On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 6:19 PM, Bob W <p...@web-options.com> wrote: >> >> Perhaps you can tell me how to handle an issue. My iMac doesn't have >> huge amounts of disk space, and it's not trivial to add a bigger >> drive. So my process: >> > [...] >> >> My problem with this software may be from the fact that I use a mac >> because it's unix, rather than I'm using a unix machine because that's >> what the mac UI is on top of. I prefer the intuitive command line to >> the arcane and confusing graphical user interface. >> > > Your process sounds all wrong whatever software you choose, and the way you > organise and catalogue everything seems very confused to me. You might > profit from having a fresh think about how you want to work and organise > your stuff. Design your process first, then think about what software will > best support it. You might be surprised and find that Lightroom does it all, > very easily. > A number of people have complained about having to import data in Lightroom. > I don't really see what the issue is. At some point you have to get the data > off the card and onto your storage system. That's what Import does. Your > storage system doesn't have to be on the same disk where your LR catalogue > is. For example, my catalogue is on my local hard disk, but my photos are on > a networked disk. I sometimes import straight off the camera, but usually > put the card into a reader and import from the reader onto the disk where > the files are going to stay. On the Import dialog you can (but don't have to > ) specify keywords, metadata and so forth, and away it goes, putting the > files where you tell it to. This is not an extra step because you have to > copy the files from your card to your hard disk whatever process you use. > > "The Photoshop Lightroom Workbook" by Resnick and Spritzer describes > essentially the same workflow that I use, and will probably answer all the > questions you raised in your email, including keeping your photos on several > disks, not necessarily all online at the same time. > > Long before I'd heard of Lightroom, when I was still scanning slides and > just before I bought my first digital SLR, I sat down and thought about the > best way for me to work, being lazy, wanting to do as little as possible, > and loathing hierarchical file structures. I intended to write the software > myself for cataloguing and finding everything. When Lightroom appeared I > dropped that idea immediately because it was obvious that it would do > everything I wanted in far better ways than I would be able to program on my > own. > > Bob >
Bob, One of my beefs with Import is that while it does handle copying directly off the card reasonably well, I doesn't handle images that are there already nearly as well. I'm still a heavy film shooter and Lightroom is rather much of a PITA for dealing with my scan-based workflow, especially due to how I handle archiving of scanned images. My fresh scans are in a roll-specific folder in the 'To Be Worked folder until processed. They're then moved into the appropriate archival folder (MF abd 35mm B&W is archived by emulsion and roll number, 35mm colour by neg vs slide and roll number. Yeah, the latter sucks but I don't shoot enough 35mm colour for it to be worth moving to the better system I use for B&W and MF stuff). Finished images go to my Uploads folder, which is archived when it hits 4GB. Naming specifies emulsion, camera (if known) and roll number, so finding originals is easy. Metadata is what continues to drive me bonkers. Given that my images are often widely varying on a per-roll or per-card basis, batch adding metadata simply doesn't work beyond copyright info. And individually adding it, especially keywords is far more trouble than its worth for me. My digital organizational scheme is different from the film stuff (Based on dated folders and dated/named files) but overall works similarly. I could live with Lightroom's Library if only working with digital, but I still find it inferior to my current organizational method since I don't use keywords (and frankly loathe keywords). -- M. Adam Maas http://www.mawz.ca Explorations of the City Around Us. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
