Where do you start?

[BoglePhoto]

I have read Peter's Book and have been putting it to use going forward. On my older images, I want to get a handle on them and get them organized. Since it is the Metadata that is important, and the keywords, does it make a difference in I work backwards (i.e. newest to oldest), from the beginning (oldest to newest)? I think a strategy at picking away at it in some sort of order is crucial. I can search by date and generally find the oldest, and bring them into LR to keyword. I have not moved to EM2 yet, but it may be the time to do this now.

If I try EM2 as a trial, does the work I do there get saved if I buy the license? I think LR2 gets an upgrade price for EM2, if I read it right.

Thanks.

Bill Bogle, Jr.
www.BoglePhoto.com

[ScottBuckel]

Bill,

I went through this process a couple of years ago.  Where I was:  I had about three different organization systems, for projects, personal photos, and an archive of non-project work.  I had master files in an excessive number of places and I had trouble finding anything that I needed.

I decided to use a slight modification of Peter's workflow with all new work and got used to using it. For me this is critical start orgainzing the current work first and make it a habit. I created a set of folders for Raw, Jpeg and derviative files on separate drives in a JBOD with removable drives.  I keep a total of three drives for each of these and I carry one of the copies with me to work (I do not shoot full time) to have an offsite storage.  I will eventually create BluRay copies of the raw files and ship them to a different geographic location.  I use SyncToy from Microsoft to copy the new files from the main disk to the archive disk.

The next thing I did was to move all of my captured files (I had about 12,000 jpegs before I started shooting raw) on to a large harddisk.  Then I ingested all of them with imageingester to rename all of the files and place them into a folder structure.  All of the raw files in one foler system and the jpegs into another.  Once I had ingested all of the files I started making catalogs with iView (now I use EM2.1).  I have gradually gone backwards in time and spent time adding metadata to my files created catalog sets.  The entire process is very time consuming, but I can now find filse in a fraction of the time and effort it used to take so I am now reaping the benefits.

I have just started using LR to do my initial edit of the files and I rather like it as it is faster than using Bridge.  After I edit the files, I convert to DNG, copy to the dng archive and then catalog in EM.

The only thing I still need to do is to corral up the older derviative files and get them organized.  I suspect I will get to that onver the next year or so.

HTH,

Scott