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Libraries or the old fashioned way?

Ben Rubinstein

pro member
Lightroom and Aperture. Two new programs which are heavily library based. You have to import the images into the library to work with them although with lightroom at least I know that you can leave the images in place.

I have to be honest, I hate the system. Just bought my wife an ipod nano for her birthday, damn thing works the same way. Why can't I just do it the old fashioned way, have everything in folders and browse the images rather than archiving them in a system that doesn't work with my workflow?

For example, my workflow is to offload files to a internal (faster) hard drive, work the files then when all the orders are complete, move those files to one of 4 external USB drives depending on the content. From there the RAW files only are backed up to an offsite set of HD's that I keep in another building in case of theft or fire.

Seems to me that a library system would be an absolute nightmare for my way of working. When working on location with a laptop and then bringing the images back and downloading the worked on files to my desktop, and then having to re-library all those images!

If there is one thing I hate about computers is when they try and tell you how you want to work, what your workflow will be, where your files will be kept. I just want to do it MY way, am I the only one?

So far it's Bridge/ACR/PS all the way for me, still.
 

Per Ofverbeck

New member
Lightroom and Aperture. Two new programs which are heavily library based. You have to import the images into the library to work with them although with lightroom at least I know that you can leave the images in place.

.....

If there is one thing I hate about computers is when they try and tell you how you want to work, what your workflow will be, where your files will be kept. I just want to do it MY way, am I the only one?

So far it's Bridge/ACR/PS all the way for me, still.

Well, while the upcoming LR1.0 still demands that you do import all images, it seems to be far more flexible in allowing you to "mirror" an actual directory/file structure in the organization of its library.

I had about the same feelings as you when I started to experiment with Beta 4, but I did find a way to work with it so I felt at home. And if it worked in Beta 4, it should work even better in 1.0.

FWIW, I started by allowing LR to import my entire library (after backing it up, of course...) by moving the files, one year at a time. Then I got "shoots" (that term is scrapped in LR1; now it IS "folders", like it should) with "sub-shoots" for each month or job that had a subfolder of its own. And the actual directory structure of the "Lightroom Managed Photos" tree did mirror it, so I can find my way in the Finder, or with Bridge, if I need to.

Each new card import goes to a special "Newly Arrived" shoot/folder, where I can cull them, keyword them, and then select and drag them to the appropriate shoot/folder (creating new ones as needed. And I haven´t lost track of a single file; they are all where I expect them to be in the "Managed Photos" folder tree.

The one extra step is actually "importing" everything (and always deleting only through LR, never in the Finder or Bridge). What I gain is the far faster searches that can be performed in a library structure, plus the very convenient collections; a global search in Bridge is a nightmare...

So, after considerable initial reluctance, I have become a convert. And I still have the choice of returning to Bridge with all photos remaining where they are, if I ever should want to (don´t think I ever will, however).
 
I do often wonder why someone who doesn't already feel the need for DAM (I don't know if that includes you, Ben, it's not meant directly) would look to these programs. But I've been lucky enough to have been working with LR v1 for a few months and thought I'd throw at you some ways in which the database can give you things that you simply aren't going to get with a folder system. Per mentioned searches that extend across folders - but add in searching images that aren't even online, eg on DVD or on a backup drive. The paybacks come when you make the search results sweat - print all your 3 star shots of subject X, generate a web contact sheet, print b&w versions (and store the settings) etc. You're doing in a few keystrokes what takes many in the old non-DAM way - and would take ages to run too.

That's very general, so here's something more specific that comes from importing data into a database - Lightroom's Metadata panel has small arrows to the right of many fields. Their functions vary. For example, if you have GPS data, clicking that arrow takes you to Google Earth's map. OK, might be useful for some, but perhaps a little trivial. So let's say, like last night, I was working on an image of St Peter's in Rome. St Peter's is in the IPTC Location field, so clicking that arrow filters the whole database down to all my pictures of St Peter's. The same happens for other EXIF and IPTC information. Let's say you've just healed dust spots on one image - click the camera model arrow and you can quickly see all the shots (in multiple folders and on 2 drives) with that camera over the period between big cleans, look for any others with the same spots, and (with obvious limitations) whack the spotting corrections over to all the other images.

Where you have a case in Lightroom v1 is in the portability between different computers. Because Adobe rightly dumped beta 4's shoots and exposed folders in v1.0 (btw Ctrl/Cmd R is a neat shortcut to Finder/Explorer too), something had to give and that was "binders". It addressed exactly the problem you describe. My laptop is a Mac but my desktop is a PC, and a single menu command exported a binder - selected images, their metadata, and related LR thumbnails and previews. On the PC, the import command ran quickly because all the raw data extraction had already been done on the laptop. The binders feature worked really well but was a casualty of the change in organization. For now you can use XMP (sidecars or embedded in certain formats) as you are doing in the old way, but I've little doubt binders will be revived before long.

Convinced? Wobbling?

John
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Let's say you've just healed dust spots on one image - click the camera model arrow and you can quickly see all the shots (in multiple folders and on 2 drives) with that camera over the period between big cleans, look for any others with the same spots, and (with obvious limitations) whack the spotting corrections over to all the other images.
John

Hi John,

Glad you are here despite your writing and photo schedule!

Thanks for your helpful post!

Could you say a little more on how one transfers the work done with one image to all the others?

Asher
 
Hi Asher

There are 2 or 3 ways. There's a copy and paste method - rather similar to the Lift and Stamp in Aperture. Another's a Sync button which copies specific adjustments from the "most-selected" item to other currently-selected images - you can choose dust spots alone, or all other adjustments. These two ways are in the Library grid view.

The less well-known one is only in the Develop module, where you do the fine tuning, and it's called Auto Sync. You Ctrl/Cmd click the Sync button in Develop and it changes text to Auto Sync. In this mode, every time you have multiple pictures selected, your Develop adjustments, including spotting, will apply to all of the selected items. Since this was introduced, it's the only way I work - with a quick F6 to toggle the filmstrip and check what's selected. You read it here first.

John
 

Gary Yelland

pro member
Same problem

I have the same views, I like my file structure its portable, logical and flexible.
I dont want to be tired to any one tool, and I certaily dont trust them to manage 1.5 Tb of data better than me for years to come.

Its very important to me to have one master file (and backups) and not multiple versions that I have to keep synchronized.
For example and its not impossible, what happens of the index header of the proprietary library system becomes corrupt
all your images will still be in the library but you will have no way to access them, this is to high a risk for me.

Therefore I opted for the directory method on external drives,
using iView Media Pro and the DAM, to allow me to navigate images offline, slideshows, search, meta data, keywords, rating etc..
then using adobe bridge or lightroom to batch process files, both of which
cache images and save them locally with the original files.

This way I am independent from any library system.

Cheers
 

Trevor Connell

New member
easy to use catalogue system

Hi

I run an event photography business and we are preparing for a large event where we will be supplying images from a number of photographers to our client and the media.
I need a software program that will be easy for the client and media to use to search for images.
The images will be edited and copied to a dedicated HDD that I will make available to the client through a network. Ideally I would like the client/media to be able to copy or email any image but not to be able to edit the original (even though these are copies on the HDD)
I currently use ACDsee Pro for cataloguing and editing the metadata.

any ideas?

Regards

Trevor
 

Gary Yelland

pro member
My Solution

This is a workflow that we developed for someone else for PureFineArt
I think it covers most of what you want. When we ran this setup, we had wireless transfer from multiple
cameras to the main store which worked really well, but the workflow works just as well with manual download of images.

See what you think,
I think the key to what you want lies in the automatic watermarking.
If you like it there are some special consideration to ensure you dont have corruption for files being accessed by multiple views that you should take into account, just email mail and I will let you know.

542413514_f2f4c0e11c_o.jpg
 

Trevor Connell

New member
Hi Gary
Thanks for the flowchart.
We will be feeding images to the media and I want them to be able to copy and/or email images from within the viewer.
According to your Workflow chart the images can be emailed from iView Catalogue viewer. I've downloaded MediaPro3 and the viewer and I see that I can email from MediaPro3 but I cannot see how from the viewer.

Regards

Trevor
 

Gary Yelland

pro member
Just Drag

Email indirectly

Haven't testing on windows but on a mac you just have the viewer open on thumbnail view for example and also open a file folder (in explorer) then just drag the thumbnail to the folder window outside of the iview viewer and it copies the original file to your folder, also works with selected multiple images.

They can then share locally or zip them up to be emailed etc.. as an attachment.
 
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