Photo Server Cataloging

[PaladinsPhotographer]

-Hey Folks,
- I'm working for a Marketing company for a small Liberal Arts College and have been asked to completely re-catalog every photo taken for the past 3 years. Their only request being that there is some type of system for searching multiple keywords is possible, because all the photos are on a server for about 30 defferent people to use. Any thoughts or ideas on the best way to catalog thousands and thousands of photos that makes mechanical sense? Thanks

[Col_M]

Hi, the first question I can think of is do you have any understanding of relational databases or SQL?

I work with a SQL database and know that they can hold images but I've never needed to invesigate that use any further. I'm pretty sure though that storing them in the database itself isn't the most efficent way to store the images, I think it may be better to use the database to store all the image details, keywords, etc. and then link to the images in an archive.

I'd also imagine that you'd need some programming knowledge to design a front end for users to use without being able to write transact SQL but that's where i'm not so hot ;) I hope there are some computer nerds passing through and can advise you better than me :)

[ssim]

It would be nice to know roughly how many images that you are talking about but I imagine it is alot. This does not sound like any small task.

Given that you need multi-user access Lightroom is not an option which I think would be alot of people's first reaction. As of this morning I have 64,138 images in one Lightroom catalog all key worded and it is getting very slow.

I would suggest that you perhaps contact the person from Digital Asset Management for Photographers (http://www.thedambook.com/). While he has a book for sale on this subject his website also lists other resources and software. I do not know if there is anything there that will handle the scope of your project but I would certainly ask him. Peter has a vast knowledge base on this subject and may be able to point you in the right direction.

I had originally planned on going to Iview Media Pro for my image management and then Lightroom came out and I decided to give it a go. Then Microsoft bought Iview and I had mixed emotions about going with anything that MS got their hands into. However, if anyone could make a multi-user image management system it would be MS as they have Iview as a base to start with. If Lightroom's performance does not improve I might very well make the switch to Iview. I also would really like to be able to have a system that I could access the catalogs from any computer at the same time. Right now we have one computer that does nothing but run some photoshop and the ongoing task of cataloging and keywording.

I wish you luck. This is a big job and many headaches along the way.