Scott,

Peter makes comment that a catalog file is for finding files and the hard drive folder system is for backing up. When I'm faced with a decision such as yours I just remember this rule and let it guide me.

David

Have you looked through the Naming Issues forum. There is some good information there and it's the best place for this discussion.

David

My catalog can hold any number of bad images. Not so many good ones.

Oh, that's me! Not the catalog.   

Chris,

Obviously try the virus/trojan/spyware check route. Other causes could be a faulty keyboard/mouse, or if they are both USB based, the USB ports or even the power supply. I had a power supply begin to fail and the first thing that stopped operating was the USB ports, so I had no keyboard.

You do have backups don't you?

David

Hi Frank,

The option is inefficient but you can do it. To find both Kate and Jeff there is a small menu at the top right of the Catalog Fields list. Uncheck "Union of Terms in Repeating Fields".

David

Hi Sue,

Only you can answer if it is worth the time to convert them all. I have several thousand like you and though processing them all is a number of overnight batch jobs I'm still a little undecided. For the sake of having a single consistent archive format then conversion makes sense and I believe I will for new jpegs as they come in (I shoot raw, my wife's camera shoots jpeg). There are conversations about the risk of misidentifying jpeg originals so again DNG makes sense. Under the weight of getting it all properly catalogued first, I'm holding off for now but would like to do so in the future.

David

Dan,

Your clarifying point about proofs makes sense. Much of what I do will be proofs I imagine. I'll give it some further thought and start playing around with files to determine how they all play out for me.

David

Thanks Dan,

I hadn't thought in terms of masters, proofs and deliverables.

If I understand correctly I'd normally have only one master (PSD created from DNG/Jpeg with layers for adjustments etc.), plus any deliverables (ie. emailed to others, posted on flickr). Proofs in the sense you describe them don't apply to me so much as being a home user I don't have clients to send proofs to. Masters would only be necessary for anything which I know will be a deliverable.

Therefore the following file naming suggestion comes to mind

- DWB_YYYYMMDD_nnnn_MSTRnn.psd for master files (where nnnn is original photo sequence and the second nn is master sequence number in case I have more than one)
- DWB_YYYYMMDD_nnnn_DLVRnn_?.jpg (or tif or png or whatever). This ties the delierable to the master it came from. The ? I'll use to create some info to show what's different and that will probably be some sort of size determinator eg. 5x7 as you have above or 300x300 if for the web (maybe I need a 'w'/'p' suffix somewhere there).

I'm not sure I need to know if I've red-eye corrected an image, sharpened it for the final deliverable. That would be handled by photoshop layers appropriately named I imagine or I could do so in the catalog.

Another question. Take a DNG which I've cropped inside the DNG itself. If all colours are correct would you go straight to a deliverable or would you always create a master first?

I want to get this all sorted before I burn that first DVD! I'm working through 8000 images which I've brought across to iView from iMatch. Have the RAW strategy sorted and will document under migration when the time comes. This is part of that process.

Cheers,

David

Hi all,

As I work through DAMming my catalog I'm coming across derivative files and I'm not sure how best to handle them. These file have had various actions taken with them mostly just cropping. Some but not all are colour corrected. Others have red-eye removed or NeatImage filter applied. This is a hobbyist catalogue so my standards are not as demanding as those of a professional.

To capture the details in a filename seems cumbersome, especially if there are multiple edits, and I'm unsure if some of them (particularly those which are just crops) even need to be kept at all.

What rules of thumb to people use to determine if the need to keep a master or not?

Do you track derivative enhancements in your catalog rather than the file name?

Thanks,

David

How do they come up in your tests outside of lab conditions? Ultimately that's what matters for any brand.

David

How do this?

Tested full circle with PSD and jpeg. Motivation for diving in to test was too many archive formats to deal with and a growing appreciation of Camera Raw, plus an article on Linear Raw by Barry Pearson.

1. Import PSD/jpeg files into Adobe Lightroom beta.
2. Select Convert to DNG from library menu - in dialog box that pops up uncheck (convert RAW only), check delete originals as you feel safe with

At this point you will have all your PSD/jpeg files converted to DNG format. All EXIF and metadata present. However Lightroom creates a standard size embedded preview which has a maximum height/width of 1024 pixels, ie. it is not a full size preview.

3. Open Adobe DNG converter on the directory of new DNG files
4. Set preferences to create a full-size JPEG
5. Save into a different folder than the original

This is not really for safety but because Adobe DNG converter does not overwrite existing DNG files. Instead it appends a _1, _2 as appropriate. If you have your files already catalogued with iView for instance you'll have to rename them all to match the original catalogued file name. By selecting a different folder you then only need to copy them back to your current working/archive directory. The new preview will then be seen.

All DNG files behave as expected in Lightroom, Photoshop CS2, Bridge and iView.

Usual disclaimers apply. Try this yourself on copies of everything first.

I have a filter on the line but not the same as what a UPS would provide. It protects against big spikes. The claim by every IT company in town, and to honest it's not effected me yet, is that our power quality is somehow variable (voltage changes etc) and that's what causes the outages. Any more than that I'm not going to be able to explain.

David

Mike,

You won't take the time until you go back to an earlier disk and find it's failed. Then you'll take a lot of time 

Per my understanding of having a "live and local" copy on the HDD, then migrating to a larger format is relatively simple.

David

Reputedly, though I can't say I've really experienced it myself, the power quality here is bad and therefore the average life of a power supply is just 12-18 months so geography plays more of a factor than just mindset. I'm looking into prices for a UPS but have to get that extra drive space first.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

David

Frank,

My experience of trying to understand IPTC from a home user point of view is that the standard is not well documented. There is a lot of assumed knowledge and it takes time to play with and determine what works. The IPTC standard has been recently upgraded so should be stable for a long time. With that came the ability to extend it. That extensibility means backwards compatability to a degree.

Country, City etc are all standard locations and are very unlikely to change in my view. The only fields that took a hit so to speak were categories and supplemental categories. These were changed into scene I think.

iView has the ability to sync data to photos as you know, or to create external XMP files which will give you an export path should you require it.

Planning ahead is just that. Planning. Plans change. Don't spend all your time planning and forget to enjoy the photos you have now.

David