I was just flicking through Lightroom, and noticed a few frames that I’d missed from the trip the other week, also there was a quickedits folder with a few images that I edited quickly to see there possibilities. That was alongside the RAW workflow folder, and the original RAWS, and then my dated folders, and my POSTS folder with the 4 images that are used to make a post here in Moveabletype.

To say that filing is a nightmare at the moment is an understatement, and to be honest if it wasn’t for the brilliant OSX Time Machine remembering to back everything up with out me thinking I am sure I’d loose track of things pretty quickly with my images.

I have started rebuilding the file structure on my Drobo, and then I’m going to do a master rebuild of the Lightroom Catalogue once I have everything in date order. I am sure there must be a quicker way to do this, but I cant think of one. Its almost like an OCD moment, and whilst I’m worried about it, I loath the thought of sitting there re-organising files, but I guess I need to do it. Am I the only person with a photo filing nightmare?? I know that Lightroom itself reads files in by date and re-organises itself but it makes it an issue if I need to scour the drive manually. I have now decided on the following file ordering workflow.

On the laptop I’ll have a RAW Files Folder / 2009_02 / 090201 / [files] / [titled post folder] structure on my laptop, then on the Drobo the same structure which will actually be one month behind my current laptop files. The laptop is docked for 8hrs a day, and Time Machine runs 100% successfully at the moment, so I’m happy with the backup it creates. I have also archived one complete TM Backup and stored it away, and rotated one month giving me two months of Full and Incremental restore options. I do as a matter of course transfer the RAW files to the Drobo pretty much straight away, so at the moment feel confident in my backup routine. The home PC uploads to MOZY Online Backup and whilst its slow, it happens overnight when we arent using the Network, so thats fine also. I have completed 20GB so far so only 880GB to go 😉 (about 4 months I recon), and whilst it sounds like madness, when it completes the incrementals should be relatively quick. So there you go, my Friday morning thoughts for the day!….

This image was one that I spotted, being post Xmas i assumed it was a random decoration left behind by a party reveller, but later found out it was a sea wall memorial for someone that had been a little too close to the edge and was taken out to sea…… I guess the huge sea wall and the KEEP OUT signs should have been warning enough, but obviously not. Makes you think eh!…….. csj

• taken|10 january, 2009
• camera|Canon EOS 5D
• lens|17-40 f4 L series
• focal length|40mm
• aperture|f/8
• shutter speed|1/125s
• shooting mode|Aperture
• exposure bias|0 ev
• metering mode|pattern
• iso|100
• flash fired|No
• image quality|RAW
• raw converter|CS3 + FDRTools
• cropped|yes slight