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Work Flow

Started by magicrhodes, January 07, 2010, 01:08:28 PM

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magicrhodes

I appear to be filling up my hard drive on my computer recently and having heard about people's workflows am looking for a better process.

Currently it is: Shoot in RAW, Download and Rename in Photoshop storing on hard drive still in RAW, back up renamed files on DVD still in RAW (NEF).

Plan: Shoot, Copy all RAW file to DVD, Delete non keepers, Save others as TIFF in Photoshop...

Do you use cataloguing programmes of should I just use "My Pictures"?

picsfor

I'm a Lightroom convert - and now i've learned to utilise it fully i wouldn't swap off it.

My current set up is Mac with 1Tb H/D with another 1Tb EHD connected for Time Machine back up giving me 2 copies of each picture i download. I have a 3rd 1Tb EHD which is connected only when downloading pictures of the cameras memory card.

Pictures imported through Lightroom and backed up to second EHD and the first EHD making an automatic copy of any activity on the Mac.
Sort out pictures and delete the no go's in Lightroom. This will also delete them on the first EHD being used by Time Machine leaving a full copy of everything downloaded on the 2nd EHD.
Process pictures according to which is easiest to process (no editing just export as a jpg and utilise or upload first - last being those that require plenty of work to achieve the look i want).
Once processed (including key wording) they are then moved to the relevant folder and left in their RAW processed state. Because Lightroom works in a loss less format this is fine for me - and when i need a copy for something i just export it as a jpg or TIFF according to its requirement (print, web or e-mail).

The only 'processed' images that are not in RAW format in Lightroom are those that are web usable jpgs of only a few hundred k a piece. 200 images equals 500k - hardly gonna hurt my 1Tb H/D.

Hinfrance

My experiences with LR have not been as rosey. >:( But then I don't have 3 tb of storage.

I found the LR catalogue and backups choked my two 500gb drives within a matter of a couple of weeks. Not only are the LR catalogues huge, but storing files as tiffs also takes up an enormous amount of space. And importing pictures I found to be frustratingly slow.

There is a new version of Bibble out ($199, so I can't afford it alas) which has library functions.
I ran the trial and found it much better than LR, especially the tabbed editing sections and speed.

I just use Picasa to sort and tag pictures, editing them as and when with an external editor. It is also non destructive in that it always makes a copy of any original file before saving an edited version. Disadvantage is that Picasa does not store an offline database, so if a drive is removed all the library data is erased. But it is free.

Pictures are loaded onto the PC by Flashpipe.
Automatic backup is done daily by Syncback onto my ehd.

I personally don't like the sound of only backing up to DVD as these would need regular recopying and don' hold that much.

I guess what you do depends on your budget in the end. ;)

Howard  My CC Gallery
My Flickr
The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil. H.L Mencken.

magicrhodes

Quote from: Tringle WP on January 07, 2010, 02:06:56 PMI guess what you do depends on your budget in the end. ;)


Budget is very very small

picsfor

ok, budget s small - but how small is small?

What is the size of the biggest images you produce? And what do you do with your pictures?
My kit was bought especially to accommodate my work flow system and free up my time s i can spend more time taking pictures than downloading them and processing them!

Maybe you have not really asked the right question! I get the impression what you are really thinking is "how can i improve my work flow and back up for the smallest outlay?"

To answer that question we would need to know what you currently have, what available your budget is and what you want to do with your pictures...
do you want to keep everything you take or just the good stuff? Do you want to keep the original files and the processed ones or just the finished processed images?




Forseti

#5
Another vote for Lightroom. Now on version 2.6, and with most of the bugs from earlier versions sorted out, I find it an indispensable tool in my workflow and will never go back to using Bridge. It's plenty fast enough for me on a Windows XP SP3 machine, Intel Core2 Duo, 3.00GHz, 4GB RAM of which 2.75GB is usable) and serves all my needs as a DAM (Digital Asset Management Tool) as well as a RAW converter. I have 2 catalogues - one private, one commissioned work - and quickly looking at the latter it contains 3813 images resulting in a catalogue size of 86.4MB, a Previews folder of 2.50GB and a Cache folder of 2.31GB which I do not find excessive at all.

This latter catalogue contains mostly RAW images with a small percentage of TIFFs. I've found that as Lightroom has improved my need to take images into Photoshop for further editing has been much reduced resulting in a need for round-tripping to Photoshop and the generation of TIFF files. Due to the fact that edits appertaining to RAW files are stored in the catalogue file I find no reason to save additional files within Lightroom e.g. any files that are to be sent to an online printer/gallery are exported as JPEGs to a temporary file on the desktop and from there sent online prior to being deleted. Any further call on a RAW file and the process is repeated.

The Lightroom catalogue file (the most important of all as the Preview/Cache files are rebuilt automatically if needed) is backed up to an EHD along with the image files themselves (a separate process) using SyncBack - a free utility. This EHD is then further backed up to a second EHD - once again using SyncBack. I don't use or place any reliance whatsoever on DVD backups because at least with an EHD you soon become aware of when/if it fails whereas with a DVD it's only when you come to need it that you'll discover whether or not it's good or not.

Reasonably sized EHD's a quite cheap nowadays gigabyte for gigabyte when comparted to DVD's and certainly represent good value for money when comparted to the loss of your images. Backup and backup again. :tup:
Canon 7D,  Canon SX1 IS, EF100 f/2.8 USM Macro, EF70-200 f/4 L IS USM, EF17-40 f/4 L USM, Sigma 50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM, Canon Speedlite 580EX MkII

"Everyone can take a great picture with digital, the knack is to take two" - David Bailey

magicrhodes

Quote from: picsfor on January 07, 2010, 03:37:43 PM
To answer that question we would need to know what you currently have, what available your budget is and what you want to do with your pictures...
do you want to keep everything you take or just the good stuff? Do you want to keep the original files and the processed ones or just the finished processed images?

Nikon D40 camera used on NEF 6.0mpix, software I have Elements 5 and I keep every pic unless really shocking... What I think I want to do is keep all pictures taken in back up and keep files of the good ones to show in an easily accessible manner..

In truth I know I need an EHD... I'm just not sure I'm storing them effectively for the computer I guess and don't want to continue doing that is there is a better way.

Budget currently £100....

Hinfrance

Slightly off track here - a query for you LR wizards (I'm guessing that with it's enormous cost LR is not on magic's list) - does LR only store tags in a sidecar file? When I did the trial tags entered in Picasa appeared in LR no problem but tags added in LR only appeared in LR itself.

Forseti, I'm guessing you must have changed a default setting for LR catalogues - during my trial using only about 2000 images my backup drive got over 100gb of LR rubbish written to it in less than three weeks.

Only asking out of curiosity really as unless a rich relative I don't know about dies and leaves me everything I won't ever own LR.

For information I have a quad core vista machine. LR runs OK, but like treacle compared to Bibble.
Howard  My CC Gallery
My Flickr
The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil. H.L Mencken.

Hinfrance

Quote from: magicrhodes on January 07, 2010, 04:19:36 PM
Quote from: picsfor on January 07, 2010, 03:37:43 PM
To answer that question we would need to know what you currently have, what available your budget is and what you want to do with your pictures...
do you want to keep everything you take or just the good stuff? Do you want to keep the original files and the processed ones or just the finished processed images?

Nikon D40 camera used on NEF 6.0mpix, software I have Elements 5 and I keep every pic unless really shocking... What I think I want to do is keep all pictures taken in back up and keep files of the good ones to show in an easily accessible manner..

In truth I know I need an EHD... I'm just not sure I'm storing them effectively for the computer I guess and don't want to continue doing that is there is a better way.

Budget currently £100....

Sounds like the new ehd will take up the bulk of that then.

I've asked the birthday fairy for Bibble, but it's not my birthday for ages.
Howard  My CC Gallery
My Flickr
The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil. H.L Mencken.

Forseti

£100 um!! Ok, my initial thoughts:-

1. Do not under any circumstances use the backup facility from within Elements to backup your images. If memory serves me correct, and it's been a while now since I used that application, the backup it creates gives meaningless file names to your images e.g. B000001 etc which makes finding any particular file outside of Elements a nightmare. The backup from within Elements has been designed more with restoring from within the application in mind which is not always what you want to achieve or do.

2. And although this means starting from scratch which may not be desireable but would be effective, is to get all your images off the computer and onto an EHD. This will not only free up your computer but with the application (Elements) on one drive - your computers Drive C, with the images being on another external drive will speed things up considerably because the application is not having to go back and forth across one drive.

3. As a secondary backup drive you could also use an USB stick - probably more reliable than an EHD as it has no moving parts. You should be able to pick up a reasonably sized EHD and say 8GB USB stick from within your budget if you shop around.

4. Backup the one EHD to the USB stick using SyncBack.

5. Save up for another EHD because one things for sure, over time your image collection is going to keep on growing.
Canon 7D,  Canon SX1 IS, EF100 f/2.8 USM Macro, EF70-200 f/4 L IS USM, EF17-40 f/4 L USM, Sigma 50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM, Canon Speedlite 580EX MkII

"Everyone can take a great picture with digital, the knack is to take two" - David Bailey

Forseti

Quote from: Tringle WP on January 07, 2010, 04:25:56 PM
Forseti, I'm guessing you must have changed a default setting for LR catalogues - during my trial using only about 2000 images my backup drive got over 100gb of LR rubbish written to it in less than three weeks.


No not at all really. However, what I do periodically is 'optimise' the catalogue (found in catalogue settings) and in Preferences have set to delete full-sized previews after one day. If I view any particular image from say a week ago at full size the preview will of course be rebuilt so to speak as and when needed. For you to have had such a large catalogue it would be my guess that you left this setting on 'never to delete previews'. Only a guess of course but I can't think of any other reason for you having had such a large catalogue file(s) with such a relatively low image count.
Canon 7D,  Canon SX1 IS, EF100 f/2.8 USM Macro, EF70-200 f/4 L IS USM, EF17-40 f/4 L USM, Sigma 50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM, Canon Speedlite 580EX MkII

"Everyone can take a great picture with digital, the knack is to take two" - David Bailey

Oldboy

Quote from: magicrhodes on January 07, 2010, 04:19:36 PM
Quote from: picsfor on January 07, 2010, 03:37:43 PM
To answer that question we would need to know what you currently have, what available your budget is and what you want to do with your pictures...
do you want to keep everything you take or just the good stuff? Do you want to keep the original files and the processed ones or just the finished processed images?

Nikon D40 camera used on NEF 6.0mpix, software I have Elements 5 and I keep every pic unless really shocking... What I think I want to do is keep all pictures taken in back up and keep files of the good ones to show in an easily accessible manner..

In truth I know I need an EHD... I'm just not sure I'm storing them effectively for the computer I guess and don't want to continue doing that is there is a better way.

Budget currently £100....

Have a look at this thread: http://cameracraniums.com/forum/index.php?topic=1078.0 1TB disk for £70. If you are keeping the Raw files then delete the Tiff and/or convert to high quality Jpeg, as it takes up less room on your hard disk. If you have a spare slot for another hard disk in your computer, and can fit yourself, then get on as they are cheaper than a external one.  ;D

picsfor

Quote from: magicrhodes on January 07, 2010, 04:19:36 PM
Budget currently £100....

OK - go to www.scan.co.uk and look at external hard drives - you can get a 500GB EHD for £46 - so with £100 you will have budget for 2 of them which more than covers the back up area.
The trick then is synching them - but that's not really difficult because if i remember the Nikon Software it allows you to specify where to download your files to - so you could down load to the 2 drives one after another. It won't take that long with a Nikon D40 - and it matters not whether you shoot in RAW, jpg or TIFF - the process would work for any file format.

So, having downloaded the files you then use one of the drives as a working drive (you could name it Photos and the other Photos Back UP) and take the pictures off that to work with - and as you finish processing an image you can save it as a jpg of either low-medium quality  72 dpi for web or screen use or high quality 300dpi for printing purposes and again save to both EH D's

Quote from: Tringle WP on January 07, 2010, 04:25:56 PM
Forseti, I'm guessing you must have changed a default setting for LR catalogues - during my trial using only about 2000 images my backup drive got over 100GB of LR rubbish written to it in less than three weeks.
.

How much? 100GB? Have to go with Forseti on this one - you must have had it configured to keep everything. I'm like Forseti - very small file sizes for catalogues and previews. 3.86GB for catalogues, back up catalogues and previews of some 8000 images plus any side car files recording what processing i have done with key wording.

The thing with Lightroom - you have to take learn how to use it to really make use of it. My first go at learning ended in disaster and i went back to using Bridge. When i got the Mac - it was the only software i had to do most of things i wanted with my images - so i had no choice but to learn it. This time round i sat down, read the good book and played with it a bit on sample images etc and then cracked it. It's been a year now and i have finally refined my use of it to improve my work flow. I just don't have a need for Photoshop any more - i can do so much of what i want in Lightroom that any odd bits that do need Photoshop can be ignored. Creating panoramas was the last 4 things i used Photoshop for - and you can get software for less that does just as good a job, if not better.

Hinfrance

Andrew, I didn't change any of the defaults in LR except the one about minimal previews in the import files dialogue. Anyway, as I said moot point from this punter as I'll never be able to afford it.

I agree about not using the organiser in Elements, especially not for backing up - it's a absolute dog of a module.
Howard  My CC Gallery
My Flickr
The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil. H.L Mencken.

picsfor

Sorry wan't trying to impy that you were the cause of the issues as such - i was trying to work out what could have caused your lightroom trial to occupy soooo much of your hard drive.

Forseti's comment seemed the only one that made sense, and if it can run amock with your system that way, well it could run amock with my system in a similar fashion, and i'm only just starting to scan in bucket loads of images which will saved as tiif files, and i can't afford for Lightroom to go mad on hd space like that, because the tiff files will be much bigger than the raw files from my camera.

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