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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Rethinking workflow and archiving options
Sean Harding, Photographer, Assistant
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Woodinville | WA | USA | Posted: 2:30 AM on 11.22.07 |
->> I've read through a bunch of the past workflow threads here, but things have been changing with the growing popularity of Aperture, Lightroom, et al., so I'm curious what folks are doing now. I'm considering revising my workflow and (especially) archiving setup, hopefully to simplify my life. But it seems like most of the new apps aren't quite there yet. Lots of people seem happy with Lightroom or Aperture for asset management, but most of them have WAY fewer images than I do. I imagine folks here are more in the ballpark of what I'm looking at.
My basic current setup is that I ingest and caption/keyword/IPTC with Photo Mechanic, burn backups to DVD, move the files to a file server (Infrant NAS) and catalog them using iView Media Pro (at one time I looked into using iView for the ingesting stage, but I didn't like it as much as PM). I have my catalogs broken up chronologically and to some degree by topic (e.g. I have weddings in separate catalogs). My largest catalog has nearly 70,000 images in it. More typically, I have 10k-20k images per catalog. I store the actual catalog files on the NAS, so I can access them from other machines on the network using the iView Reader app. They load surprisingly quickly, and I can easily find the images I need via date, keyword, location, etc..
It seems that Lightroom or Aperture could replace Photo Mechanic for ingesting, though perhaps not quite as efficiently. I don't use other PM features like FTP, so that's not much of a concern to me.
My real worry is that LR or Aperture aren't going to be up to snuff to deal with network-based archives of hundreds of thousands of photos. There are a lot of little issues. For example, Lightroom doesn't let you store its catalogs on a network volume. Not the end of the world, but annoying. Aperture takes *forever* to build the previews when it's importing photos, and it doesn't seem to allow importing from all subfolders at once, so importing my existing archives would be an arduous process.
You might ask why I'm even thinking of switching if PM and iView are working well. There are a few reasons.
* The RAW processing features in LR and Aperture are attractive to me, but I'm hesitant to add yet another app to my workflow (and budget) without getting rid of at least one.
* I'd really like to get down to two apps -- one for importing and archiving (and maybe raw processing) and Photoshop. So something that can combine PM and iView would be nice.
* I'm a little bit uncomfortable with iView since Microsoft has purchased it. Microsoft does not have a strong history for keeping great apps great, nor for supporting Mac users well. So I've been considering finding a replacement for iView anyway.
I'm willing to give up some efficiency and flexibility to gain these other benefits, but any solution I choose still has to be reasonably functional and fast.
So, my question to you all is: are any of you using Lightroom or Aperture in the way I'm considering, with a similar volume of images? Have any of you tried it and decided it didn't work? Any suggestions for other solutions I should consider?
Thanks! |
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Jonathan Castner, Photographer
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Longmont | CO | USA | Posted: 9:58 AM on 11.22.07 |
| ->> Sean neither Lightroom nor Aperture are full database programs. They also don't replace Photoshop. Your method of using PhotoMechanic for ingest and editing, with Photoshop for processing and iView for databasing is the most powerful and fastest way to do it. Lightroom and Aperture are companions to everything else you would normally use. I would suggest that you stop becking up to DVD. The price of hard drives has fallen so low that dual external hard drives make far more sense. I have stopped the DVD burning and am using mirrored 500gb external LaCie drives that are only costing $120 each. That's essentially the same price per GB with with far less space and time used to do the backups. |
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Michael Clark, Photographer
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Craig Glaspell, Photographer, Assistant
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Murrieta | CA | USA | Posted: 12:40 PM on 11.22.07 |
->> Michael, great articles, thanks for the links.
And Sean, you might google 'George Jardine' for his podcast, I do not have the link handy, but I believe he was on the aperture development team and his podcasts are really great in exploring lightroom.
I still have not been 100% sold on LR, been using photomechanic for a while and the speed is unmatched-but I am really trying lightroom and I do not 'hate' it.
Good luck and keep us posted. |
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Fj Hughes, Photographer, Assistant
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Baltimore | MD | USA | Posted: 2:52 PM on 11.22.07 |
->> Sean- Currently, I am not sure you are going to reach your goal of two apps for your work flow. It would be great but I'm not sure it is realistic.
I am a big fan of Lightroom. It hasn't eliminated photoshop from my work flow but limited to specific purposes. For me, Photoshop files are just to large to use for efficient processing. Also the process of opening each file in camera raw and then importing to Photoshop is slow. I like to store my images in a single form, DNG. I only open them in Photoshop for retouching or stylizing and save them as specific psd master files. If you only shoot editorial, you probably won't do this at all. The speed at which I can move quickly from image to image in Lightroom for raw processing has greatly decreased the time I spend behind the computer.
What Lightroom is not great for is quick ingestion or cataloging. Since for some reason I just can't get into Photo Mechanic, I still use Bridge for this. I am sure PM works great for many people but I just can't get use to it. The original iView is great but several asset mangement experts I know say that microsoft pretty much messed it up. |
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Michael Clark, Photographer
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Santa Fe | NM | USA | Posted: 4:51 PM on 11.22.07 |
->> Photo Mechanic is super fast but what I have found for my own workflow is that it is worth the time it takes to let the images be imported into Lightroom - with a fast intel Apple computer I have found a Lightroom workflow faster than a Photoshop workflow - it might take a little while for Lightroom to import the images and build the previews but once you have them in there then editing is much faster than any other application out there that I have seen - and then developing goes really fast as well.
Once finished export the images and continue in Photoshop if needed. In terms of a workflow there isn't much out there that is faster for RAW files - for Jpeg shooters Photo Mechanic is much faster - just my 2 cents worth of info....
Cheers, Michael |
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Sean Harding, Photographer, Assistant
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Woodinville | WA | USA | Posted: 8:30 PM on 11.23.07 |
->> Thanks for all the helpful replies!
Sounds like the consensus matches what I've found so far playing with the demos -- neither Lightroom nor Aperture is really up to the task of completely replacing Photo Mechanic and iView Media Pro for me. Maybe in future versions... |
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Daniel Brayack, Photographer
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Fayetteville | WV | USA | Posted: 8:58 PM on 11.23.07 |
->> Lightroom is Awesome...I use it for everything but final processing work....keywording, searching, RAW to DNG conversion, web page generation, slideshows....its simply amazing and well worth the $$.
I spent the week shooting and sorted through about 1200 images, keyworded, made my pics, exported web-galleries etc etc...no problem.
Let us know what you decide!
-Dan |
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Ian L. Sitren, Photographer
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Palm Springs | CA | USA | Posted: 9:28 PM on 11.23.07 |
->> This is on topic for what I have been researching today, again! I have been using Aperture but I am also interested in Capture One. So that kind of eliminates the all in one type of program for RAW processing and cataloging.
I had considered iView, but when it was purchased by Microsoft I can became very wary. My experience is that Microsoft has no customer service and I expect that will be in the future of iView too as a result.
So any thoughts would be welcome.
Thanks! |
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