I'd like to safeguard all my images ...

dound

Let me start off by saying that smugmug is new to me but I really like the themes, the control (given to the user), and (in particular) the involvement by the entire smugmug team (onethumb's blog is fascinating ... I'm glad he takes the time to share what he's thinking about).

One of the big features is the reliable storage. I really want to use smugmug as the "Fort Knox" for my photos.

However, I really want to backup both my originals (CR2, but I convert to DNG) or at least my processed images (in the colorspace and bit-depth of my choosing ... TIF works).

Backing up the JPGs created from that final PP stage is important, but only a part of the puzzle as far as I see it.

I understand that JPG is nice because it is widely supported by web browsers. However, perhaps smugmug could allow the uploading of an image (JPG for viewing) to be optionally paired with an original (any other format, since it will never be displayed -- only potentially re-downloaded by the poster [or once by someone else if one is selling the original]). Seems like this feature might fit the "Pro" pricing category -- and I'd be happy to sign up for that.

This way, I know that should my hard drives crash, burn, or both -- that smugmug will be able to save me! As it stands, it would be only a partial recovery (for me). :dunno

I am interested to hear if there is a possibility for something like this in the future. Maybe S3's good rates will allow it :wink (wouldn't see the origs in local cache, b/c they would basically never be requested, right?).

I'm looking forward to joining the SM community in the near future. Thanks in advance for your time and thoughts on this matter!

Mike Lane

dound wrote:

Let me start off by saying that smugmug is new to me but I really like the themes, the control (given to the user), and (in particular) the involvement by the entire smugmug team (onethumb's blog is fascinating ... I'm glad he takes the time to share what he's thinking about).

One of the big features is the reliable storage. I really want to use smugmug as the "Fort Knox" for my photos.

However, I really want to backup both my originals (CR2, but I convert to DNG) or at least my processed images (in the colorspace and bit-depth of my choosing ... TIF works).

Backing up the JPGs created from that final PP stage is important, but only a part of the puzzle as far as I see it.

I understand that JPG is nice because it is widely supported by web browsers. However, perhaps smugmug could allow the uploading of an image (JPG for viewing) to be optionally paired with an original (any other format, since it will never be displayed -- only potentially re-downloaded by the poster [or once by someone else if one is selling the original]). Seems like this feature might fit the "Pro" pricing category -- and I'd be happy to sign up for that.

This way, I know that should my hard drives crash, burn, or both -- that smugmug will be able to save me! As it stands, it would be only a partial recovery (for me).

I am interested to hear if there is a possibility for something like this in the future. Maybe S3's good rates will allow it (wouldn't see the origs in local cache, b/c they would basically never be requested, right?).

I'm looking forward to joining the SM community in the near future. Thanks in advance for your time and thoughts on this matter!

I'd have to search for it, but onethumb did query dgrin at some point in the past to see if there would be interest for a pay raw storage feature. If my recollection serves me, I don't think there was. One main problem is that for SM to be able to do something like this (even with S3) we would have to charge a lot more than we currently do, at least for those who would take part in it.

My suggestion is to use a tool like http://www.jungledisk.com/ to interface with S3 on your own and simply pay the S3 prices.

dound

Mike Lane wrote:

I'd have to search for it, but onethumb did query dgrin at some point in the past to see if there would be interest for a pay raw storage feature. If my recollection serves me, I don't think there was.

Thanks for the heads up -- I'll do some searching along these lines and I'm sure I'll find it.

Mike wrote:

My suggestion is to use a tool like http://www.jungledisk.com/ to interface with S3 on your own and simply pay the S3 prices.

Cool, I just checked this out and this seems like a reasonable solution. The only downside being that Jungle Disk/S3 would be replacing the "Fort Knox" functionality from SM while decoupling my originals from the content which surrounds the JPGs hosted on SM. I'd really prefer to keep them together (on SM) but I understand if there isn't enough interest. Still strikes me as a little funny that people who care about preseving their JPGs are indifferent to the originals (I guess this is a relatively small proportion of the user base and not indicative of the "typical" user anyway).


Thanks again!

dound

Some related threads ...
Of course, the idea has been proposed already. I think searching for TIF was a silly way of me to look for existing info on archiving raw images. Oops.

Here are some of the related threads:

13-JUL-2006 to 24-Aug-2006: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=38082 -- clearly some support, but not everyone is interested (indeed, some opposed, though sometimes for misguided technical concerns imo -- more legitimately opposed, perhaps, on grounds that it isn't really SM's line of business).

15-Aug-2006 to 14-NOV-2006: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=41797 -- this is the thread with onethumb asking for interest. It does seem like there is interest, but I guess not enough to make it worth the trouble it would cause SM to implement.

Oh well, I'll have to find the right compromise. For now, seems like jungle disk has the more reasonable alternative solution.

But for the record, I would be willing to pay for such a service via SM :-).

Thanks again!

15-Aug-2006: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=40451