Workflow help needed

[vfilby]

Hello,

What I need is advice on programs or techniques to try. I would also like advice on sorting/archiving programs (see the bottom paragraph).

Here is a sample of my workflow.

1. I shoot raw or jpeg depending upon whether or not I absolutely need to have the shot.

2. Copy all files to an archive location, use pixort to select the ones for client preview, copy them to a temporary location for further work until the job is finished.

3. from there I just edit the few I need and then don't bother with the rest, archiving my editted copies and leaving the rest in the archive.

Any suggestions for what happens, or should happen, between sort and edit would be greatly appreciated,

I always keep my images in the default folders sorted by image#, which is fine, but I need some way of keeping descriptions or keywords for search and indexing. I tried IMatch and I think that it sucks. Basically all I want is something that stores basic info and maybe a thumbnail with the image number. I am very seriously considering writing one myself.

Thanks,

[tofuboy]

My workflow is very similar to yours...
1. take photos and offload them to a directory leaving filenames as they come from the camera
2. Apply basic IPTC meta data to all the images (copyright, general keywords that apply to all the images)
3. Select the images I like and copy those to a new folder
4. Apply more IPTC meta data to selected images (title, description, more specific keywords)
5. do edits, save as tiff to preserve the layers.
6. run action to save edits for web use (to yet another folder)

I'm using Photoshop CS and it's File Browser to do all the IPTC meta data, and image selection. So far it has worked out pretty good for me, the File Browser itself gets pretty slow when it's generating thumbnail images for viewing. It also has a search feature which I believe searches that IPTC meta data... I haven't used it so I'm not too sure how well that part of it works. If you have PS CS, you should give the file browser a try... if you haven't already.

[vfilby]

Thanks for the tip.

I find the PSCS interface to be not so bad. I think that it would be slow to enter in individual keywords for each photo. However, I don't really care if the info is in the EXIF I want to be able to export that daya to a data base. It also seems that the the description, author and copy right fields need to be in anm xmp file.

I think what I want is a file that can export all the EXIF info + some user defined info into a format that the user wants. For example I would like a database of all this data, maybe even with a thumbname; however, someone else may want a plain text file. I could do this easily with output plugins,. What I need to do is design a clever, read fast, interface to this program.

I guess I should also see if there is a file format that image sorting programs can read.

[tofuboy]

As for the keywords, since most of my images from a shoot are rather similar, the keywords are usually the same with only a few per image that might be different... it really depends on how detailed you want your keywords though. The only way to add keywords in PS using the file browser that I know of is through the keyword tab, you define your keywords, select the image or images you want to set the keywords for and then put checkmarks next to the keywords you want.

As for where the other data is stored, I know when working with RAW you have the choice of xmp or PS's hidden database. But when I have been working with jpg and tiff, that data seems to be stored in the file itself. For example, check out this page of mine, the title under the image, description below it, and some html meta data all come from the image file

http://photography.tofuboy.net/Mt_Rainier/Comet_Falls_and_Paradise/IMG_4436.jpg.html

I suppose once you have your data set, it's easy to add that to a database... the hard part is deciding how you want to add all that info :)

[ksporry]

In the end I think there is no real quick way of going about this. If you really want to archive well, there are some good pieces of software on the market. I heard that photo mechanic was a good package. Most storing of photos can be pretty basic using folders based on date and maybe event, but with these software packages you can search easier, by tagging labels to the photos. Then you can search on label. It does mean that you have to insert each label per photo, which can be a tedious task.