What file format for several hundred family photos?

On Tue, 18 Oct 2005 20:09:22 +0100, "Chrisssssss………" scribbled:

I’ve read the several TIFF versus JPG postings but have one question: I have dug out about 200 old family photos of all shapes and sizes, including some B & W negs. All I will be scanning every one, then editing to improve each one to save as a JPG before getting Spielmanns to print. I’ll than be filing them away again (probably for another 40 years!).
In this case, what is the recommended format to save to after scanning? Many thanks, Chrisssss……..

If you’ve got the space, a CDRW or a DVD writer always save in a lossless format in case you want to edit them in the future.

In article <dj3h8v$1ej$
co.uk says…

I’ve read the several TIFF versus JPG postings but have one question: I have dug out about 200 old family photos of all shapes and sizes, including some B & W negs. All I will be scanning every one, then editing to improve each one to save as a JPG before getting Spielmanns to print. I’ll than be filing them away again (probably for another 40 years!).
In this case, what is the recommended format to save to after scanning? Many thanks, Chrisssss

Chrissss,

I’d suggest TIFF as the basis for your scans. When you start the retouch on each, Save_As PSD, then finally output to JPG. Backup both the TIFFs and the PSDs to other devices/media, in case you ever have to go back. If so, you should have both, the original scan, untouched, plus the PSD with Adjustment Layers, etc. to do another JPG. Last thing that you will want is several generations of re-JPG’ed images to go to print. By doing it right once (hey, every 40 years isn’t bad), you should not have to re-do any of it. Depending on your system’s HDD real estate, you may have to work on fewer at a time, and then off-load that batch and work on the next.

Hunt

To Voivod & Hunt,

Many thanks, TIFF’s it will be then, plus PSD’s. I backup all regularly anyway.
Much appreciated.

Chrisssss……..

yep and make sure they are 300 DPI also…you should’nt need more than 700 disk’s to save them in this way. Good luck.
"Chrisssssss………" wrote in message

To Voivod & Hunt,

Many thanks, TIFF’s it will be then, plus PSD’s. I backup all regularly anyway.
Much appreciated.

Chrisssss……..

..psd is lossless isn’t it?

"Hunt" wrote in message

In article <dj3h8v$1ej$>,

co.uk says…

I’ve read the several TIFF versus JPG postings but have one question: I have
dug out about 200 old family photos of all shapes and sizes, including some
B & W negs. All I will be scanning every one, then editing to improve each one to save as a JPG before getting Spielmanns to print. I’ll than be filing
them away again (probably for another 40 years!).
In this case, what is the recommended format to save to after scanning? Many thanks, Chrisssss

Chrissss,

I’d suggest TIFF as the basis for your scans. When you start the retouch on
each, Save_As PSD, then finally output to JPG. Backup both the TIFFs and the
PSDs to other devices/media, in case you ever have to go back. If so, you should have both, the original scan, untouched, plus the PSD with Adjustment
Layers, etc. to do another JPG. Last thing that you will want is several generations of re-JPG’ed images to go to print. By doing it right once (hey,
every 40 years isn’t bad), you should not have to re-do any of it. Depending
on your system’s HDD real estate, you may have to work on fewer at a time, and
then off-load that batch and work on the next.

Hunt

In article <dj4pl5$s05$>,
"stevet" wrote:

.psd is lossless isn’t it?

Yes, .psd is lossless.

—
Art, photography, shareware, polyamory, literature, kink: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

Chrisssssss……… wrote:

I’ve read the several TIFF versus JPG postings but have one question: I have dug out about 200 old family photos of all shapes and sizes, including some B & W negs. All I will be scanning every one, then editing to improve each one to save as a JPG before getting Spielmanns to print. I’ll than be filing them away again (probably for another 40 years!).
In this case, what is the recommended format to save to after scanning? Many thanks, Chrisssss……..

Since I don’t know the future nor does anyone else here, we have to work with the past. TIFF and PSD are two formats that have been around as long as Photoshop has. Of course, they have changed a tad, but the current version of Photoshop will read all the older versions. There is no reason to believe that Photoshop won’t continue to support all version of these as time moves forward.

[Use only lossless formats for long term archiving of photos. There is no reason to save them if you are going to partially destroy them right off the bat.]

Other lossless formats have official standards bodies locking in the formats. Those aren’t likely to change too much. At least they are likely to be backward compatible. So, while JPEG2000 and PNG aren’t too popular, they are likely to be in Photoshop for many long years. They are also lossless compressed and will save some disc space. (JPEG2000 has options for lossy and lossless compression.)

JPEG is lossy, but is likely to be a readable format for a very long time. So, save screen sized versions of your pictures in this format. This is so the viewer in the future can get a quick look at what is on the disc.

I have been working on thousands of old family pictures. I’m scanning them in at the highest dpi I can. (Well, 300 dpi for most of the prints. Really good prints at 600 dpi; there aren’t many. Slides at 2880 dpi.) I’m saving them all in TIFF, PSD, and JPEG2000 formats. I figure my grandkids version of Photoshop should be able to read all of them. Three versions gives them a better shot at reading one of them on a disc that is starting to go bad.

Therein lies the bigger problem… What media will last as long as the format? Hard disks or any magnetic medium are not archival. Magnetic media will lose its strength with no help from any thing. Unfortunately there are plenty of electromagnetic sources around to help it go bad.

About the best thing we have now are CD-R discs. Alas, there is a very wide range in archival ability with these. Some will start to go bad in a few years. Many are really only good for about 5 years. They may or may not go to 10-20 years. You may not know until too late.

MAM-A makes some gold CD-R discs that are probably the closest thing you can get to really archival today. I put all my old family photos on those. I plan to check them all in 5 years, but we’ll see.

Thanks,
Clyde

Thanks for the detailed and helpful reply Clyde.

I have been relying on an external hard drive (and memory sticks) for all my archival work (and for making duplicates of my C drive so I can save even all progs and settings in case of disaster).

As you and many others seem to favour CD-Rs, am I missing something?

Cheers, Chrisssss……..

"Chrisssssss………" wrote in message

Thanks for the detailed and helpful reply Clyde.

I have been relying on an external hard drive (and memory sticks) for all my archival work (and for making duplicates of my C drive so I can save even all progs and settings in case of disaster).

As you and many others seem to favour CD-Rs, am I missing something?
Cheers, Chrisssss……..

harddrives "go bad" after a while, lifespan of maybe 2-4 years at best

In article <dj6167$ha5$
..uk says…

Thanks for the detailed and helpful reply Clyde.

I have been relying on an external hard drive (and memory sticks) for all my archival work (and for making duplicates of my C drive so I can save even all progs and settings in case of disaster).

As you and many others seem to favour CD-Rs, am I missing something?
Cheers, Chrisssss……..

Unfortunately, all forms of digital backup, have problems. Probably the best is to do the BU in a very redundant fashion, using several different media. I’ve had all sorts of BU media go bad, tapes (all sorts), JAZ/SyQuest, CD-Rs & RWs, HDDs, floppies (anybody besides me remember those?), and old "optical" drives (Iomega, before CDs). I have yet to have a DVD fail, but I am sure that it is just a matter of time. All can go bad, and probably will at the worst possible time. OTOH, I had maybe 100,000+ negatives and transparencies caught in a flood. We probably recovered 80% to a usable degree.

Hunt

On Wed, 19 Oct 2005 14:54:33 -0400, "KatWoman" scribbled:

"Chrisssssss………" wrote in message

Thanks for the detailed and helpful reply Clyde.

I have been relying on an external hard drive (and memory sticks) for all my archival work (and for making duplicates of my C drive so I can save even all progs and settings in case of disaster).

As you and many others seem to favour CD-Rs, am I missing something?
Cheers, Chrisssss……..

harddrives "go bad" after a while, lifespan of maybe 2-4 years at best

As do some brands of CDRs, then again I’ve got a HD that’s 11 years old and it still boots while I’ve also had CDRs go bad in less than a year. Conversely I’ve had a drive go bad in less than a year and I’ve got one CD that was burned 8 years ago that’s still good.

I suppose that reliability isn’t such an issue so long as one has SOME sort of duplicate so that if one goes down, then the other SHOULD suffice. To have two go down together is just plain bad luck! But then again, we ARE talking computers here………..nuff said!
Thanks for all the advice.
Chrisssss……….

On Wed, 19 Oct 2005 22:35:40 +0100, "Chrisssssss………" scribbled:

I suppose that reliability isn’t such an issue so long as one has SOME sort of duplicate so that if one goes down, then the other SHOULD suffice. To have two go down together is just plain bad luck! But then again, we ARE talking computers here………..nuff said!
Thanks for all the advice.

It’s not even a question of two ‘going down’ if your archival copies are in the same place as your PC then fire, flood, theft, whatever can wipe out everything in a matter of moments. I back up all my work once a month, twice, one copy stays here another goes to a friend who lives 1,500 miles away and has a safe.

On 19 Oct 2005 20:46:22 GMT, Hunt wrote:

Unfortunately, all forms of digital backup, have problems. Probably the best is to do the BU in a very redundant fashion, using several different media. I’ve had all sorts of BU media go bad, tapes (all sorts), JAZ/SyQuest, CD-Rs & RWs, HDDs, floppies (anybody besides me remember those?), and old "optical" drives (Iomega, before CDs). I have yet to have a DVD fail, but I am sure that it is just a matter of time. All can go bad, and probably will at the worst possible time. OTOH, I had maybe 100,000+ negatives and transparencies caught in a flood. We probably recovered 80% to a usable degree.

Hunt is absolutely correct: there are no reliable backup methods and redundancy is your only safe alternative. A summary:
1. All digital media are non-archival, and will fail in a decade. You need to check and recopy your digital backups on a regular schedule.
2. Some film media are truly archival (including Kodachrome, tested at 300
years), while some others are near archival (Velvia claims 70 years). Storage requirements are *very* stringent. Unlike digital, film copying is very difficult, and typically impractical.
3. You really need an off-site copy. Think New Orleans.

A few random notes:
a. A ‘live’ hard drive has two advantages: it allows automatic background backup, and it typically gives misbehavior clues before it fails. (That is, more often than not it exhibits problems in advance of failure, and this can give you time to copy your data. Your mileage may vary.)
b. You can prolong the life of a hard drive by using SpinRite,
www.grc.com.
c. Fire safes will not protect digital media from fire. When exposed to heat they emit super-heated steam, which protects paper but destroys film and dm. You need a special digital media safe.

Jim Hargan
www.harganonline.com

On Thu, 20 Oct 2005 11:32:52 GMT, Jim Hargan
scribbled:

1. All digital media are non-archival, and will fail in a decade.

MAY fail in a decade. May also fail in a week and may never fail.

Jim Hargan wrote:

On 19 Oct 2005 20:46:22 GMT, Hunt wrote:

Unfortunately, all forms of digital backup, have problems. Probably the best is to do the BU in a very redundant fashion, using several different media. I’ve had all sorts of BU media go bad, tapes (all sorts), JAZ/SyQuest, CD-Rs & RWs, HDDs, floppies (anybody besides me remember those?), and old "optical" drives (Iomega, before CDs). I have yet to have a DVD fail, but I am sure that it is just a matter of time. All can go bad, and probably will at the worst possible time. OTOH, I had maybe 100,000+ negatives and transparencies caught in a flood. We probably recovered 80% to a usable degree.

Hunt is absolutely correct: there are no reliable backup methods and redundancy is your only safe alternative. A summary:
1. All digital media are non-archival, and will fail in a decade. You need to check and recopy your digital backups on a regular schedule.
2. Some film media are truly archival (including Kodachrome, tested at 300
years), while some others are near archival (Velvia claims 70 years). Storage requirements are *very* stringent. Unlike digital, film copying is very difficult, and typically impractical.
3. You really need an off-site copy. Think New Orleans.

A few random notes:
a. A ‘live’ hard drive has two advantages: it allows automatic background backup, and it typically gives misbehavior clues before it fails. (That is, more often than not it exhibits problems in advance of failure, and this can give you time to copy your data. Your mileage may vary.)
b. You can prolong the life of a hard drive by using SpinRite,
www.grc.com.
c. Fire safes will not protect digital media from fire. When exposed to heat they emit super-heated steam, which protects paper but destroys film and dm. You need a special digital media safe.

Jim Hargan
www.harganonline.com

There is a difference between backing up and archiving. My live Firewire HD is my active backup. My MAM-A gold CD-R discs are my photo archive.

Of course, the media may not be the first thing to fail either. You may have nice, long lasting, gold CD-R discs that have kept everything you put on them. However, if you have no drive that will read those discs, you are still sunk.

There are plenty of old computer media that you can’t find a device that will work on your computer. How many tape formats have come and gone? How many floppy formats have come and gone? Could you read a 8" floppy disc, even if it still contained data?

How long will CD-R be readable? It seems like it should last for years and maybe longer than most in the past. However, DVD-R may completely replace it in 5 years. If that happens, you have to move all your old archives to new media.

So, maybe the life of CD-R discs isn’t the limiting factor. Then again, the rule in computer disaster recovery is "Test everything once a year". Yes, I was a computer DR pro for several years.

Clyde

On Thu, 20 Oct 2005 11:20:10 -0500, Clyde
scribbled:

Could you read a 8" floppy disc, even if it still contained data?

If I could find my soldering iron, yes.

"Jim Hargan" wrote in message

On 19 Oct 2005 20:46:22 GMT, Hunt wrote:

Unfortunately, all forms of digital backup, have problems. Probably the best
is to do the BU in a very redundant fashion, using several different media.
I’ve had all sorts of BU media go bad, tapes (all sorts), JAZ/SyQuest, CD-Rs &
snip

can give you time to copy your data. Your mileage may vary.)

b. You can prolong the life of a hard drive by using SpinRite, www.grc.com.

I use Executive Diskeeper, it auto defrags your drives on a schedule and is much faster than the windows one.
Supposed to make them last longer.

On Fri, 21 Oct 2005 16:06:03 -0400, KatWoman wrote:

"Jim Hargan" wrote in message

b. You can prolong the life of a hard drive by using SpinRite, www.grc.com.

I use Executive Diskeeper, it auto defrags your drives on a schedule and is much faster than the windows one.
Supposed to make them last longer.

Unlike Diskeeper, Spinrite strengthens the signal on each and every sector of the hard disk, including the sector markers. When it detects damaged media surface it can recover the data (using statistical analysis if necessary), mark the sector as bad, and move the recovered data off of it. In many (not all) cases, Spinrite can make a failed disk readable enough to allow its data to be recovered.

These actions significantly prolong the life of a disk. Even better, Spinrite will detect a failing disk in plenty of time for you to get rid of it.

Diskeeper can reduce the movement of the read head and so reduce the amount of normal wear. Don’t know if this is significant. It probably strengthens the signal of moved data, but it doesn’t strengthen the data it doesn’t move, or strengthen sector markers.

Jim Hargan
Freelance Photographer and Writer
www.harganonline.com

"Jim Hargan" wrote in message

On Fri, 21 Oct 2005 16:06:03 -0400, KatWoman wrote:

"Jim Hargan" wrote in message

b. You can prolong the life of a hard drive by using SpinRite, www.grc.com.

I use Executive Diskeeper, it auto defrags your drives on a schedule and is much faster than the windows one.
Supposed to make them last longer.

Unlike Diskeeper, Spinrite strengthens the signal on each and every sector of the hard disk, including the sector markers. When it detects damaged media surface it can recover the data (using statistical analysis if necessary), mark the sector as bad, and move the recovered data off of it. In many (not all) cases, Spinrite can make a failed disk readable enough to
allow its data to be recovered.

These actions significantly prolong the life of a disk. Even better, Spinrite will detect a failing disk in plenty of time for you to get rid of
it.

Diskeeper can reduce the movement of the read head and so reduce the amount
of normal wear. Don’t know if this is significant. It probably strengthens the signal of moved data, but it doesn’t strengthen the data it doesn’t move, or strengthen sector markers.

Jim Hargan
Freelance Photographer and Writer
www.harganonline.com

sounds like a good prog to get

"Chrisssssss………" wrote in message

I’ve read the several TIFF versus JPG postings but have one question: I

have

dug out about 200 old family photos of all shapes and sizes, including

some

B & W negs. All I will be scanning every one, then editing to improve each one to save as a JPG before getting Spielmanns to print. I’ll than be

filing

them away again (probably for another 40 years!).
In this case, what is the recommended format to save to after scanning? Many thanks, Chrisssss……..

Tiffs are lossless – the LZW option saves a lot of space. A (good) JPG saves even more, tho’.

Copy all over the place – email to your own gmail a/c, use FTP, etc.

Other media will degrade over time, sometimes faster than expected.

Good luck

GF