a card reader, a Cd or DVD burner, and of course a computer. All of which is pretty standard business equipment today.

    Unless you take a great number of pictures, storing current pictures on your computer with a CD backup makes sense. Hard Drives are relatively cheap and CD burners are common. Some people who do take many pictures off load them to a DVD for simplification. If you find yourself taking a great many pictures, software is available to catalog them.

    After taking pictures, download them to your computer by either connector cable or memory card reader. Place them into a new folder. Name the folder with your key words. We recommend the following format. yyyymmdd_client_project. An example of this is 20050214_washingtonco_rt1228. This signifies pictures taken on February 14, 2005 on Washington County's RT 1228. We order the date to take advantage of the typical sorting order of your computers directory. You can quickly see the newest or the oldest with one click. This also avoids finding all pictures taken in May of any year being lumped together due to the MMDDYYYY system typically used in the US. We use all lowercase letters to avoid problems on different storage systems. We also use the underscore instead of a space for the same reason. We use this naming system internally for the all of the above reasons.

    Immediately burn a CD and open it to make sure it works. Only then can you erase the camera's memory card. If you have software that supports batch renaming, rename the individual files. We use the folder name with the exposure number appended. You can also rename manually if desired, but it isn't necessary. Use the newly created folder as a storage area only. If you need to manipulate the image in any way, make a copy first and work on the copy.

    After editing a number of pictures for a presentation or other use. Burn those edited pictures to a CD for storage. Label it properly with a reference to the original folder.

  4. 2-fer.

    There are 3 guarantees in life. 1)death, 2)taxes, and 3)your Hard Drive will fail. Use the iPavements 2fer Rule. You have to have 2 good copies in hand of all digital files before you erase any files. After you have the files on your Hard Drive AND a CD, you can erase the memory card. After you have your original CD AND a second CD burned, you can erase the files from your Hard Drive. Store these CDs in 2 separate places.

Finally, when in doubt, fire the shutter.

Much of the work we do happens once. if you have any doubt whether to capture an image, fire the shutter. That extra exposure or two might just be the ones you use most often. They can fill gaps, answer questions, and can provide a historic record for your company. We are in an industry that builds engineering monuments everyday, they're just not very tall.