Eventually I get tired of watching any of them, but I used to like DigitalRev with Kai and Lam. They were a good balance of informative and fun to watch.

For reviews I watched Chris Nicholls, Matt Granger, Steve Perry. It’s hard to find a channel that isn’t too ‘youtuber’ in style (“smash that like button and don’t forget to subscribe!”), and knows what they’re talking about.

I pay for Flickr pro, and have no regrets. My use case is a little different than most I think… I use it as another backup mainly, but also use the API access on a WordPress site, and my android tv box has flickfolio running to play slideshows. I also run a Piwigo server at home for family sharing.

What do you mean LR makes virtual copies? Your original file remains intact; your LR edits are simply saved in the catalog. The .lrcat file is a sqlite database.

If you mean to say that LR doesn’t save to the original files, that’s correct. If the point is that all your edits are lost if you lose the catalog files, then yeah. Ask me how I learned that lesson…

I use LR almost exclusively to edit and organize my photos. True, it’s not best used for file management, but it works perfectly for my needs. Once I have finished editing and ready to ‘close’ the catalog, I export xmp files to the same source folders.

I also don’t know what you mean by “absolutely cannot move files later on”… You absolutely can. Even if you move the files using Windows Explorer, you can repoint the LR catalog to the new filepath.

Interesting idea. Not being a Trekkie, I’ve never heard of it.

Simple folder structure by date taken: /yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd/originalFilename.ext

E.g Photo_Archive/2014/2014-12-24/DSC003_2769.NEF

I put all contextual information in the keywords or exif/IPTc metadata.

I like this format because I can easily drill down to a desired image if I know when it was taken, and it makes it easier to parse and traverse the tree if I have to script a tool to do something.

Having said that, it’s a hell of a lot easier when they’re digital photos and not scanned. When I’m scanning batches of slides I number the boxes, then use the dates on the slides and similar format: /35mm_scans/yyyy/box#/IMG_yyyy-mm_nn.tif Where filename is the year/month on the slide, and nn is the slide number.

As another user suggested, if you’re new to this, consider an old PC instead of a hosted VPS. In either case, if you want to explore self-hosting, the Sky’s the limit. You could do as little as a local storage/file server, all the way up to your own virtual cloud.

For example, I run (on a pair of HP EliteDesk mini-pcs)- Jellyfin media server, Logitech Media server (squeezeserver), Homeassistant, Piwigo, phpipam, Zabbix, and a couple of other things. I also use it as a lab, so any time I want to experiment, I can just spin up a VM and mess around.

If you spend some time in this sub, you’ll find more than enough project ideas to keep you busy. Depending on your current skill level, you might find r/linuxupskillschallenge helpful.

Have fun!

This is what I normally recommend as well. Much more flexible, totally under your own control (for better or worse), and cheaper in the long run.

Can you clarify your terms? Unless I’m mistaken, VPS is a Virtual Private Server (instead of a dedicated bare-metal machine). KVM (Kernel Virtualized Machine) is one kind of VPS. Hyper-V, OpenVZ, XEN are other VPS types. Each have benefits and suited for different circumstances.

IIRC, OpenVZ are usually the cheapest, as they are containers, so a host can run more of them. KVM are more like a full-fledged Linux-kernel OS.