"Use of R&F" section at bottom of the help page seems to be missing.

[skahn]

"Use of R&F" section at bottom of the R&F help page on thedambook.com site seems to be missing.  I was looking for some more practical info here.  The header is there, but no text follows....

[peterkrogh]

Could you post a URL?
Peter

[rfreschner]

Here you go.  I noticed it too.

http://www.damuseful.com/pages/rankandfileFAQ.html#anchor2

[peterkrogh]

So it is... hmmm.

I think I never got around to writing that.  And from the look of things, I won't get around to it for a little while yet.

Any big open questions?

Peter

[rfreschner]

Any big open questions?

None here.  Probably why I forgot to bring it to your attention. 

[skahn]

Peter,
I have questions, but I'm still processing the text on the subject in The Dam Book.  The text is deceptively simple.  I still have one conceptual foot in my old country while dangling over the precipice into the new.  Bottom line:  it will take a lot of experience to see the relavence and value of R&F in my own workflow.  I had just gotten the concept of using labels in Bridge for negative rating, when I realized that the labels were just vehicles for moving information around and need not have fixed associations.  hmmm....

Some more sample situations and workflow examples would be useful.

[AlanDunne]

Skahn,

the main reason for using R&F is to copy the Bridge ratings and labels into IPTC keywords. And in the case of the ratings, to maintain the "pyramid" behaviour of Bridge ratings as described in the DAM Book. This is important for several reasons. The main reason is that IPTC keywords are one of the most widely supported, and thus portable, of metadata, and travels with the image file (not just in a catalog database). Since applying lables and ratings requires work, and is high value metadata, it is important that these become preserved in the file, and not just in some application.

While Bridge is a good browser, it is not a catalog tool. Any decent catalog will support IPTC (this is a critical feature and is missing from some cmmercially available tools). Now that your Bridge ratings and labels are in IPTC keywords, you can save this valuable metadata in the catalog.

Some catalog tools will soon support XMP more extensively. Look at IView MediaPro, which now supports Bridge ratings in XMP directly. This somewhat reduces the value of having the ratings and labels in the IPTC keywords, but there is still value in having the keywords. One "issue" with the Bridge i/f is that it is possible to wipe out a whole session of rating with a simple keystroke error. If you have mutiple files selected and accidentally click on the thumbnail stars, then you set all those values to a single rating, eliminating the previous discrimination. If you have these ratings/labels applied in the keywords, using R&F, you can use the "recove"r feature in R&F to undo the mistake in Bridge.

Hope that helps ... Alan

[skahn]

Alan,
Thanks for your reply.  I do understand this.  I just need more practical experience...which I'm getting in spades.  The additional usage of R&F to move information other than ranking from Bridge to IVP3 is new to me.  For example, with regard to older work in film format, I find it useful to designate the source of the digital asset -- drum scan, Nikon film scanner, flatbed scans, camera scans, even Kodak CD's -- all processes I have employed over the years.  Some images have been scanned multiple times as technologies have evolved or become available to me.  Some scans were done by printers, service bureaus and labs.  By freeing up a label to id those different scans and using R&F, I can get the info into core Metadata and transfer to IVP3 for use to identify which scans are I'm viewing.  The label can then be returned to the default assigned values after this particular use. 

Dealing with the legacy work is much harder than organizing new digital camera files.
Steve

[skahn]

Alan,
Thanks for your reply.  I do understand this.  I just need more practical experience...which I'm getting in spades.  The additional usage of R&F to move information other than ranking from Bridge to IVMP3 is new to me.  For example, with regard to older work in film format, I find it useful to designate the source of the digital asset -- drum scan, Nikon film scanner, flatbed scans, camera scans, even Kodak CD's -- all processes I have employed over the years.  Some images have been scanned multiple times as technologies have evolved or become available to me.  Some scans were done by printers, service bureaus and labs.  By freeing up a label to id those different scans and using R&F, I can get the info into core Metadata and transfer to IVMP3 for use to identify which scans are I'm viewing.  The label can then be returned to the default assigned values after this particular use. 

Dealing with the legacy work is much more complex than organizing new digital camera files.
Steve