Warbird Information Exchange

All the images that Jack has posted has got me thinking about how I should be storing my images

Since, most have converted to digital cameras the issue of storage and more importantly image retrieval is one of my current problems

So I ask, What program do you use to catalogue your images? Does the app help you find what you need in a timely fashion. Is robust metadata the key or the lack thereof on my part the missing ingredient?

Just curious since owning a digital camera my stored pics are well over 15000. At this point I have now way of gathering all images of a specific aircraft, let alone a specific aircraft type without spending an exhaustive amount of time searching through folders

I am always looking for a better way to archive, currently I'm just making a folder for the event I attended. Having finally given up on PCs, I have the added difficulty of trying to learn general workflow items on a mini MAC.

Jack or others any tips would be appreciated, trying to get a handle on this before I compound the problem next airshow season.

Warren

Good Question!

I want to know as well.

Z

The magic word is external hard drive.
I've got 4 loaded so far.
I'm hoping to get everything scanned and in a
appropiate file soon and of course everything
from the archives is in a digital format. I scan each
photo has a 600 dpi tiff and score them in the external.
I keep a smaller jpeg thumb on my computers hard drive.
If my computer crashes everything's still safe. Of course
I have about a million disks from before I got the externals.
Now thy're back for the back-up.

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Don't touch my junk!!

Gentlemen,

NARA (National Archives) is transfering all electronic digital images on to color film for long term preservation. I am told a digital card will only preserve an image without loss of detail for 70 years?

Any suggestions on how to transfer a digital image from a card to film?

Norman Malayney

I think what Normal is asking, is that now that more and more photos are being digitized, what software is being used to catalog those photos, ie. What are you using to keep information about a particular photo with that photo so that it can be found easily, or at a later date.

With a printed photo, you can easily write any relevant information on the back of the photo. With a .GIF or .JPG image that is impossible. I too have wondered for a long time what would be the best way to be able to retain this information in digital form.

When I scan a photo if there's a caption on the back I do a low res scan of the back of the photo.

_________________
Don't touch my junk!!

Jack,

You should be using metadata to store the caption information along with the digital file. You can enter all sorts of info into about as many fields as you want: copyright, phone numbers, dates, source, captions and keywords, that will make searching for a particular photo a no-brainer. Meta data can be entered using Photoshop in its IPTC editor. Other programs exist that are specifically designed for Digital Asset Management. I use I View Media Pro. Apple has Aperture. There are several books available on the subject, but "The DAM Book" is recommended. (Digital Asset Management)
As far as back up is concerned, all my files are backed up on at *least* 2 hard drives, and at least 2 dvd's. There are big differences in HD's and DVD's. I have standardized on Seagate SATA drives in removeable bays. Its easy to do a backup and store one copy off-site.
The jury is still out on life expectancy. Cheap CD's can fail in a matter of years. DVD's are reputed to be more reliable, but my files are so big that CD's are worthless anyway.

While I haven't put a GOOD backup plan in place, I have spent some time organizing my photos into a unified structure which makes it easy to know exactly where a given subject would be located. I still need to search through the dedicated folder for a specific airframe, of course, but it's not as bad as just leaving everything in an /AIRCRAFT PIX folder. Here's an example of a file path on my home machine:

\Photos\Aircraft\US\USAAC\P-51\P-51D\(filename.jpg)

There's probably tons of other ways of going about it, but this seems to work well for me. One last thing... I do try to adhere to a consistent naming format for the files where possible, including as much info as I can in the file name (you get 255 characters, make'em count!).

Hope this helps!

Lynn

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Wisdom, courtesy of shrike: "In aviation, as well as marriage, it's often just as important to be seen to be doing something as is to do it properly in the first place."

This is a question that I have been wrestling with ever since I took in a collection of ~60,000 aircraft slides that I need to scan and catalog together with my own collection of ~10,000 slides, negs, and a few digitals. Quite often there is a lot of information that I would like to associate with each image -- pretty much the entire contents of its Warbird Registry entry, say, plus all the when/where details of the photograph -- and I do not want to type/maintain/update this information 60 times if I have 60 pics of one aircraft (which is why metadata is not the answer). So here's the solution I have come up with.

The organization of the pics on disc is not so important, provided you know where to save each new pic you add. Personally I save the pics to disc in subdirectories by manufacturer and with filenames consisting of [type] [a/c serial/ID] [photo #], thus my first catalogued picture of the EAA's XP-51 would be "P-51 41-038 01.tif" in the North American directory and when I save a new one I just change the last number. Nothing special there.

But to keep track of everything, I create what amounts to an intranet site of HTML pages. My "home" page lists all manufacturers, each of which has its own web page. So I have a North American HTML page which consists of links to each NAA type that I have pictures of. On each of these individual plane pages (e.g. P-51) is a list of all P-51s that I have pictures of. On each of those pages (e.g. XP-51 41-038) is all the info I want to store on that plane plus a set of thumbnails of all the pictures that I have of that plane. Those thumbnails are organized under headings for each occasion when the plane was photographed (OSH 76 pics, OSH 77 pics, etc.) so that information is also preserved; and the thumbnails link directly to the archival tif file on the disc. Each page has backward links so you can work your way back up to the top again, like a good web site. All of these HTML pages are kept in one single directory so they don't get mixed up with the photos.

It is laborious to create all these web pages, but web page creation tools are easy nowadays and once you set up templates for the pages you need, it's just a matter of copying and changing a few details. My system has the following advantages:

- Each piece of data is stored only once. When something happens to an aircraft, like a change of ownership or an accident, I update its page once.

- Easy navigation. Just like a web site, using the web browser.

- Cross-referencing is possible. Say I wanted to be able to find photos by event rather than type. No problem; I can just create an OSH-76 page and hotlink it to those headings on the individual aircraft pages for everything photographed at OSH 76. Same would work for location, or year, or owner, or Air Force in which the plane is marked, or any other property of the aircraft I chose to record on the individual aircraft page.

- Easy to convert the whole works to an internet web page if I want someday. I could just upload to an ISP and go. (First I might want to add canned histories of the aircraft companies and aircraft to their individual web pages, which would be easy to do.) The whole database is also portable to any future computer that I use, since it's just basic HTML, no special apps, any machine with a browser can use it.

- The thumbnails are really helpful when browsing. I make and save each thumbnail using a bulk thumbnail generator utility. That way I can browse without waiting for the computer to generate thumbnails out of the full-size images each time.

- Adding a new picture just means creating one more thumbnail on that plane's page (if it's a plane I've photographed before) or, if it's a new plane to the collection, creating a new page for that plane and adding a link to the relevant type page. There is no limit to the size of the indexing system.

August

There is only one way to organize the photographs - look at them, attempt to identify them, and catalog them. It is tedious work.

I would like you to look at a custom-car photo album that I consider to be a benchmark for cataloging these images so that they can be brought up quickly.

I'm sure there are more efficient ways to store them, such as listing attributes of each photograph and indexing them in a database. But for public viewing that is relatively simple, this may give a good outline for getting it done. I'm sure some of you will enjoy these pictures. And for those of you I see on the HAMB, good to see you here too.

http://public.fotki.com/Rikster/

Guys - my collection is very focused on the 355th FG and Scout Force based at Steeple Morden so I have an easy to find 'system' that works for me.

Your needs will be different but give some thought to the 'aggragate collection' criteria you want to collect and retrieve on. For me I needed organization by Unit first, then a/c detail and/or pilot/CC plus remember who gave me the photo
For example an image name might look like this;

354 WRBbar_Marshall_414409_Jane III_[marshall].jpg

(where the WRBbar is WRB with a 'bar' under the 'B')

The gives me in order (and sorted)
Squadron_Sq Code_pilot_a/c serial number on tail [source of photo]

so in order it is arranged in descending order

1SF or 2SF= Experimental or 2nd Scout Force
354=354FS
355fg= 355 (HQ)
357-357FS
358-358FS
Aces (in 2SF,354, 355fg,357 and 358FS) order
Combined Aces (same)
EKP (Evade/Resc, KIFA/KIA, POW) pilots organized as follows

EKP date squadron/unit_ 'what happened'_ Macr#_ Pilot

EKP 440818 354_Resc_none_Marshall
which reads

shot down Aug 18 1944, 354FS, Rescued, No Macr, Marshall

Regards

Bill