DAM Easy

DAM, where did I put that shot of..............
Ever found yourself looking for a photo that you took, only to go searching through a mess of files with it still not showing up. You would have just done a search of your hard drive, but you can't remember the file name that you (or your camera) gave to it. DAM!

Yes, DAM is the answer, the solution, and the way you can ensure that you will be able to find your important images well into the future. "What do you mean DAM?" I hear you say. I guess I had better explain. DAM is an acronym for Digital Asset Management. Your image files are digital assets. As such, they deserve to be looked after.

I certainly hadn't been looking after my images the way I should. Consequently I found that I had an interesting situation last week when I decided to indulge in some DAM. I had my computer and two external hard drives. There all contained image files in various formats. I had some images saved on more than one drive, and even worse - some double ups on the same drive, often hidden within folders with names that certainly didn't suit the contents. I could go on forever describing this mess, but suffice to say that it was a nightmare. I still have a little way to go, but am now on the right track. I thought it might be helpful to share what I have learned, along with some examples of how things are looking now.


When you open one of the drives this is what you now see. Ignoring the drives autorun folder, you will see a folder for each image file type - Jpeg, RAW, and TIFF.


This is what you see when you open the RAW folder. A folder for each year You may notice that the 2009 folder is labeled 2009X - the X is just there temporarily, so that I know that I have not completed work on it yet. It will be taken off when the folder is up to date.


The list view inside the 2008 folder. Each folder is labeled with the date in the following format:
Year-Month-Day-Description
This ensures that they are listed in the order which they were taken, and the description is simply a few words to help you identify what is inside.


Inside the folders with dates and descriptions, you will find the original RAW Images. This particular example only contains 6 images, but some contain hundreds.

The original mess that I described above is probably quite a common scene on hard drives everywhere. People tend to take a lot of photos as there are no film processing costs like the good old days. Finding a particular image in the future isn't given a lot of thought by most people until they can't find it. A simple DAM solution like the one I have shown above (or specialist DAM software) is definitely the answer.

Archive Your Images
A mess is one thing, but what if your computer crashed and you lost all those pictures? Special family treasures, beautiful personal work - or even work you have produced for a client. Having them organised is one thing, having a good backup is another. As I am cleaning up my drives, I have been making two copies, When i finish, both of my external hard drives should contain exactly the same files. I then plan to burn another copy onto DVDs and keep them somewhere away from home. This ensures that even if our house was to burn down with the computer and hard drives, I will still have all my precious digital assets.

It's Worth the Effort
It is quite a time consuming process to go back through years worth of images. The problem is, the longer you leave it the more there is to go through. Once you decide on a DAM solution, all I can say is do it. It is then just a simple matter of putting all your new files in the right place immediately after they are imported onto your computer, and you should never lose a file in the great hard drive abyss again.

I hope this has been helpful, and if you don't have the chance to come back here until next week, I hope you have a great DAM weekend!