My files are simply organized by date shot as the folder name,
followed by a few key words. If the folder hasn't been backed up yet,
it carries a "b" prefix. Once I back it up, I remove the prefix. I
manage the files with Bridge and find it all quite simple. I never
have experienced a problem retrieving an old file. If I can't recall
the date or haven't saved it elsewhere, a simple search of the
appropriate key word turns it up.
Paul
On Apr 2, 2009, at 7:16 PM, Adam Maas wrote:
On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 6:19 PM, Bob W <[email protected]> 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.
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