working folder and storage folder

[vkfoto]

In my normal workflow, new raw images are downloaded from my camera to a local working folder. There they are processed by DXO and selected images are saved as JPG files. After every major session, the contents of the working folder are copied to a NAS that contains the main image storage area. That is backed up to an other disk from time to time.

For quite a while after the images are in the working folder, they are still being worked on by DXO and the results copied to the main storage area on the NAS.

If PSu starts processing the working folder, anything it does will also endup in the NAS but eventually the working folder will be emptied. Thus the PSu database will not have any images in the working folder to reference. As time progresses, the NAS will have more and more of the images. Will it be as simple as eventually pointing PSu to the NAS to restore its view of the images?
If PSu starts working with the images in the NAS as soon as they are copied there, will that work be undone every time the contents of the working folder over-write existing images?
If PSu waits until the raw processing is completed before it starts working on the images in the NAS, it could be months or more before I get the benefit of PSu organized images.

What would be the best way to use PSu in this scenario?

[Hert]

If the working folder exists in PSU and you have not used PSU to move the folder to the NAS then you can relocate the folder in PSU. Right click on the now missing working folder and select "Map to the correct physical path", which is the folder on the NAS

Also use Verify Folder on the NAS root folder to search for discrepancies between the catalog and the file system. You can schedule the Verify Folder to run at vertain intervals, eg every week or every day.

[gcorbin]

vkfoto, you have Photo Supreme, a Digital Asset Management system, but your workflow does not use the DAM to manage your assets while you are processing. I utilise a similar but different workflow and you may wish to consider something similar to make best use of your DAM.

First, I download my images from the camera using Photo Supreme to a local folder of my working photos, images in date subfolders but you can use whatever folder system you desire. I immediately do basic cataloguing on my new images so I can always easily find them using my DAM even at this early stage. At the end of each photo session, I backup my working images to my NAS. This is a backup to a backup folder, different to the folder for my finished processed images.

Over time, often months depending on my workload, I use Affinity Photo to process selected images and I store the Affinity Photo and processed image in a subfolder of the source image folder. I immediately use “Verify Folder” in Photo Supreme to ingest the new images and record them as versions in Photo Supreme. I will also do further cataloging in Photo Supreme as required. As I process more and more of each folder, I update the folder state to help me track my progress in each folder. Folder state is brilliant to help manage processing my images. Again, I backup after each processing session.

As I complete processing of a working folder, I set the folder state to Finished. I then move one or more completed folders to their final location on my NAS. For a small number of images, I just use Photo Supreme to move the folders to the NAS, but for a large number of images, I generally move the images outside of Photo Supreme and then “Map to the correct physical Path” in Photo Supreme as suggested by Hert.

For me, this workflow is simple and robust and allows Photo Supreme to know where all images are located at all times so I can utilise the power of my Photo Supreme DAM. I suggest you use a workflow similar to mine and utilise the power of you DAM to manage your workflow. Photo Supreme offers folder states, image colour labels and image category labels, all of which can be used to track your progress processing images, so make use of this power. Use Photo Supreme filters, searches and dynamic searchs to display just the images you need to process. Use the power of Photo Supreme to help manage your DXO work. You can even open your images from Photo Supreme directly in DXO so ensure you configure DXO in Photo Supremes external applications to make use of this.

I hope this gives you some inspiration on how you might change your workflow to make the best use of Photo Supremes power. To demonstrate just how powerful my workflow is managing my processing, I have been very slack recently, so my working folder contains just over 100 subfolders containing just under 30,000 images in various stages of processing and I am still organised and know exactly what has been processed and what is still to be done. That is the power of Photo Supreme.

[vkfoto]

Food for thought. Will have to study the new workflow to see how I might use it. Being an old fogie, I tend to stay stuck in my ways for a long time, even if a better and easier way is presented just because old habits die hard.
Thanks for taking the time to explain how you do it.