Stephen,PhilBurton wrote:Lightroom gives you the option of storing exported images as a subfolder of the original images, but I'm not sure that this is a best practice. I'd like to hear what other people with more experience than me have done, or what they would do if they could start over.
Phil
You put in a lot of effort to put together your message, which I do appreciate, so I'm going to reply to each of your points. I'm hoping that other people who read this thread will find some value in this discussion topic.
I have Peter's book and while I don't find everything he says directly relevant, it is still a very good guide. I think his audience is the non-technical photo professional who has been "dragged" into the digital photography era, and is unsure about how to proceed.
Phil,
Peter Krogh, co-author of the linked article also authored "The DAM Book", a very valuable (unfortunately outdated) resource on similar lines.
Within the next few weeks I have a large project where I will need to select, keyword, edit and catalog a large number of RAW images. As I dislike editing twice, the retrieval of those images on future occasions is important.
One point I really like about Peter's approach and yours, which is that you need to do keywording and cataloging of your images. Back in my Kodachrome days, I could look for the "right image" just by holding upa clear plastic sheet that holds something like 20 2x2 slides. You can't exacly put your disk drive onto a light table.
My approach is like yours, except that folders are named \yyyy\mm\ddHistorically I have used basic keywords when importing images and since linking my image directory to PSu have been consistent in folder naming, i.e.:
Spain Madrid 2015-10-10
Spain Madrid 2015-12-12
USA New York 2015-11-11
This assures that the folder structure is more useful and provides independence of a DAM.
My images are named chronologically: yyyymmdd-hhmmss-9999.raw
Individual images are named yyyymmdd-9999-SUBJECT
so my approach is slightly different, but I don't like to get too worked up about the "best" naming scheme. Mine works for me. I shoudl mention that I don't do "ss" because my Nikon D3 can shoot 9 frames/second so I would need sub-seconds as part of my file name. I thought about this, and then decided for ME and for the people who get my images, mostly family and some friends, I wanted to keep the filenames shorter. But that's me.
Also, for me the filetype is not RAW, it's NEF, except when it's not. From my iPhone and my wife's iPhone, it's JPG. From my friend's Canon, it's CR2. Fortunately PSu can handle all these different file types and so can Lightroom.
Not sure what you mean by cloning ratehr that copying. I'm not familiar with ChronoSync since it's a MacOS product and I'm a Windows user, but that's not really important. When I do an import (with PSu), all the original files are also backed up to a second hard drive. That's important. And both the "catalog" hard drive and the backup hard drive are themselves backed up nightly using a program that runs on Windows, MacOS, and UNIX, called Retrospect. it's really for small office/home office business use, but it does a great job and it's worth the money. [Just a happy user.]I clone them (more reliable than copying) from card to drive with ChronoSync and only then import them to a different location according to the directory structure above. The original import remains untouched as an archive copy as storage space is cheap. The archived originals don't have keywords and ratings, but can always be found.
In a way, I don't know if that's the best practice or not. That's why I started this thread. But I am not the "intended audience" for Peter's book. I'm way more computer-savvy than his audience. But also, Lightroom, when you do an export of any kind, wants to store the resulting images in a subdirectory of the "main" directory that holds your RAWs. So who is right? And why? Not only am I just starting to use PSu, I'm also just starting to use Lightroom.I can follow Peter Krogh's methodology of separating RAW and edited files, which also saves continually backing up unchanged images, however, I don't think it will work for me.
So it sounds like C1 takes the same basic approach as Lightroom.My preferred editor, Capture One (C1), can put the edits in the original folder or a subfolder (or wherever, including multiple locations simultaneously). I have yet to decide which is best. PSu will can find them with the verify folder command.
BTW, C1 creates sub-folders (within the folder you select) where it puts data related to the edited images.
Regarding your #3, if you look at my folder naming system and my filenaming system, it works for me.
I will outline my thoughts for this task:
1. Putting edits in the original folder will mean that some meta data which C1 kills could be partly rescued by stacking.
2. As I don't like to stack the versions, a subfolder might lead to a cleaner organization.
3. I prefer to edit / work chronologically, which is easier with my folder naming system than with yours. So I normally work in the catalog view sorted by date. This has the disadvantage that sometimes (yet to determine why only sometimes) the edited files cannot be found under the correct date, although the chronological file name does not change. Possibly something to do with PSu using different dates for sorting.
4. I could continue with my current method, by placing the edited files in a different location which is named for the project. That potentially makes it harder to find those edited files at a later date and to combine them with unedited ones.
5. I could rename all of my folders (similar to your style), but then the OS will use its own sorting and so I can then not keep subject matter together, as it will show like this:
2015-10-10 Spain Madrid
2015-11-11 USA New York
2015-12-12 Spain Madrid
This would have relevance when working in the folder view.
Regarding your #5, a lot of my photos are of railroads and rail transit systems, and sometimes I have "mixed" subjects. For example, What if a Union Pacific Railroad unit coal train is "through running" onto Chessie System trackage. How do I name THAT? Or what about a New Jersey Transit commuter train in Pennsylvania Station, NY, which is owned by Amtrak? Or if i do 4 shots of that NJ Transit train, and then 4 of an Amtrak train and then two of a Long Island Rail Road train?
Yes, these thoughts have been useful. If nothing else, I have had to re-think my own ideas and I've enjoyed this exchange. Much appreciated.Phil, just some of my thoughts which will perhaps be useful to you?
