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Organizing your images before you Import them into Lightroom - Part 2
When I wrote last week's post I did not realize that there were so many different opinions, on which is the best way to prepare your files before Importing them into Lightroom and how strongly some people felt about their particular method. The methods discussed in the comments, range all the way from not organizing anything at all (dumping all files into one big folder) to organizing all images right down to the smallest sub-category.
I actually us two different approaches for storing my image files:
1. I keep several copies of an untouched master file. All image folders are filed by by date (year/month/day). One copy stays on an off-line Hard Disk Drive that is only turned on when new images are being added or copied. A second copy is kept on a DVDs (in the near future these will be replaced by Blu-ray disks).
2. I keep several copies of currently active image files, which are broken down into projects, date, location, subject, etc. I use Lightroom, Photoshop CS3, and Nikon Capture NX for different reasons and projects, so it is very important to me that I have a way to find my photographic images without using any one specific software application.
Since I am a Macintosh user there is also a possibility that I will be using Apple Aperture on some projects and maybe even find a use for iPhoto again. I have actually just started experimenting with a new (Macintosh only) application, Photon by Green Volcano Software, for pre-sorting and converting digital images, before importing them into a Digital Assets Manager like Lightroom.
Photon has a very simple interface that allows you to access images from flash memory card readers or hard disk drive folders and sort those images into stacks. The sorted stacks can then be exported and converted to a long list of file formats including the original file format.
I have just started experimenting with Photon so can not give a full review yet, but it does fill a niche which I have been looking to fill. You can download a trial copy if you wish to try it at http://www.photon-app.com/. If you do try Photon please let me know what you think about it and whether you think it makes sense to use a pre-sorting application like this one in your workflow.
Comments (4)
Hmm, I will try it to see how fast it is compared to PhotoMechanic. It sounds too good to be true for the price.
It's not clear whether it can be used to add metadata directly into the original file, like PM does.
I will play later with it.
Thanks for the link,
Marek
I also use a pre sorting program called "Photo Reviewer" for Macintosh. It's main purpose is to batch rename and to edit keepers and deletes. It is a very simple program and serves me well. It saves me time once getting into LR and alows me to concentrate on adding metadata and developing.
Just use Aperture instead and when you need to open an image in Photoshop just select "Images/Edit With/Photoshop" from the Images pull down menu and Aperture will create and new Version next to the selected one and open it in Photoshop without ever having to leave the program or go looking for master files or creating copies etc. etc.
Then when you are finished in photoshop you just click "save" and all the photoshop modifications are in the new "Version" in Aperture without ever having to create any other copies or use any additional disc space.
This is the power of Aperture, with its plugins and saves you from having to worry about all those copies in different programs and locations etc. You do not need to save each original is special folders, using separate programs.
Marek - let me know what you think about Photon.
Dave - thanks for the suggestion, Photo Reviewer can be found at http://www.sticksoftware.com/software/PhotoReviewer.html
Norman - I think you are missing my point, I want to continue to work with numerous applications, I am not looking for one solution. Buy building a manual (folder based) database of my images, I can find any image I want fairly easily, no matter what application I am using.