What are Portfolios and Collections?

[tomas]

I have searched the manual and other resources but cannot find basic definitions of features.
Like the difference between a "collection" and a "portfolio".
Can someone point me to the right place please?

I want to select a group of images for a client to review, mark them as being in that group, resize them, and place the resulting JPG images in a folder for emailing.
Any help with the step would be appreciated. I already placed the first group in the image basket.
(I am still on V1 if that matters)

Thanks!

[EDIT by Hert; updated the title]

[Hert]

Hi Tomas,

A Portfolio is a virtual structure of "sets of images" (collections) that you can construct yourself. Best compared with your Hard drive. The Portfolio is the hard drive itself and Collections are your folders. In other word, the content of the Portfolio. A Portfolio consists of Collections, and each Collection can be decomposed into other Collections. This is also where the analogy with hard drives and folders end.

Here's a sample screenshot of a Portfolio with Collections in it.

Portfolios.png (7.98 KiB) Viewed 7928 times

Access the Portfolios from CATALOG->By Portfolio

The beauty of Portfolios is that you can collect a set of image and store then as a collection in the portfolio. The images can reside anywhere on your hard drives and still collected together in a single collection.

What I'd recommend that you do first: Create your first Portfolio. In your case you could name it after the client that you're collection for.

Since you mention that you've already collected the images in your Image Basket, you can store the contents of the Image Basket as a new Collection in your portfolio.

IB_To_Portfolios.png (78.04 KiB) Viewed 7928 times

Now you can use the Portfolio to access the images, select all, and use the Share feature to send them to your client.

Hope that help (a little)

Hert

[tomas]

Thank you Hert!
That helps me understand and move forward.
tomas

[jstartin]

I have searched the manual and other resources but cannot find basic definitions of features.
Like the difference between a "collection" and a "portfolio".
Can someone point me to the right place please?

In addition to Hert's reply, I think the definitions could be put briefly as:

Portfolio collection: A group of images that you want to return to, stored as "links" so that image files can all remain in various folders without needing to create duplicate copies.

Portfolio: A collection of collections.

[gcorbin]

I too am confused about Portfolios and Collections.

To me, a portfolio is a top level container which can contain collections, but not photos and cannot be a child of anything but must be a top level container. A collection is an container which can contain photos and other collections and is a child of a portfolio or another collection.

Assuming I have that right, what is the purpose of portfolios? They are just top level collections which cannot contain photos. They don’t seem to add anything useful to the user interface over collections other than confuse things with another container type which doesn’t seem to add anything new. (It actually adds the restriction that portfolios cannot contain photos. Why is not clear, but that is a limitation we must live with.)

Why not get rid of portfolios and allow collections to be top level items. This would give all the same functionality as currently exists and would get rid of the confusing portfolio container which seems to have no purpose over the collection container.

Is this logical, or have I missed something useful with portfolios?

[tomas]

gcorbin - i will give it shot, now that i have started to use them.

Say you are a wedding photographer. You shoot the Smith wedding and have images from the Bachelor party, ceremony, and reception.
Portfolio = Smith Wedding (no images needed here)
Collection #1 = Bachelor party
Collection #2 = Ceremony
Collection #3 = Reception

I think it is a useful way to organize 'virtual folders' of images. I used to do it with catalog labels, but this is much cleaner.
And using Hert's analogy, why would you want to store files in the root of your hard drive?

tomas

[stevehughes]

Something that would be very helpful to me is a list of the behavioural differences between collections and category labels. I know they are intended for different uses, but they have many similarities.

The only difference I know about is that collections support manual sort order and categories don't, although I don't understand why this restriction is necessary.

Thanks, Steve.

[gcorbin]

Say you are a wedding photographer. You shoot the Smith wedding and have images from the Bachelor party, ceremony, and reception.
Portfolio = Smith Wedding (no images needed here)
Collection #1 = Bachelor party
Collection #2 = Ceremony
Collection #3 = Reception

With my suggestion of no Portfolio, the wedding photographer would create
Collection #1 = Smith Wedding (no images needed here)
Collection #2 = Bachelor party
Collection #3 = Ceremony
Collection #4 = Reception
where Collection #2 to #4 are children of Collection #1. This gives the same result without having to learn the somewhat arbitrary rules that only a Portfolio can be the top level container and only Collections can be children of a Portfolio.

I think it is a useful way to organize 'virtual folders' of images. I used to do it with catalog labels, but this is much cleaner.

I agree. I find collections useful also, but just not Porfolios as I see no use for them.

And using Hert's analogy, why would you want to store files in the root of your hard drive?

Why not? In your example, I agree it is probably pointless, but there are good reasons to do so.

When I first got Photo Supreme, I wanted to add my photos to the default created Portfolio. I couldn't. To me, this was illogical. After a bit of mucking around, I added a collection to the portfolio and now I could add my photos. Why? I didn't know. I wanted to add a new collection, but I couldn't add it at the top level. Why? I didn't know. After a bit more trial and error, I worked out the rules of Portfolios and Collections. Now I understand the rules and I can use them, but I don't like them.

I have a number of unrelated collections for my photos. I don't need the complexity of multiple levels deep at this stage. I started with creating a new Portfolio and as I couldn't add photos there, I created a child collection with the same name as the Portfolio to store my photos. After creating a couple of Portfolios with a single Collection with the same name as the Portfolio to hold my photos, I got sick of this and created a generic Portfolio called Photos and now create all my Collections under this generic Portfolio. I have no need for the Portfolio but Photo Supreme forces me to have it for some reason. It is certainly not a show stopper, but is illogical.

Thus, I again say, I can see no reason for Portfolios. Simplify the interface and get rid of them by allowing Collections to be top level containers. Hert, this is my suggestion. It is up to you whether you see merit.

[HaraldE]

Friends,

I find the concept of Portfolios usefull for my own work. In my database I have at the moment the following Portfolios:

SmugMug ... which is a mirror of the large number of Galleries (which is the SM name for a Collection) that I have uploaded to my PhotoSite on SmugMug
My Album ... A whole bunch of Collections that I need/want but which is not part of my SmugMug setup, some are static and some are shortlived
Test ... created this one some months ago when I needed to do some testing
Travel ... as name indicates these are collections that relates to traveling. Was created when I needed to gather these collections,
..... will most likely be removed soon since I am changing the overall structure of my whole Archive of photos

So I am using portfolios and like them. However, documentation around Portfolios and Collections and their differencies maybe could be enhanced.
Also I can see that different tool providers use different names (Collection and Gallery). This is not a negative remark, mainly an observation. I can rather easily live with it

Regards, Harald

[tomas]

Thus, I again say, I can see no reason for Portfolios. Simplify the interface and get rid of them by allowing Collections to be top level containers. Hert, this is my suggestion. It is up to you whether you see merit.

gcorbin,

Perhaps the Portfolio / Collection feature is not what you need for your 'collections'.
Why not just create Catalog Labels for your images that in a 'collection'? They are not hierarchical.
I think others, such as myself, find Portfolio / Collection to be a useful addition to PS.

tomas

[gcorbin]

Tomas,
You seem to have missed my point. I do find Portfolio/Collections useful. I just do not see the need for Portfolios at all and could live quite happily with just Collections. As my comments above, if you kept Collections and dropped Portfolios, you would still have the same functionality (actually slightly more) but wouldn’t have to learn the difference between Portfolios and Collections. (Portfolios and Collections are easy to use once you learn the difference, but look through the forum to see how many novice users are confused by how to use these two containers. Getting rid of the unnecessary Portfolio and keeping the useful Collection would avoid this confusion, a good thing in my opinion and make Photo Supreme even easier to learn without any loss of functionality.)

As per Steves question above, there is almost no functional difference between Portfolio/Collection and Catalog Labels except you cannot manually sort Catalog Labels. This is actually strange as Catalog Labels support ‘No Sort’ but just not manual sorting. If Hert added manual sorting to Catalog Labels, Catalog Labels would totally duplicate the functionality of Portfolio/Collections as far as I can see and could be used interchangeably. At this point I probably would switch to Catalog Labels rather than Portfolio/Collections as Catalog Labels would have all the functionality of Portfolio/Collections plus have the advantage that they can be written to images as Metadata making them slightly more flexible.

[Mike Buckley]

If Hert added manual sorting to Catalog Labels, Catalog Labels would totally duplicate the functionality of Portfolio/Collections as far as I can see

For my use, manual sorting pertaining to catalog labels is irrelevant; to eliminate the Portfolio function and its manual sorting would require being able to sort all images in any physical file folder regardless of the catalog labels that are assigned. If that can't be done, my everyday use of the product requires using the Portfolio function and its manual sorting.