How can I backup my RAW photos while travelling without Internet access?

Question

This question seems similar to this one, but my needs are different :

• I shoot in RAW exclusively
• I'm looking for a 100% offline solution: while traveling, Internet won't be accessible
• the "laptop" solution is too heavy for me: I'm looking for a lightweight solution
• the simplest, the better: one device to rule them all

EDIT: I'm using good old Compact Flash cards (yes, the bigger ones), so I need a device that can read it. If it can read from other cards, this question might be interesting for more people than myself - that's the whole purpose of the website.

Asked by Jean-Philippe Caruana

Answer

If I'm feeling paranoid about backing up, I use a Nexto DI, which can backup a card directly to its own internal drive.

It reads CF/SD/SDHC, doubles as a USB2/external SATA drive, and is much faster than most of the other similar products I could find. (There are a bunch of similar products available, but this one had the best reviews at the time, about 6 months ago.)

Answered by Matt Bishop

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Is version control software used for photos?

Question

I am a software developer at heart and by trade, and spend a lot of time in development tools... One of the more useful development tool types is version control, and for the uninitiated, it works something like as follows:

• Create a file
• Start working on the file
• Check in the file (create a version 1 of it)
• Open the file and edit again
• Check in again (version 2)
• Realize you deleted something important from version 1, go back in time, get the thing you deleted...
• ...
• Profit...

Anyway, I am wondering if something similar is used with photos? Essentially, I was thinking something along the lines of:

• Import Photos (V1).
• Start tagging photos (V2... XMP side cars should only really change here).
• Start adding stars, more tags (V3)
• Start adjusting some settings (V4+)

With the flow above, you should be able track a lot more changes... and give you some sort of backup strategy...

Asked by TiernanO

Answer

Photographic workflow applications such as Adobe Lightroom and Apple's Aperture provide this sort of history as a built in part of their functionality.

When you edit a RAW file in these, no changes are ever made to the original image. Instead, they are saved as 'instructions' separately. Thus, you can see a history of all changes made, and with a click of a mouse go back to any previous point in time non-destructively.

If you are just using Photoshop, then this does not happen, and you would have to manually save different versions of your photo before working on it each time.

(I'm guessing there's no reason you can't use an SVN repository for photos?? ie. Binary files?)

Answered by Mike

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Is anyone using version control software for photos?

Question

I am a software developer at heart and by trade, and spend a lot of time in Development Tools... one of the more useful development tool types is Version Control, and for the uninitiated, it works something like as follows:

• create a file
• start working on the file
• check in the file (create a V1 of it)
• Open file and edit again
• check in again (version 2)
• realize you deleted something important from V1, go back in time, get the thing you deleted...
• ...
• profit...

Anyway, I am wondering is anyone using something similar with photos? Essentially, i was thinking something along the lines of:

• Import Photos (V1).
• start tagging photos (V2... XMPP side cars should only really change here).
• start adding stars, more tags (V3)
• start adjusting some settings (V4+)

With the flow above, you should be able track a lot more changes... and give you some sort of backup strategy... Any one using something similar?

Asked by TiernanO

Answer

Photographic workflow applications such as Adobe Lightroom and Apple's Aperture provide this sort of history as a built in part of their functionality.

When you edit a RAW file in these, no changes are ever made to the original image. Instead, they are saved as 'instructions' separately. Thus, you can see a history of all changes made, and with a click of a mouse go back to any previous point in time non-destructively.

If you are just using Photoshop, then this does not happen, and you would have to manually save different versions of your photo before working on it each time.

(I'm guessing there's no reason you can't use an SVN repository for photos?? ie. Binary files?)

Answered by Mike

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How to properly archive Lightroom

Question

We've got 4 catalogs running on our production computer (Families, Weddings, Fashion, Personal). All of these catalogs contain images that we want to retain long term.

When our hard drive filled up, I moved all the original "raw" images over to our NAS (network attached storage) in order to free up space.

When we went back into the catalogs, we saw a "ghosted" folder of those pictures, since the raws were missing. Later, we needed to recover on of those images, and since it was on the NAS, all of the LR edits were lost.

I need a way to archive the images to the NAS, delete them from the primary computer, and still retain all of the Lightroom edits in case we need to recover the images.

What is the right way to achieve this?

Answer

The easy way: Use LR to move them.

1. Add the NAS folder to the folder list
2. Open the local folder in the library view
3. drag the images from the local folder to the NAS folder.

Note that this will lose the undo stack!

The better way: move them in the OS, then tell LR where you moved them to.

1. Quit LR
2. Do the move as you did, best to move the entire folder
3. Restart LR
4. in the Folder view you'll see the folder is greyed out with a question mark, right click on that folder and choose "find missing folder"
5. Navigate to the NAS and select the same root folder
6. wait.

Note that this is the way I highly encourage you to do it. And you will not loose your edits this way, or your undo stack. (At least I haven't, and I do that all the time.)

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What options are there for good, cheap online backup of data?

Question

What is a good and cheap solution for online backup of over 100Gb, probably growing to 200+ in about a year, and then no doubt more after that.

I am looking for something that can work in the background on a mac. I am using Aperture 3. The cost is the limiting factor. I have thought about an external HDD, but I want my data in another place to keep it safe.

Answer

There are quite a few different online backup options, such as Amazon S3, http://www.mozy.com, http://www.dropbox.com, http://www.carbonite.com...

• One of the better options given your information is an unlimited plan, these are getting harder to find, but Carbonite is one of the sites that does still offer this option.

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How can I backup my photos while travelling?

Question

I'm going travelling around the world for a year in September and am already panicking about how best to send my photos home while in various countries.

Requirements:

• I only need to backup JPEG files (I don't shoot RAW bu that's another thread ;) )
• I need to be able to upload in a web-based manner (I will be using internet cafes and so can't assume I can use FTP etc)
• I need plenty of space, preferably unlimited (I racked up about 200GB last year)
• I need to store the full image (no lossy compression is acceptable!)

Options I can think of:

• Burning and posting DVDs (can I trust these in the post and not to get corrupt? it may be better than waiting for upload speed though...)
• Flickr (I have a pro account but not sure how hard it'll be to get the photos back down again. Will I even be able to get the original snaps?)
• Setting up a server at a friend's house and hosting some kind of file server with a web-app front end

What have other people done or does anyone else have a better idea?

-Matt

Answer

Depends on how much you value your shots. Last year my wife and I took a 5 month photographic trip and we took:

• 1 Laptop: We had Lightroom to download and do a basic selection every night (out of focus pictures don't need to take any disk space!). Photoshop to do some basic retouches if we wanted to publish them on Flickr, etc. And a large enough HD to store the whole trip.

• 6 4GB memory cards: we numbered them and made sure to rotate them correctly so we kept the pictures in there the longest possible time as backup. We rather use more cards with less GB to diversify risk. If you are in the middle of nowhere and your only 16 GB card breaks you are SOL.

• 2 300GB USB HD: once the pictures were classified on the laptop we backed them up to one drive and mirrored on the other.

Online storage is not practical when you are travelling because of the time it takes to upload the amount of data you will generate. This way we felt very confident that we weren't going to lose any data, at any given time pictures were stored in up to 4 different places at the same time.

And to send home, select up to 5 pictures of each escapade and post them on Flickr. Selection is key.

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Methods for wireless real-time remote backups of images?

Question

This question was inspired by the recent question about Shooting Demonstrations and Political Events and the older How do you protect yourself at protests? question. It was originally posted as a comment.

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Has anyone come across an approach for making wireless, real-time, remote backups of images? Perhaps something along the lines of using an Eye-Fi card to send pictures to a cellphone that uploads them to a website? Or really any method that could prevent loss of images in the case of deletion or damage to equipment.

Answer

An Eye-Fi card in the camera coupled with a phone that can act as a wireless hotspot should do the trick. The Eye-Fi card will (based on your configuration) automatically upload the photos to a service of your choice such as Flickr, and the portable hotspot means that you'll have connectivity as long as you have cell coverage. For a hotspot there are several Android phones that offer the feature as well as the iPhone and standalone hotspots like the MiFi.

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