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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
editing and archiving
Robert Beck, Photographer
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Carlsbad | CA | USA | Posted: 10:30 PM on 05.25.08 |
| ->> What do you recommend to edit and archive images...Aperture, photo mechanic or Nikon View? I'm on a Mac platform. |
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Tony Donaldson, Photographer
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Los Angeles | CA | USA | Posted: 11:03 PM on 05.25.08 |
->> Beck,
Though I use Aperture sometimes, PhotoMechanic is still my main workhorse for editing and captioning, then I burn multiple copies to DVD+R (not -R) discs kept in separate places. Love that you can use PM to bring in the images, generally caption them and rename on import, then customize images if needed (e.g. players at a sporting event).
Aperture can make it tricky to archive, you have to fight it to keep it from storing your images in it's "package". |
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Kevin Clifford, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Reno | NV | United States | Posted: 11:08 PM on 05.25.08 |
->> Second Photomechanic
-Kevin |
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Robert Beck, Photographer
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Carlsbad | CA | USA | Posted: 11:29 PM on 05.25.08 |
| ->> Why =R and not -R? |
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Robert Beck, Photographer
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Carlsbad | CA | USA | Posted: 11:29 PM on 05.25.08 |
| ->> I mean why +R and not -R? |
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Thomas Boyd, Photographer
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Eugene | OR | USA | Posted: 12:04 AM on 05.26.08 |
->> I use Aperture both in the field for editing on deadline and at home for archiving and creative purposes (sharing in the form of web galleries, book making, printing, blogging, etc.)
As a staff newspaper photographer my workflow would be different from yours, but for what I do...I couldn't be happier. I can send tweaked/captioned images much faster than I ever have with any other workflow. The raw processing is incredible.
I'm averaging about 10,000 frames per month, with 90 percent RAW. I carry my entire library with me on a FW800 drive with most of the images offline. Then I can access the raw files remotely should I need them.
This means I have a low res (but very useful) copy of every frame I shoot at all times in a searchable database. |
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Matt Barton, Photographer
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Lexington | KY | USA | Posted: 12:05 AM on 05.26.08 |
->> I'm exclusively using Lightroom but Photo Mechanic comes in handy on a tight deadline.
DVDs are a waste of time. Back-up on multiple hard drives automatically with Super Duper.
http://www.d-65.com will answer all these questions and more. Check em out. |
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Tony Donaldson, Photographer
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Los Angeles | CA | USA | Posted: 1:34 AM on 05.26.08 |
->> Robert,
More than you ever wanted to know on +R v -R:
http://www.cdfreaks.com/reviews/Why-DVDRW-is-superior-to-DVD-RW
I still like keeping a copy of an image live on a drive, that's where Aperture can really shine, as a way to easily find an image based on many parameters. All drives WILL fail eventually, so having a backup on optical media makes sense to me, especially since I can easily have multiple copies at multiple locations, and when the next format (e.g. Blu-Ray) comes along and is viable, I transfer to those. |
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Alex Cena, Photographer
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Scotch Plains | NJ | USA | Posted: 8:12 AM on 05.26.08 |
| ->> I'm too lazy to archive on optical media so I use PhotoShelter for all my archiving needs. As long as I have an Internet connection and a computer, I have access to my archives. |
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Alan Look, Photographer
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Bloomington | IL | United States | Posted: 8:57 AM on 05.26.08 |
->> PhotoMechanic to ingest, sort, caption.
Archive best cut to PhotoShelter, archive everything to Taiyo Yuden media, keep a copy to work with on a usb hard drive. |
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David Harpe, Photographer
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Louisville | KY | USA | Posted: 10:59 AM on 05.26.08 |
->> Photomechanic, archive to two separate physical hard drives. One goes offsite, one stays in the studio.
Photoshelter is also a great option. It's great if you travel because you can get to your archive no matter where you are without the risk of carrying (and possibly losing) a hard drive. They have a nice service where you can send them a hard drive and they will copy the entire thing to your personal archive - eliminating the need to do a big, slow initial upload. Nominal fee - something like $50. |
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Chris Condon, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Ponte Vedra Bch | FL | USA | Posted: 11:52 AM on 05.26.08 |
| ->> Photo Mechanic works great for ingest, caption, rename and transmit onsite. I make my selects, copy to a TRANSMIT folder, Photoshop, then final caption and transmit in PM. Very fast! |
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Jack Kurtz, Photographer
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Phoenix | AZ | United States | Posted: 1:21 PM on 05.26.08 |
->> Another vote for Lightroom. It's slow to import (the LR beta 2 is a little faster to import files), so I use Bridge (let the screams begin) when I'm on tight deadline. But everything else goes through LR. I like it because
1) it uses the same conversion engine as Adobe Camera Raw so edits between LR and Bridge/Photoshop are completely seamless
2) it builds your archive as you work and keeps track of everything you do to your photos, eliminating the later step of importing images into the archive
3) it's editing tools are powerful enough that I hardly ever have to use Photoshop (and LR2, currently in beta has even more powerful editing tools, reducing my use of Photoshop even more)
4) LR DAM capabilities, while not as complete as a true DAM app like iView are pretty good, especially for a one person in a non networked environment
5) it's project management tools are quite good so I can track work in progress
I tried Aperture vers1, but it was too slow on my lower end Macs. LR has lower system requirements and runs quite well on my MacBook. Aperture 2 is supposed to be better (faster) but I'm really happy with LR so I'm sticking with it. I archive everything to external hard drives and then burn a DVD every 4.2 gigs or so.
As far as Bridge vs Photo Mechanic goes, well that's almost as heated as Mac vs PC or Canon vs Nikon. For my workflow, Bridge is works better.
Jack |
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Fj Hughes, Photographer, Assistant
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Baltimore | MD | USA | Posted: 9:41 AM on 05.27.08 |
->> I am also a big Lightroom fan. I use it as part of my workflow usually from beginning to end. I do use Photoshop for critical file processing, retouching, printing and cmyk prep. Photomechanic is great for fast sorting of images but after a quick deletion of total rejects, I tend to continue to edit as I develop. Since I shoot RAW, I prefer to stay in Lightroom. Also, It is eliminates one more program from my workflow.
As for archiving, I too back up nightly to a hard drive with SuperDuper. Also, I upload my critical images to Photoshelter for online stock sale as well as archiving. I am planning to start to off site backup to a third hard drive or possibly blue ray when the price comes down. The long term durability of cd/dvd's is questionable, so this would be for last resort if something catastrophic happened. In the digital world, "If data doesn't exist in three places, it doesn't exist."
For various reasons, neither Aperture or Lightroom are great options for a large catalog of images. I suggest trying to track down a pre-microsoft version of iView. I am also playing with using Extensis Portfolio. No opinion yet.
I highly suggest reading "The DAM Book" by Peter Krogh.
http://www.peterkrogh.com/Pages/digital/theDAMbook/index |
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Darren Whitley, Photographer
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Maryville | MO | USA | Posted: 10:34 AM on 05.27.08 |
->> Robert,
Look into the Delkin archival gold DVDs. They were recently recommended by Ed Pierce. Supposedly they have a 100 year archival life. That's worth looking into for sure. |
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Michael Clark, Photographer
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Santa Fe | NM | USA | Posted: 10:35 AM on 05.27.08 |
->> Lightroom is all I have to say - it may not be as fast as Photo Mechanic but it builds much better previews. And if you have used Adobe Camera Raw the transition will be super smooth. I've found Aperture to be very slow compared to Lightroom.
In my opinion there are not any really great archiving and cataloging software solutions at the moment - I think Lightroom will become THE solution here soon. And in particular right now, one can build a separate catalog with all of their selects and that will work quite well for most photographers needs on the archiving front until Lightroom gets up to snuff on this aspect.
For editing, I've seen nothing that can even tough lightroom for speed and excellent previews.
You can check out my complete workflow Downloadable for a fee) here:
http://www.michaelclarkphoto.com/workflow.html |
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