Storage for Photographers • Hacker News Board

Re: Storage for Photographers

#121

Post by VikingCoder » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 9:51 PM UTC

famousactress wrote: post #13

Yes, PLEASE. We run a wedding photography business, and our numbers are something like this: - 40-60gigs shot in a weekend, need to offsite the RAWs as soon as possible. In six or seven years we've never needed offsite retrieval. Fine for it to be slow. - Only need around 100-200g of raws locally for jobs in progress - Once processed into final jpgs files are approx 8-10x smaller. Offsite these as well, and need acce…

How much would you be willing to pay to permanently archive that 40-60 GB, assuming the system provided adequate access?

Do you want a one-time fee, or some yearly fee?

Re: Storage for Photographers

#122

Post by davak » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 9:56 PM UTC

PStamatiou wrote: post #17

danso wrote: post #15

I'm in a similar situation as the OP...an amateur but avid photographer with terabytes of RAW image files. Currently, I have several multi-terabyte drives that I erratically back up to...I just got a 4TB drive that I'm going to try to backup everything I've ever shot in the last 3 years... But I do want to move it to online storage...and I think this requires triage. For nearly every photoset, I've quickly gone throu…

Your last few sentences are exactly why I wrote this post. I want everything stored in the cloud but ALSO have a decent way of browsing them locally. The idea is to just store tiny jpegs (you can set how big they are, but something like 500-1000px wide likely, just for you to get a sense of which photo this is and allow you to remotely delete, retreive, etc)

All of this would be trivial for Apple (or someone creating a plugin) to implement. Apple's flagship photography software aperture already allows the user to work with previews while keeping the mega-huge raws on an external device. Instead of an external device, Aperture should just allow the user to point to a service in the cloud.

Of course, Apple's iCloud is very little like an actual usable cloud for most pro users.

Re: Storage for Photographers

#123

Post by xtracto » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 9:57 PM UTC

tghw wrote: post #93

mfenniak wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Professional photographers know they need to backup their photos. It looks like your product targeted consumers, but professionals seem like they'd be a better market. And it should have been priced way, way higher; the more it cost, the more secure it looks. I'd have a hard time trusting my money-making business assets to a $9/month service. Of course, I'm not a professional photographer nor do I have your experienc…

Actually, once we started getting into the market, we found that most do not know they need to do regular, offsite backups. Consider the some examples: * An older photographer who grew up in the days of film who has just transitioned over to digital. * A homemaker who is trying to add some much needed income for her family, with a passion but no formal training. * A well-off software developer who moonlights as a pho…

Or maybe your company's problem was this (from one of your blog posts):

> It did this by compressing the photos to full resolution, high quality JPEGs, which saved anywhere from 50%-90% of the size. The downside of this, of course, is that photographers who shoot in RAW would only have a JPEG copy backed up. We figured this was a reasonable compromise. In a catastrophic event, wouldn't a photographer rather have a JPEG copy than nothing at all? It turns out the answer was no. But we didn't ask that question, because we thought the answer was so obvious.

I am no photographer... but from what I can see in this thread, what people are looking for is a solution to store RAW image files. I am sure photographers can find already good solutions to store good-quality JPG copies of their files.

Re: Storage for Photographers

#124

Post by mgkimsal » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 10:04 PM UTC

tghw wrote: post #103

mgkimsal wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of your examples contradict "Professional photographers know they need to backup their photos." A homemaker or techie moonlighting for extra income aren't really 'professional photographers'. They may take photographs that look professional, but it's not the same thing. One might say that professional developers use version control, then have counter examples of "well, this web design student doesn't ever uer ve…

Your definition is not what defines the market.

Does a homemaker moonlighting as a photographer really pass herself off as a 'professional'?

Re: Storage for Photographers

#125

Post by jwarren » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 10:10 PM UTC

mgkimsal wrote: post #101

tghw wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, once we started getting into the market, we found that most do not know they need to do regular, offsite backups. Consider the some examples: * An older photographer who grew up in the days of film who has just transitioned over to digital. * A homemaker who is trying to add some much needed income for her family, with a passion but no formal training. * A well-off software developer who moonlights as a pho…

None of your examples contradict "Professional photographers know they need to backup their photos." A homemaker or techie moonlighting for extra income aren't really 'professional photographers'. They may take photographs that look professional, but it's not the same thing. One might say that professional developers use version control, then have counter examples of "well, this web design student doesn't ever uer ve…

I was a professional photographer for a couple of years (as in, paid most of my rent with it until web dev became a more lucrative venture) and assisted some VERY big and experienced photographers.

Everyone I know backed up on-site, using manual methods as and when they remembered. I did actually set up a good automated backup solution for one of them, but there's definitely a limit to their interest. Remember they're making pretty much all their money off commissions, and are only keeping backups out of some sense of pride/responsibility.

Another blow is that, at least here in the UK, we're only starting to get the kind of upstream bandwidth necessary to make this level of data transfer feasible.

So, it's a brilliant idea and, as long as confidence in cloud storage grows, as time goes on the market will grow and grow. I'm just not sure it's quite there yet.

Re: Storage for Photographers

#126

Post by jwarren » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 10:14 PM UTC

callmeed wrote: post #41

My company serves thousands of professional photographers (wedding, commercial, fashion, etc.). What you're describing is definitely an issue for photographers but I think getting them to use a tool like you've described would be an uphill battle. Right now, most of them use Drobos or similar devices. You'd be asking them to add steps to their workflow which is always tough to do. Also, I think your estimate of 18 mi…

Spot on. In a few years, cloud storage will be more acceptable, working photographers will be ever more tech literate and bandwidth will increase.

I think you're totally right about Adobe too. Those Smart Previews they added for LR5 - those are not just for space-starved SSD drives...

Re: Storage for Photographers

#127

Post by famousactress » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 10:15 PM UTC

VikingCoder wrote: post #121

famousactress wrote: post #13

Yes, PLEASE. We run a wedding photography business, and our numbers are something like this: - 40-60gigs shot in a weekend, need to offsite the RAWs as soon as possible. In six or seven years we've never needed offsite retrieval. Fine for it to be slow. - Only need around 100-200g of raws locally for jobs in progress - Once processed into final jpgs files are approx 8-10x smaller. Offsite these as well, and need acce…

How much would you be willing to pay to permanently archive that 40-60 GB, assuming the system provided adequate access? Do you want a one-time fee, or some yearly fee?

Good questions. So today, the way the math works out is we can maybe fit 25 weddings on a 1TB we pick up for 80 bucks.. so that's about three bucks, six to do it twice. We think of it as a part of the cost of a particular wedding. You could charge me 10 or 20 bucks to archive before I'd even do the math. We likely spend more in gas for most weddings. Hell, I think each wedding costs us four dollars in business cards.

If you could get me to _really_ trust your service, I'd consider up-selling permanent archives to our clients. Lots of our clients would pay 50-200 bucks for the re-assurance, I'm sure. I don't know that I'd want the ever-growing liability though (right now we contract for 1yr of backup/online-gallery, but keep everything permanently without committing to doing so).

One time or yearly fee doesn't make a ton of difference to me, but with other services we've definitely been tempted into fixed "Unlimited" pricing so that we don't have to think hard about math, or end up tempted into picking and choosing what we backup. Simpler is better.. Managing a store of assets where some are backed up and some aren't sounds like a really bad accident waiting to happen.

Re: Storage for Photographers

#128

Post by famousactress » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 10:22 PM UTC

famousactress wrote: post #13

Yes, PLEASE. We run a wedding photography business, and our numbers are something like this: - 40-60gigs shot in a weekend, need to offsite the RAWs as soon as possible. In six or seven years we've never needed offsite retrieval. Fine for it to be slow. - Only need around 100-200g of raws locally for jobs in progress - Once processed into final jpgs files are approx 8-10x smaller. Offsite these as well, and need acce…

[Too late to edit]

EXTRA CREDIT: Anyone who considers tackling this and finds themselves interested in the niche of wedding/event photographer should look at combining this service with shopping-cart/gallery solutions that currently exist. The marketplace for those is fucking awful. Feel free to email me, but googling will get you the big players. I just don't wanna bash them by name in a public forum. All well meaning folks I'm sure, but every one of them are terrible flash-based, no-mobile software. Do backup and gallery/print-ordering management correctly and we're a customer at four figures per year.

Re: Storage for Photographers

#129

Post by chadk » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 10:47 PM UTC

throwaway420 wrote: post #85

I wish I could trust the cloud because it would be a lot more convenient to not have to worry about storing photos, which involves a lot of effort once you advance beyond a casual hobby and you get into storing Terrabytes of large RAW files and maintaining adequate backups. But the idea of storing any files in the cloud is very distasteful to me ever since the NSA Snowden story broke. Even something as innocent as a…

FINALLY. I was going through every comment on this thread and I was wondering why no one was talking about security. This is one of the key features of the data warehousing business we have been contemplating.

Re: Storage for Photographers

#130

Post by btgeekboy » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 10:52 PM UTC

PStamatiou wrote: post #17

danso wrote: post #15

I'm in a similar situation as the OP...an amateur but avid photographer with terabytes of RAW image files. Currently, I have several multi-terabyte drives that I erratically back up to...I just got a 4TB drive that I'm going to try to backup everything I've ever shot in the last 3 years... But I do want to move it to online storage...and I think this requires triage. For nearly every photoset, I've quickly gone throu…

Your last few sentences are exactly why I wrote this post. I want everything stored in the cloud but ALSO have a decent way of browsing them locally. The idea is to just store tiny jpegs (you can set how big they are, but something like 500-1000px wide likely, just for you to get a sense of which photo this is and allow you to remotely delete, retreive, etc)

Exactly. What I really want is something that Aperture is aware of. I want to be able to click "Archive" with a Project and have the local copy deleted. Yet, it's still in the catalog/library offsite, so if I want it, I click "Retrieve" and can pull down the set and start fudging the RAWs. Or, if I want to work on just one, I can browse through and work on it as well.