Image Management & Rating Images

Working on the POTN Book Project has made me interested in doing a "vanity" book of my own shots. Basically instead of a portfolio of 8x10s prints - not the same quality but easier to deal with in many ways. So I am going through all my images in order to make this book as well as finally get a proper Gallery going.

To get this done I figured that I'd go through all my shots and rate them betwen 1 and 5 with 5 being the best. I'm also rating them as to size - a full-frame shot would get a 5, whereas a shot that requires a small amount of cropping would get a 4, and so on. So now I know the size I can print them (well, an indication at least). After all this I could quickly find a shot rated as 5-5 and I'd know it would be an excellent shot that would print at max size. And a 4-3 would mean a good shot after a bit of cropping - maybe that would yield an 8x10 "filler" shot in a display, as an example.

Rather than wading through and looking at every single picture - all 14,589 of them - I figured that I just check all the images I've ever posted on POTN. I post much of my good stuff and almost all of my best stuff here, so I figured that it would be easy to go right to the good stuff.

NOT!!

In 5 nights (about 10 hours) I have managed to find and rate about 1/2 the photos I've ever posted here, about 200 so far maybe. So if I'm lucky and bored enough I can finish the POTN stuff this weekend. And then I still have to sift through a bunch of shots that I know I've never posted here, just in case I've got any more good ones. I figure that I've got another 20-30 hours just to rate my better shots - and I'm doing a quick job, far from thorough.

And when that is done I am going to post-process all of those shots again, since I know that I learned a lot since posting many of them.

Yeah, a lot of work.


So, learn from my mistakes: start catalogging and managing and rating your images NOW. Don't wait like I did - it's a serious chore.

And when you post-process, do so using layers and adjustment layers and so on. It's a lot easier to tweak an adjustment layer rather than doing a complete post-process all over again.

Yeah, I know many of you know all this, but I just thought I'd mention it to hopefully save a few people from repeating my mistake.

I find it interesting to note that out of about 35,000 or 40,000 pictures I've taken, I've saved 14,000 and posted about 400. And a good chunk of those I probably wouldn't post today, so let's call it 250. Out of 250 "worthwhile" shots I have about 30 that I rated a 5, and several of them aren't full-frame shots. So I'm down to about 20-25 shots that I consider to be quite excellent.

So about 0.06% of my shots are "excellent."

Even considering all my good shots - about 250 - this is still less than 1%.

Man am I glad that I don't shoot film!

Scottes wrote in post #2339297
So, learn from my mistakes: start catalogging and managing and rating your images NOW. Don't wait like I did - it's a serious chore.

I don't have anywhere near the number of images you have and I find if I don't do the cataloging right away it's a bear to get it done. Good advice Scottes!

Well I bought IMatch recently to catalog my photos and I have long way to go. I already restarted once because I decided that the way I had organised the photos on my harddisk meant IMatch found both unprocessed and processed photos when importing photos so I had to reorganise everything and start over.

tommykjensen wrote in post #2339516
I already restarted once because I decided that the way I had organised the photos on my harddisk meant IMatch found both unprocessed and processed photos when importing photos so I had to reorganise everything and start over.

You don't want to catalog both?

rfreschner wrote in post #2339591
You don't want to catalog both?

Yes but not the way I had them organised.

Scottes wrote in post #2339297
Out of 250 "worthwhile" shots I have about 30 that I rated a 5, and several of them aren't full-frame shots.

what does FF have to do with the quality of a shot?

I agree though, and knowing Bridge or Lightroom is priceless to organization and workflow

tommykjensen wrote in post #2339603
Yes but not the way I had them organised.

Ah, gotcha now.

I also use iMatch, and it can be a little tricky at times. For computer-literate people it can be extremely powerful, but sometimes that power comes with a price.

I find that it does not like to sweep through several thousand images at once - it sometimes fails to create a thumbnail randomly, and sometimes fails to import EXIF.

Still a very good program though.

coreypolis wrote in post #2339610
what does FF have to do with the quality of a shot?

As I said, I rated the quality, and the resulting size after cropping. 2 different numbers. I never said anything about FF having anything to do with the quality of a shot.

I wanted to note the size since a large print, like a 16x20, would certainly show a quality difference between an 8MP full-frame and a 4MP crop. (Remember that it's the same camera.)

Scottes wrote in post #2339654
As I said, I rated the quality, and the resulting size after cropping. 2 different numbers. I never said anything about FF having anything to do with the quality of a shot.

When making a large print, like a 16x20, there would certainly be a quality difference between an 8MP full-frame and a 4MP crop. (Remember that it's the same camera.)

ah ok, I read that wrong, I thought you meant they weren't taken with a FF camera.

I don't think I personally would weight cropping into my ratings, but thats just personal preference.

Again, I am not weighting cropping into the rating. It is a separate number that indicates the amount of cropping that I would prefer.

2 numbers.

Denoting 2 completely different and separate things that have nothing to do with each other but have something to do with the way I wish to note my images.

If you don't want to do it, then don't do it.