How Long to Archive? - CanPhoto Forums - Professional Canadian Photography Discussions

Darrol · Jun 14/06, 03:09 PM

John's thread about DAM got me thinking about something. I don't know for sure if this has been addressed on canphoto, so here goes...

How long do we/should we keep our digital files? When I was in the portrait and wedding business, we told our clients we would keep the negs forever. The filing system was fairly straightforward and eventually, those boxes took up quite a bit of space. I'm now hearing about portrait and wedding photographers telling clients that they will keep their RAW files for 5 years, sometimes less!

I'm hearing about archiving charges and retrieval fees and a bunch of stuff we never thought to charge for before (not that we shouldn't have, we just never thought of it!)

Now, we have to worry about how long the media will last, how easy is it to find, how fast can we find it, etc. An entire industry has been spawned because of it. Were there even filing systems available for negative files? I never heard of any, other than existing database systems modified for photography use.

My clients, old and new, have only rarely asked for old files. Even if I was still shooting film, I wouldn't keep my negs for more than 5 years, but I only shoot commercial, so my situation may be different. But even when I was in the P & W business, we never got calls for old files, unless there was a funeral. And our clients must be living forever, 'cause there sure weren't many calls like that!

So I'm curious as to everyone's thoughts on this.

Jun 14/06, 08:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darrol

I'm now hearing about portrait and wedding photographers telling clients that they will keep their RAW files for 5 years, sometimes less!

One reason for that might be, the average life span of a hard drive is 5 years.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darrol

I'm hearing about archiving charges and retrieval fees and a bunch of stuff we never thought to charge for before (not that we shouldn't have, we just never thought of it!)

That makes total sense.

About six months ago I took an e book (on CD) to a commercial printer so I could have a hard copy of it. (I had permission from the author/publisher to do so) This printer charged $10.00 just to do a virus scan of that CD. So why not charge for searching for an image.

Jun 14/06, 03:09 PM	#1
Darrol Senior Member Darrol Hofmeister Regina Last Online: May 22/12 Join Date: Nov 2001 Posts: 148	How Long to Archive? John's thread about DAM got me thinking about something. I don't know for sure if this has been addressed on canphoto, so here goes... How long do we/should we keep our digital files? When I was in the portrait and wedding business, we told our clients we would keep the negs forever. The filing system was fairly straightforward and eventually, those boxes took up quite a bit of space. I'm now hearing about portrait and wedding photographers telling clients that they will keep their RAW files for 5 years, sometimes less! I'm hearing about archiving charges and retrieval fees and a bunch of stuff we never thought to charge for before (not that we shouldn't have, we just never thought of it!) Now, we have to worry about how long the media will last, how easy is it to find, how fast can we find it, etc. An entire industry has been spawned because of it. Were there even filing systems available for negative files? I never heard of any, other than existing database systems modified for photography use. My clients, old and new, have only rarely asked for old files. Even if I was still shooting film, I wouldn't keep my negs for more than 5 years, but I only shoot commercial, so my situation may be different. But even when I was in the P & W business, we never got calls for old files, unless there was a funeral. And our clients must be living forever, 'cause there sure weren't many calls like that! So I'm curious as to everyone's thoughts on this.