[adifrank]

Hi. My archive of images (on hard drive) is starting to become a mess. So far I've been just using folders and sub-folders in Windows - with dates and some general text which might help me know what the images are, but evidently this method is becoming cumbersome and ineffective.



I'm hoping that maybe someone with similar needs and a bit of experience with this might share a few tips and good a software solution to quickly and efficiently store and locate image files.



My first concern is how to quickly and wisely store several different kinds of images coming from various sources, so that they can quickly be located later and their exact sources easily identified.



The images stored on my hard drive come from several different sources - digital SLR, point&shoot digital camera, high-end negative scans, scans from home flatbed scanner, and possibly others. Images from digital cameras have embedded data indicating which camera the image came from and a bunch of other useful info - this is great. Yet images coming from other sources don't have this information which means I need to somehow input this information myself manually. Ideally, there would be some image managing software that enables custom-made templates which I could create and apply to my images accordingly.

For example, if I took a photo with my film Mamiya 6, then scanned the negative using a high-end Scitex scanner - I'd want to have the following information stored in the file's data: name of camera, name of scanner, type of film, roll number (I number every roll of film I develop), frame number (from negative), date shot, date scanned, comments. Once again, ideally, an image organizing application would also recommend or automatically create tags or keywords for searching purposes.



My other concern is how to work with multiple copies of images. Let me give an example... I start out with a RAW file taken from my dSLR and store it on my hard drive using whatever archiving system. Now I want to start processing it with Photoshop. So I naturally need to make a working copy of the file, right? So now there are two files of basically the same image. With most images that will be it - two files - source file and working file. Yet other images might require a 2nd working file - when the processing is more than just adjusting colors, brightness and contrast - and include major manipulation changing the original significantly. In such cases, I prefer have a second working copy rather than a different set of layers in the same Photoshop file.



I haven't yet tried Adobe Lightroom, but read some good things about it. Does anyone know if it can do what I need? Is there a different software that you recommend I check?



I look forward to your replies! Thanks very much!

[Sylvain]

[quote name='adifrank' date='07 July 2010 - 10:39 AM' timestamp='1278495546' post='867']

Hi. My archive of images (on hard drive) is starting to become a mess. So far I've been just using folders and sub-folders in Windows - with dates and some general text which might help me know what the images are, but evidently this method is becoming cumbersome and ineffective.



I'm hoping that maybe someone with similar needs and a bit of experience with this might share a few tips and good a software solution to quickly and efficiently store and locate image files.



My first concern is how to quickly and wisely store several different kinds of images coming from various sources, so that they can quickly be located later and their exact sources easily identified.



The images stored on my hard drive come from several different sources - digital SLR, point&shoot digital camera, high-end negative scans, scans from home flatbed scanner, and possibly others. Images from digital cameras have embedded data indicating which camera the image came from and a bunch of other useful info - this is great. Yet images coming from other sources don't have this information which means I need to somehow input this information myself manually. Ideally, there would be some image managing software that enables custom-made templates which I could create and apply to my images accordingly.

For example, if I took a photo with my film Mamiya 6, then scanned the negative using a high-end Scitex scanner - I'd want to have the following information stored in the file's data: name of camera, name of scanner, type of film, roll number (I number every roll of film I develop), frame number (from negative), date shot, date scanned, comments. Once again, ideally, an image organizing application would also recommend or automatically create tags or keywords for searching purposes.

[/quote]



Hello adifrank,



I don't know other products so well but I know lightroom quite well since v1 and I think it can fulfill your needs.



Using Lightroom, you have to distinguish two types of metadata. File metadata & Library metadata :



-File metadata is written in the picture file by the camera at capture time. It's usually EXIF & IPTC metadata.



-Library metadata is stored outside the file (within Lightroom catalag files) as accompanying data and is added by the user.

You have different type of such library metadata : flag status,star rating, colour labels, keywords tag.

The flag status, star rating and colour labels are mostly useful to pick your favourites, reject, sort large collections...They are called Attributes

Keywords tag are probably the most important thing you're looking for. You can assign keywords to your picture just like you would do on flickr.

There are several ways to add keywords :



[indent]-Picture by picture, you just type them in;[/indent]

[indent]-On import mode, all your pictures can be assigned keywords on import. That would work for your requested "name of camera, name of scanner, type of film, roll number, date shot, date scanned, comments" but less so for frame number (from negative). You can also save a set of keywords as a reusable preset for later imports to reuse later, to batch-tag. (E.g. import a series of scanned Mamiya pictures, Pentax 645,...);[/indent]

[indent]-You can use the paint can. You simply drag your mouse around pictures you want tagged with a word. Quite fast when working on large heterogeneous collections.[/indent]

All added keywords become part of the keywords pool and as you type a keyword, lightroom looks up for available matching keywords and suggest auto-completion of keywords. Works like a charm.



As far as I know, no library data is ever actually written in your picture file. This is deliberate and part of the Lightroom philosophy : never alter original files.

Same goes for image edits. Image edits are another sort of Library metadata and are stored outside the file.



One thing you should know though is that when you use the Export function of Lightroom, and that you export as a JPEG, it will add your input keywords in the field Tags that Windows Vista & 7 seem to recognize.



This is all very powerful and flexible but of course, it firmly ties you to Lightroom... Maybe using the export function as described right above this paragraph as a "tag" backup measure?



So, having your set of File metadata and user input Library metadata, you can then use filters!

Three types of filters :

-Text : filters on any text, including your keywords, filename, ...

-Attributes : filters on flags, rating, labels

-Metadata : refers to what I call File metadata, that is all capture related information including lenses.



It is extremely fast and easy to use.



You can also create dynamic collections based on user defined conjunction or disjunction of filter clauses.



[quote name='adifrank' date='07 July 2010 - 10:39 AM' timestamp='1278495546' post='867']

My other concern is how to work with multiple copies of images. Let me give an example... I start out with a RAW file taken from my dSLR and store it on my hard drive using whatever archiving system. Now I want to start processing it with Photoshop. So I naturally need to make a working copy of the file, right? So now there are two files of basically the same image. With most images that will be it - two files - source file and working file. Yet other images might require a 2nd working file - when the processing is more than just adjusting colors, brightness and contrast - and include major manipulation changing the original significantly. In such cases, I prefer have a second working copy rather than a different set of layers in the same Photoshop file.

[/quote]

Lightroom has it all. You can create what they call "Virtual Copies".As many virtual copies as you want.And you can edit or go edit any of them in CS if you wish. Remember, lightroom will never touch your original files. They all become part of a stack for the same picture (the stack hasn't anything to do with layers).



I get the impression you would be pretty happy with Lightroom for the needs you described. For me, lightroom shined mostly for its file handling and its raw engine was quite good enough that I would use other tools only occasionally. Now with Lightroom 3 and its improved editing and RAW engine, I simply don't need anything else (well, not quite).



Hope it helps,



S.



p.s.: sorry for the bad text layout, I dislike these web editors <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />.

[adifrank]

Thanks Silvain so much for your very informative reply! It has reaffirmed me that I should get Lightroom. <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

I've heard that Lightroom has in some ways replaced the Adobe Bridge/Photoshop work flow (except for images that require more complex processing), but I am new to editing RAW and also never really used Bridge very much. But if Lightroom also will help me with the task of organizing, sorting and archiving my images - that is great.



Thanks again.

[Sylvain]

You're welcome.



I played with Bridge a few years ago before deciding going lightroom, not sure how it evolved but it was quite poor by comparison.



You can at least try Lightroom demo for 30 days, I reckon 2 or 3 hours should suffice to convince you <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />



Greetings,

S.



[quote name='adifrank' date='07 July 2010 - 02:23 PM' timestamp='1278508981' post='874']

Thanks Sylvain so much for your very informative reply! It has reaffirmed me that I should get Lightroom. <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

I've heard that Lightroom has in some ways replaced the Adobe Bridge/Photoshop work flow (except for images that require more complex processing), but I am new to editing RAW and also never really used Bridge very much. But if Lightroom also will help me with the task of organizing, sorting and archiving my images - that is great.



Thanks again.

[/quote]

[Guest]

Just my two cents worth:



The archiving of digital images/media can become like trying to water a garden using a sieve -the time and energy expended do not match the rewards. And your archive is growing all the time, so it's like an expanding garden. <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />



My advice is therefore to be very ruthless in your choice of what needs to archived, otherwise you'll spend many hours and nights in front of a computer.



But in general Lightroom is a good choice for this, as Sylvain says. If you are using a Canon, the DPP software is also very good as a quick viewing/overview tool since it shows all your drives in a data tree layout and you can quickly access all folders.

[Guest]

[quote name='Sylvain' date='07 July 2010 - 02:40 PM' timestamp='1278506401' post='872']

Hello adifrank,



I don't know other products so well but I know lightroom quite well since v1 and I think it can fulfill your needs.



Using Lightroom, you have to distinguish two types of metadata. File metadata & Library metadata :



-File metadata is written in the picture file by the camera at capture time. It's usually EXIF & IPTC metadata.



-Library metadata is stored outside the file (within Lightroom catalag files) as accompanying data and is added by the user.

You have different type of such library metadata : flag status,star rating, colour labels, keywords tag.

...

[/quote]



One problem with this is that you don't get EXIF metadata for the images that don't already have them. This means that a) you'll need to pollute your regular keywords with things that properly belong in EXIF (but you'll have your other metadata as well), and <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> you can't use LR's builtin EXIF searches on all the images.



Can't your scanning program put info into the EXIF?



Also, metadata like film roll cannot be added as its own field, you'd have to add keywords like "Filmroll 1", "Filmroll 2", ... Unless, that is, I missed a sneaky feature for this.



-Lars

[adifrank]

[quote name='larsrc' date='07 July 2010 - 04:46 PM' timestamp='1278514009' post='877']

One problem with this is that you don't get EXIF metadata for the images that don't already have them. This means that a) you'll need to pollute your regular keywords with things that properly belong in EXIF (but you'll have your other metadata as well), and <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> you can't use LR's builtin EXIF searches on all the images.



Can't your scanning program put info into the EXIF?



Also, metadata like film roll cannot be added as its own field, you'd have to add keywords like "Filmroll 1", "Filmroll 2", ... Unless, that is, I missed a sneaky feature for this.



-Lars

[/quote]



Thanks for your input Lars. Well... is there like a GENERAL COMMENTS field where I can insert missing data that I don't want as part of the keyword tags? (A field that is still still included in searches). Since I don't have Lightroom and haven't tried it yet, I don't know if what I'm saying makes sense at all. But If I think of mp3 files, for example, and how their embedded data and tags are worked with in applications such as WinAmp - then I'm looking for a similar option also for images.

[Guest]

[quote name='adifrank' date='07 July 2010 - 05:00 PM' timestamp='1278514857' post='878']

Thanks for your input Lars. Well... is there like a GENERAL COMMENTS field where I can insert missing data that I don't want as part of the keyword tags? (A field that is still still included in searches). Since I don't have Lightroom and haven't tried it yet, I don't know if what I'm saying makes sense at all. But If I think of mp3 files, for example, and how their embedded data and tags are worked with in applications such as WinAmp - then I'm looking for a similar option also for images.

[/quote]



There's title, caption and label, but at least in LR2 no generic comment field. I notice, however, that one of the text fields you can search in is 'Any searchable plugin field', so maybe a plugin could add something. The Facebook plugin adds some data for when it uploads, for instance.



Do download Lightroom (3) and make use of its 30-day evaluation period. Only way to find out if you like it.



-Lars

[adifrank]

[quote name='larsrc' date='07 July 2010 - 07:51 PM' timestamp='1278525095' post='882']

Do download Lightroom (3) and make use of its 30-day evaluation period. Only way to find out if you like it.



-Lars

[/quote]



Will do. Thanks !

[Sylvain]

[quote name='adifrank' date='07 July 2010 - 07:00 PM' timestamp='1278525608' post='883']

Will do. Thanks !

[/quote]



Please share your early impression with us. I'm curious to see how LR 3 is perceived by newcomers <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />