Naming & buckets-other assets

[billseymour]

I wasn't sure where to locate this- if an admin thinks it belongs elsewhere, please relocate as appropriate.

My questions relate to naming, cataloging, and filling buckets for the following digital assets that I am accumulating:

1. photos of my own artwork- I am in process of taking digital photos of 250 watercolors, 500+ sketches (all my own work). I will also be taking photos of oil paintings as I reach 'steps' in the work. So far, I have simply named them in my normal convention wcs_070721_001_Org  (wcs=initials), and then keyworded them with 'wcs painting', name, key terms, etc.

Wondering, since this is a whole 'class' of photographs different from general photography, if I ought to differentiate this by name, such as:  wcs_art_070721....  or wcs_A_070721...  I see winding up with over 1000 such images shortly (from prior work), and probably adding a few hundred more each year.

2. photos/scans/internet images of other people's work- classical paintings, images to be used as references, photos other people have sent me, etc.

Since not my work, I would not think wcs_070721... would be appropriate. Something else, like other_070721, perhaps?

3. The bucket Q: Should these other assets (with their differently structured name formats) simply be added to buckets as usual (winding up with a bucket with wcs_ and wcs_art_ and other_ images together)- or should a separate bucket sequence be set up for 'non-wcs' images?

4. The catalog Q: is it best to put everything into one catalog for as long as I can (I am only at a few thousand camera images at present)? Or- especially for the images that I did not take myself, are these best cataloged apart from my personally created images?

I have another type of Q regarding photos of my artwork which I will post separately. Thanks for all ideas.
Bill

[peterkrogh]

Bill,
1. Seems fine. Might want to name them something to indicate copy work.  I'm naming my Camea Scans Krogh_BW_Roll#_Frame#.DNG  THis way I can tell immediately that it is B&W copywork.

2. Seems reasonable.  FOr myfamily's work, it gets their first name Josie_Date_Filenumber.DNG

3. I see no reason not to comingle, unless you think you'll purge the others before to long.  Metadata is a much easier way to identify than directory structure, so I don't worry too much about it.  I do make separate buckets for different kinds of things.  So far I have 5 kinds of buckets:

Camera Original Image Files
Derivative Images
Camera Scans
MP3 Files
Movie Files
Web Galleries

4. Yes, one catalog as long as you can.  (Unless you need to keep some stuff private from other users who might have access to the universal catalog.)
Peter

[billseymour]

Peter-

Thanks for taking the time for running down the list point-by-point. Very helpful, confirms that I am on the right track (*before* putting in the hours of organizing!). And as you point out, good keyword referencing really obviates the need for sub-categorizing until/unless catalog size requires it (and even then, I can see how it is not hard to accomplish, with no need to disturb the core buckets at all).

My other Q relating to photographing my own artwork is not actually a DAM question, and may not even be suitable for this forum. Simply put: can anyone provide some 'starter' information on a basic setup so I can photograph the following:

- oil paintings in progress, 24x30" up to 30x40"- these are 'in progress', so they are wet paint/oil, reflective
- watercolors 15x22"- these are dry, of course, on a toothed paper (matte, not shiny)
- sketches 9x12" on regular drawing paper.

Especially with the oils, I want to be able to pull painting off the easel (if necessary), shoot it, and get back to work on it- ease/simplicity is the key, since I am just making a record for my own information. I am using a good quality point and shoot at this time, full setting controls, and I will start this using RAW to give me a fighting chance to make adjustments if necessary.

Repeating- this is not a DAM Q, so perfectly OK to either stop the thread re this 'photographing artwork' issue, or to relocate as appropriate.

Thanks again for the guidance on original Q's.
Bill

[billseymour]

A few further thoughts on the original name/bucket issues:

a. Photos of my own original art: it occurs to me that things might line up better by putting the 'art' designation after the date/numbering sequence:

simple photos:       wcs_070725_001_org
photos of my art:   wcs_070801_002_art_org

b. I still wonder if 'other source' photos (from friends, net, scanned images, etc) ought to live in their own catalog. There is really no way to keep things in simple chronological order (since lead information would be 'wcs' for personally created work, and something else 'other' for collected images).

I realize that good photo DB such as iView should work successfully with any of the implementations discussed in this thread.
Bill