Understanding the Concept of Digital File Management
Asset management! Not only will you produce innumerable digital files in a short time, you may produce lots of ink-jet prints.
You should value all this work - after all you have put in a great deal of skill and time - so it makes sense to manage these assets.
An essential part of good practice is to label or number all work - certainly the final prints.
Note the file name for each print you make, as well as any details, such as printer settings.
You might know right now which file the print came from, but is it likely you will be able to find it again in two or three years? Keep your successful print-outs carefully: store them in good-quality boxes, preferably the type made from acid-free cardboard produced for storing photographic prints.
And you should always archive and back-up your digital files.
Archiving The safest way to archive your digital files is to copy them onto a CD (Compact Disk), using a CD-writer.
There are two types of writable CD: with a CD-R, you can write to it only once, but read from it as many times as you like; with a CD-RW, you can write to it many times as well as read from it as often as you like.
In general, the most convenient and economical is the CD-R.
CD-RW disks are not reliable and in order to write new data, you must erase the old, which can take a long time.
With the CD-R, although it can be written to only once, it can take less than 5 minutes to write a full 650 MB load.
For this, you need a fast CD-R writer, controlled from the computer (some computers have these installed internally), plus suitable "CD-burning" software.
For more modest loads, you can copy your files onto magnetic media, such as Zip, Jaz, MO, or similar.
These cost more than CDs to buy but you can reuse them over and over again, and accessing files is quicker than with a CD.
Back-up software, which compresses your data to make more efficient use of space, can help you manage your files.
However, you may find that accessing the back-ups - which has to be done through the software - is less convenient than keeping copies of the actual files.
You may consider keeping archives of early working or work-in-progress files, not just the final files.
These may create useful records for historical reasons - in case of litigation over copy¬right, say.
And sometimes ideas that do not fit one project may be useful for another, something you may not know until months or years later.
You should value all this work - after all you have put in a great deal of skill and time - so it makes sense to manage these assets.
An essential part of good practice is to label or number all work - certainly the final prints.
Note the file name for each print you make, as well as any details, such as printer settings.
You might know right now which file the print came from, but is it likely you will be able to find it again in two or three years? Keep your successful print-outs carefully: store them in good-quality boxes, preferably the type made from acid-free cardboard produced for storing photographic prints.
And you should always archive and back-up your digital files.
Archiving The safest way to archive your digital files is to copy them onto a CD (Compact Disk), using a CD-writer.
There are two types of writable CD: with a CD-R, you can write to it only once, but read from it as many times as you like; with a CD-RW, you can write to it many times as well as read from it as often as you like.
In general, the most convenient and economical is the CD-R.
CD-RW disks are not reliable and in order to write new data, you must erase the old, which can take a long time.
With the CD-R, although it can be written to only once, it can take less than 5 minutes to write a full 650 MB load.
For this, you need a fast CD-R writer, controlled from the computer (some computers have these installed internally), plus suitable "CD-burning" software.
For more modest loads, you can copy your files onto magnetic media, such as Zip, Jaz, MO, or similar.
These cost more than CDs to buy but you can reuse them over and over again, and accessing files is quicker than with a CD.
Back-up software, which compresses your data to make more efficient use of space, can help you manage your files.
However, you may find that accessing the back-ups - which has to be done through the software - is less convenient than keeping copies of the actual files.
You may consider keeping archives of early working or work-in-progress files, not just the final files.
These may create useful records for historical reasons - in case of litigation over copy¬right, say.
And sometimes ideas that do not fit one project may be useful for another, something you may not know until months or years later.
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