Newbie question: How/where do you save your pictures?

[JollyRhonda]

Hi y'all! I just found this website today and I'm really excited! I'm fairly new to the digital photography world and totally new to the Elements world. I'm hoping I can learn a lot from these forums.

I've had Elements 6 (on Vista) for a couple of weeks and I'm slowly learning. I'm really trying to get all my pictures imported, tagged and organized in the Organizer, and then edited. I have some questions about how and where I should save my images, what format, what to keep what not to keep, etc. If you have any insight to the following questions I would greatly appreciate it!

-Before I loaded PSE I had all my pictures saved in the "my pictures" folder. Now that I've imported them, is there any reason to still have them in "my pictures"? Do most people only have their pictures stored in PSE? I bought an external hard drive to regularly back up everything in case of a computer crash, but I'm wondering about storage just on my laptop.

-All my pictures thus far are jpegs (I am thinking about switching over to shooting in RAW). I've been playing around with my jpegs in ACR and making adjustments (white balance, exposure, etc.). When I'm finished there, my only option is to save as a DNG file, or I can open it up in PSE and save how I want. Do most people save all their images as DNGs? I know thats the archival digital negative format and probably great for important pictures like weddings, client work etc., but is it necessary for everyday pictures? If you shoot in RAW do you save all your images as DNG or convert and save as something else?

-After I tweak in PSE how should I save my image? As a PSD file so I can preserve all the edits and layers? If I'm happy with my changes should I save as a tiff so it's uncompressed or as a high res jpeg? If I'm happy with my changes is it bad to flatten the layers before saving or not save as PSD file at all?

-If I save as a PSD file (or Tiff) do I then get rid of the original jpeg I started with? Do most people have multiple files of the same image or save as one 'master' version and then export copies of different types of files for specific use (like burning a CD or posting to the web)?

I guess I'm just wondering how people save their typical everyday images. There seem to be so many options and I want the one(s) that makes the most sense, while saving as much space as possible. As you can tell I'm totally new at this! Sorry for my novel-length post! :)

[dj_paige]

1. Your pictures are still in "My Pictures". They are not in PSE. PSE only contains pointers to your photos and small thumbnails, so you would not want to delete the pictures in "My Pictures". Definitely do regular backups of your photos and catalog, using the PSE command "Backup Catalog" to your EHD (or DVD or CD).

2. If you open the JPG in Camera Raw and edit them, I believe you can then click on the Open button and use the regular PSE Editor and save as either a .jpg or .psd.

3. The choice of format to save is up to you. If you save as .jpg, your layers are no longer saved as layers, so you can't really do more edits to your photo, but the file is much smaller than a .psd. If you save as .psd, you can go back in and tweak a layer(s) or do more edits, but the file is much larger than a .jpg. I usually save .psd only if I feel I might need to edit further. If I think I am done editing, I save as a .jpg

4. Never delete your originals. Never. Did I say "Never"? Yes, I said "never". If I need two different edited versions, say one for the web and one for a creation, that means I now have my original plus two edits, for a total of three files. You can always start over from your originals, but once the original is gone, its gone and that can be a problem.

[90volts]

I don't use the organizer or My Pictures to save anything.

I just create a folder on the desktop titled Photos. In that i have a folder for all original photos. all jpgs from the camera, web, etc.

if i am editing i will save it in another folder such as the event name, kids, car, etc.

if it is something like a card or an event promo or something like that i will usually save it as psd (to keep the layers and maybe be able to use it again with different picture layer or add more to it) and as a jpg for uploading, email etc.

if it's just for brightness, contrast, stuff like that then i'll just overwrite the original.

i use a lot of subfolders so i can find things easily.
suchs as photos - car club - events - july - alexs lemonade stand - captioned photos.

overkill maybe , but i find it easier.

[SharLamb]

Rhonda, if you only mentally process one piece of advice, make it #1 of Paige's post:

1. Your pictures are still in "My Pictures". They are not in PSE. PSE only contains pointers to your photos and small thumbnails, so you would not want to delete the pictures in "My Pictures". Definitely do regular backups of your photos and catalog, using the PSE command "Backup Catalog" to your EHD (or DVD or CD).


I lost a ton of scrapbook supplies when I was new to all this because I didn't realize it had to be filed on my hard drive...that PSE is just a pointer to where my stuff is really filed. I cried. . . and it was only scrapping supplies, not photos! I'm so glad it didn't happen with photos I shudder every time I think of what MIGHT have been!

Shar

PS: I store my photos in the software that came with my camera: Canon Zoom Browser...lets me make as many categories as I want...rename them easily, but 90 Volts' way--very simple/straight forward--sounds good to me too, especially for someone whose primary use of their computer is dealing with photos.

[Karin Sue]

Hi Rhonda,

Welcome to the village.

I store all of my photos on an external hard drive in my master "Photos" folder.
In that I have several subfolders: Family, Work, Volunteer Group, Scans, and Photo Projects.

In each of these are Year>Month folders. Some of the Month folders may have an Event or Photographer folder. Originals and edited stay in the same folder unless the edited becomes a photo project.

The Photo Projects folder has such subfolders as Collages, Calendars, Cards, etc.

I pretty much dump a photo where it belongs then all other organizing, categorizing, etc. happens in Organizer.

I recommend checking out www.photofanatic.com to understand how to use Organizer. It is written for 3 but the concepts are the same.