portrait/wedding workflow, collections, sets, et al ... help please?

[R. Neil Haugen]

We have a couple brands of portrait/wedding work, mostly in one, with a newer one just started. We've 30+ years of business, though only eight shooting full digital, 300 portrait sessions or so and 5-10 weddings a year. Both the wife and I shoot, she's using a Fuji S5, myself a D3, both shooting RAW. I've recently gone to DNG, not even wishing to keep "new" nefs around after verification/multiple backup. We've been using iView for a couple years, though the employee assigned to do so does not seem to have been totally consistent at getting everything cataloged. We have about three or four years of shoots "online", the previous five years were burned to cd/dvd and deleted from hard-drives.

I'd like to bring our "optical media" files back on-line, though the missus is not so sure it's worth doing all the work. I would also like to set up to bring our best work of our medium-format film days (virtually all color-neg) on-line too, though that is also not happening immediately.

We "file" on drives by portrait or wedding, and with those categories by client name, with each time a client comes back getting it's own folder array. Within each client the structure is Archive (typically RAW's) and several possible working folders of derivatives, tiff's, psd's, and jpeg's. We both retouch/pp in-house and outsourced, we upsize and tend to keep those too.

We'll quickly work up 2-3 from a shoot, and Facebook and blog 'em, but don't normally put a whole shoot on-line (though there are some). We will occasionally need to go back for re-orders, but most typically when looking for display, marketing, and competition "possibles". Portrait shoots can be from 10 to 300 images, most commonly around 50-80. Weddings, with two shooters can of course be up to 1200-1500 at times for a full-day coverage.

Ideas for using the features of IDimager? Collections, galleries, portfolios, Catalog Sets, hierarchical key-words or no, or just a few, colored labels for ... what? And of course, the wherefores and why's of the thinking, as that is always so interesting and useful to me.

Thank you!
R. Neil Haugen

[danaltick]

Neil,

No short answer for this one I'm afraid.  I would say the place to start though would be to make sure your have your DNG workflow in order using the working files folders and DVD/Blu-ray sized buckets as outlined in the book.  As time permits I would definitely get all my images online, keyworded, rated etc.  I've actually spent a good part of the holidays cataloging many of my legacy files in IDimager.  They were already in my archive and catalog in a set called legacy files, but they needed some custom keywording, ratings, etc.  They've been sitting there for a number of years.  I found it somewhat nastalgic going back through them.  I've actually found IDI's already provided label categories pretty useful.  I've created hierarchies under the People, Events, Places, Styles, and Objects categories.  I've also created a Portfolios category that I use instead of the built-in Portfolios branch.  I find the branch good for web galleries because it supports all the built-in templates, but I like the flexibility of the Labels Branch for everything else.  I also create a Projects category and under that I have Job and Personal Labels broken down by project/client, etc.  As I bring images in I always strive to find a place for them in as many of these categories as I feel useful; usually at least Places, Events, People, and some type of Object or Style such as Nature, Architecture, Food and Beverage, Fashion, Portraits, weddings, Macro, etc.  I find this system to work pretty well for me and is not overly complex.  IDI makes it very easy to quickly label my images.  I think system also can help for stock purposes if the need arises.  I'm currently using IDI's newly enhanced built-in Image Downloader.  I do like being the fact that it's integrated with the app and allows me to catalog my images at ingestion.  It also has built-in mirroring/backup.  With IDI's Media Browser I'm able to move my proprietary raws through the working files folders and perform some ACR edits while keeping them cataloged.  Once converted to DNG's I re-import the DNG's which picks up all the same metadata that the Image Downloader put in the sidecar XMP's at ingestion.  I then remove the proprietary raws from the database via the Media Browser; a pretty painless operation.  IDI actually has a built-in DNG script that invoked the external Adobe DNG converter.  This script is faster because you don't have to re-import the metadata.  It's already in the catalog from the ingestion of the proprietary raws.  However, I don't currently use this method because the script does not currently pass the XMP sidecars to the DNG converter which means I don't get my ACR edits in the DNG previews.  They do plan to fix this script though which will make the workflow a little faster.

HTH,
Dan

[R. Neil Haugen]

Thanks, Dan,

A thoughtful and helpful post. Plenty to read and consider. This program has so many options!

I've puzzled over a couple things, not yet sure how they're designed to be used ... the portfolios, collections, and galleries thingies. Haven't had a chance to study them yet ... this is one of those things where it would be informative to sit down at someone else's computer, who does a similar trade and uses IDimager to the max, and see how they've got it set up. I always dislike the feeling of re-inventing the wheel.

Time to re-read your post, study the manual and screens, and ponder some more.

Neil

[danaltick]

Neil,

The portfolios, galleries, and collections are really there for creating a website and using the templates.  The Publisher feature of IDI takes these portfolios, galleries, and collections and divides them into separate areas/pages of a website based on user preferences.  Because I don't build my own website(s), I don't use them; however, I do use them to create quick web galleries for friends, family, and clients.

HTH,
Dan

[R. Neil Haugen]

Ahh, Dan, thanks!

I'm trying to figure out if I should do more personally with my rNeil site ... hmmm so that's what these are for. I'll save 'em for studying a bit later then, and get the rest of the beast working away then. There's always so much to learn anywhere I look!

Neil

[danaltick]

I'll vouch for that ;-).

Dan