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Import Considerations
Because of the fact that I spend so much time working with digital assets, or maybe despite it depending on your point of view, I'm always quite curious to see how other people deal with the problems of managing large numbers of digital photographs. In pursuit of this, I joined Pinar Ozger yesterday in attending a Digital Asset Management (DAM) presentation at the San Francisco Exposure Gallery by Chuck Gathard. Most of Chuck's presentation focused on the basics of DAM and with specific advice for many of the attendee's particular issues. But, it was interesting to hear how he worked, what he recommended for others, and how his thoughts might impact my own workflow.
There was one thought in particular that I may implement as a takeaway. Chuck never ingests photographs directly from his compact flash cards. Instead, he first copies his cards to folders on a hard drive, one folder per card. Then, once all his photos are safely imported, he ingests them into Lightroom and the rest of his workflow solution. He's got a variety of reasons for this, but there is one immediate benefit. He is able to copy image files from his compact flash cards at full speed, speeding up the serial process of downloading his cards. Then Lightroom can ingest the results all at once at its leisure. Furthermore, he's got an immediate backup that has been made with a simple file copy rather than relying on Lightroom's backup mechanism. Sure, Lightroom will do the right thing, but when it comes to backing up data, sometimes simpler is better.
There are a few follow on benefits to Chuck's system. First, since he's copying his files to one directory per card, and he keeps track of which card was downloaded to each directory, if he finds a corrupted file, he can identify the card that the corrupted file came from and weed it out of his collection. Second, he's paranoid enough to make DVD backups of his camera images right after they come off the cards. This setup lets him easily do this. I'm personally not a fan of DVD backups and much prefer using multiple hard drives, but the theory is what's important here.
For the last few years, I've been using either Aperture or Lightroom to directly import my photographs from my compact flash cards. However, in the interest of ensuring that I always have my precious original photographs, I'm considering changing that policy and first copying the files to an external hard drive that's dedicated to this use during a shoot and then ingesting them into my workflow after that point into a library on a second hard drive. Sure, I could just have Lightroom make a backup on import, but I often feel about as paranoid as Chuck about my images.
What about you? Do you have any interesting steps on import?
Years ago, when I first went digital I was using Extensis Portfolio as my DAM. At the time I was using it to ingest cards after shoots. One night after a concert I shot, when importing my pictures, Portfolio locked up on me, freezing my whole computer system, and in the process, corrupted a bunch of the files off the memory card I was importing.
I then got to spend hours using data recovery software to try and get my images back.
From that night forward, I ALWAYS import my own cards (just like Chuck does), then once they are safe on my hard drive, I begin importing them into my editing program.
i have a hyperdrive and i download all the images there first. it creates a folder for each card for me so it's just a matter of renaming the folders when i connect the drive to the laptop.
and then, i import photos to lightroom via the hyperdrive. it's faster that way and i get the backups already. the hyperdrive reads cards fast too!
I prefer to download from the CF card and then import into LR. LR doesn't give me the simple option of copying the folder as is. I could rename it in different ways but as is what was I thinking?!
Also I would see problems on the forums with LR doing the downloading.
Have you ever tried Image IngesterPro?
It can download to HD,plus second HD, convert to DNG,keep a database of downloads,verify files plus much more. Here is the URL
Everyone has their idea about things that are important. For me, I really want to keep a copy of my CR2 files as they came from the camera, and separately I want DNG copies of those images. I just don't know what files I'll be able to read years from now, and want to take the safe route by keeping both of these. My best photos also end up as PSD files, so I'm tripled covered with those.
I had a pretty good flow for doing this using Bridge and Camera Raw, but when I moved to Lightroom I found accomplishing this more difficult.
Today, I copy from the CR2s direct from the card to a folder on my hard drive. I do a quick review of those and delete any poor shots and mistakes. I then convert to DNG in a different directory, and start my more thorough evaluation and grading of each image, and I end up deleting more images. Thus my CR2 folders have more images than my DNG folders. But, I feel pretty liberal about deleting DNGs, knowing I still have all my CR2s.
I just signed up Carbonite as an off-site back-up service. It's been working for 22 days now on my initial back-up, and it's at 60%. It will be interesting to see if it can keep-up once the initial backup is done. I use HD's for backups, but wanted more redundancy, thus my Carbonite trial.
I have had only one corrupted file under about 70.000 photos I imported. And in this case, the camera did not write properly (as it was extremely cold where I was shooting, I guess), so no additional back up would have helped. Therefore I am not very paranoid in backing up while importing, I do it once a week on a second HDD.
Nevertheless, Chuck's workflow (first copy all folders of all cars on HDD, then import) brings another advantage: You can propely rename the photos with serial number - something which does not work if you start the importing process with your "last" flash card and then insert a Card with photos taken earlier.