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Lightroom DAM newbie confusion

Ranjan Sharma

New member
I always wanted DAM for my ever growing images collection but never had looked into until Lightroom came out, now I have got a hang of it & want to start it at least on trial basis meanwhile 1.1 comes out & few things sorted out & new features added.

I got a new machine & I want to try out the DAM feature on the images which are on CD/DVDs. Here is a brief summary of my requirements & my planned DAM work flow which has raised few question which I want the answer.

I do commercial work & stock images which are categorized as
interiors/architecture/still life/jewelery/food/landscapes/people/panorama etc...............few more can be added.

I plan to import all images from DVD (around 430 DVDs) & copy to the hard drive then do the editing in LR & metadata/key wording & then burn the dvd back with the new info.

On these DVD I have raw & edited version too, though I plan to edit in LR one again, should I import the tiffs/jpegs too?

Now I will have 1:1 previews generated which will serve my off line purpose , can I have a smaller images for mailing to clients request from these generated previews from LR? My old method is to make a web gallery having 800 pix images of all my shoots which as of now is kept on hdd & servers the purpose but individual images have to be manually searched.

Should I keep 1 database for all my importing of past 7 years? is that what you do or should I keep 1 for 1 year wise?

Once all is done I plan to make collections based on interiors/architecture/still life/jewelery/food/landscapes/people/panorama etc. is that ok or i am missing something in this work flow?

Since I dont know much about LR/DAM How good is LR for DAM? are there any limitation in comparison with other DAM tools?

Need some direction so I can start my DAM project & I plan to give 3-4 months before I fully implement this. I need some direction for this.

Thanks
Ranjan
 

Michael Fontana

pro member
My guess is that 430 DVDs in a SINGLE library is a bit much - in full preview.

As for DAM, I recommend Peter Kroghs DAM book
Following that link, you might read the first chapter.

DAM is more complex: I was getting aware of this after reading the book, even I did it in a similar way, before.
 

John_Nevill

New member
Ranjan,

Most LR users are eagerly awaiting cross database functionality, until then I'd put a a 100,000 files per library limit in place and dice up your DVDs into individual category libraries as you propose.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I'm a huge fan of Peter Krogh. His book on Data Asset Management, "The Dam Book" is a classic and a must read. I feel so strongly about this as a primer for DAM understanding that I even suggest one for work and one for bathroom reading, LOL!

That being said, I am not sure that one should look at this in a strict religious way to follow Peter's directions exactly. For me, for example making one grand database, is not a good idea for now with the fluid state of DAM choices.

I'd suggest that iveiwMedia Pro is mature enough to rely on. It is simple and should be perfect for you.

I already make catalogs for each set of like projects. I also have catalogs for a whole section of a HDD!

so it is easy to have a catalog for just Landscapes or else food, landscapes and have each by year.

There is then nothing wrong with importing these smaller catalogs to huge catalogs. If the latter crash, so what. Just rebuild them when the software is better.

Each time one makes a catalog and keywords, and then synchronizes those changes back to the original files, these files can at any time be dumped intop a new catalog and will retain the keywords and other characteristics, like event, date people, etc.

iView follows Peter Krogh's admonition that the system be transferable to a better DAM system when it turns up. So this system is very much adaptable to your needs. I'd contact John Beardsworth for special details like your different size files for different purposes and relationships to web pages. John might be able to do some consultation for you.

I don't like putting more than about 30,000 files in one catalog and prefer to be about 10,000 or less.

LR is new and I'm a little concerned that it's still being perfected. iview is better known and remember, the principle that you will always be upgrading your software and hardware!

Asher
 
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Michael Fontana

pro member
......
That being said, I am not sure that one should look at this in a strict religious way to follow Peter's directions exactly. For me, for example making one grand database, is not a good idea for now with the fluid state of DAM choices.

I agree, Asher!
It sorted out, that I like my naming conventionen better than Peter's suggestion; but I've learned much to think DAM in longer terms, than the daily shoot-edit-deliver would allow! Thus avoiding time-consuming work when migrating media, as harddiscs, DVD to BlueRay, etc.

I'd suggest that iveiwMedia Pro is mature enough to rely on. It is simple and should be perfect for you.

I already make catalogs for each set of like projects. I also have catalogs for a whole section of a HDD!

so it is easy to have a catalog for just Landscapes or else food, landscapes and have each by year.

There is then nothing wrong with importing these smaller catalogs to huge catalogs. If the latter crash, so what. Just rebuild them when the software is better.
Each time one makes a catalog and keywords, and then synchronizes those changes back to the original files, these files can at any time be dumped intop a new catalog and will retain the keywords and other characteristics, like event, date people, etc.

I don't like putting more than about 30,000 files in one catalog and prefer to be about 10,000 or less.

LR is new and I'm a little concerned that it's still being perfected. iview is better known and remember, the principle that you will always be upgrading your software and hardware!

Asher

Every database (library) will crash, once its overfilled; thats nearly phisical law. Therefore I went - with iVMP - the same route as you, and made small catalogs for each project. Out of them I created 5 big "mastercatalogs" depending on different themes. Worked quite well.
As for LR, I'll try its import of iVMP-catalogs, in vers 1.1. I'm worried about iVMPs future, just look at Expression Media - and its forum ;-)
 

Ranjan Sharma

New member
Am I to understand that you have LR 1.1? If so where did you get it!
NO Richard, I read on this forum in other threads that its being tested by few selected & has some improvements & new features for DAM.

Most LR users are eagerly awaiting cross database functionality, until then I'd put a a 100,000 files per library limit in place and dice up your DVDs into individual category libraries as you propose.
Thanks John, so its better to have library categorized for food/interiors/landscapes etc. but then what's the use of collections in lightroom, it does have the same capability is int it?

Either I follow what you purpose or I make yearly limit of 100,000 (I wont cross that soon) & make library year wise & keep importing all kind of images all in one & sort out images in collections named interiors/food/landscapes etc.

Each time one makes a catalog and keywords, and then synchronizes those changes back to the original files, these files can at any time be dumped intop a new catalog and will retain the keywords and other characteristics, like event, date people, etc.
Thanks Asher for detailed description, now I have another related question (I am having too many thoughts right now) Lets say I make yearly library & sort out the categories landscapes/interiors/food using collections. I enter 7 keywords to an image & 6months I later realize that the image should have 4 more keywords to it, what would I do, since the images are burned back on DVDs?n Can I add keyword to the offline images & when needed to export I would require DVDs & at that time will it export the images with newly added keywords?

--------------------------------
Ranjan
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Ranjan,

I'd really hold off on LR for your serious needs unless there's some sspecial reason to direct you otherwise. Has iview disappointed you?

I'm finding that on the MacBook Pro, iview seems more bulletproof! anyway, if you can use it, every key word you use, stays with it and you can then dump a whole drive, if you wish and consolidate all your files, each with their keywording, or else you can import from one catalog to another. So there's lots of simple ways to use the catalogs for your own work.

I don't jump for new tools so fast! It costs and is hardly ever needed.

O.K., so someone scream at me that I'm so wrong!

There's nothing wrong with using iview catalogs to hold your new images for grading and renaming then moving these files to where you want.

The grand catalog has everything and your numbers are sequential.

for you, perhaps consider using date, sequential number, and letter code indicating main category for your work. So you can at any time, pull out all L landscape or P portraits and put these into a separate iview. So since you have say ten categories, dividing your 100,000 of images into folders, gives you major categories with say 5000-20000 files max in each. So non are over bloated.

You still could also put all these together as one supercatalog. If it crashes now, then next year they'll be a new version of iview, or something else, that won't.

Your issue is always to be nimble and ready to move as the technology changes. You only need to think of 5 years sotrage anyway, as a lot will have changed.

Whatever you do it must be simple and easy to rebuild and a lot of other people should be able to discuss problems with you. LR has not even been around long enough to know what all the issue are!

Now if you use LR and it's reliable, give us a report and say why one should use it before iview. I'd like to know. It should be something more than being miffed at iview being swallowed by Darth Vader and taken to the Dark Side!

Asher
 

Ranjan Sharma

New member
I'd really hold off on LR for your serious needs unless there's some sspecial reason to direct you otherwise. Has iview disappointed you?

NO I have not yet looked into it but have heard great user experience from those who use it,but LR is preferred being able to edit the raw files & results are better, so I would need 1 program to do all organizing & editing & archiving to dvds.

Actually this DAM requirements came from few of my clients for whom I shoot catalogs & they want this to be implemented. They want images from past to be search able by keywords, one such clients is an author of food books & I have shots all kinds of food with her, its becoming increasingly difficult to give them the images they need on time as I have to search for the dvds (I have numbered them though) I will wait for LR 1.1 meanwhile I download & test IVMP, but wonder about the workflow using 2 softwares.

Whatever you do it must be simple and easy to rebuild and a lot of other people should be able to discuss problems with you. LR has not even been around long enough to know what all the issue are!
I agree with you on that 100% so it seems not many photographers have yet implemented LR DAM features due to its newness in the market.

Now if you use LR and it's reliable, give us a report and say why one should use it before iview. I'd like to know.
As of now I have only one reason that LR offers better image editing controls & combine multiple things all in one, hence I am attracted to it.

Other strong reason for LR is that I will implement DAM for my clients at my end & edit the files in LR & then give them the LR library files to be kept at their end fully search able & they them selves can export small images for proof & search, editing remains under me as these clients no nothing about color calibration & use low end monitors. I am not sure if such a thing is possible with IVMP.
 
A few thoughts here.

From my experience of LR, 100000 isn't a bad figure to pick but you really shouldn't set an arbitrary limit to LR or iView. Instead, match your catalogue/library to physical objects such as DVDs 0001-0099, hard drives H and I. This way you can be sure to cover your archive and not leave gaps between catalogues/libraries or have images in more than one.

One way to approach LR is to use it as a processing stage and then use iView as the archive manager. So all new images go through it, rather as Peter describes his use of Bridge. You add your metadata, write out xmp files etc. Once a job is done, remove the items from LR if you want, and catalogue them in iView. So you're building up your experience of LR, giving it time to mature, and keeping the archive in an establish DAM program.

You also mentioned going back and burning new DVDs after adding new keywords. What's the need? Your backup strategy is new images + the catalogue file, so you catch each iteration of metadata.

I'd encourage you to use keywords rather than collections to split your fields of work. I'm piicking up what Asher says about thinking ahead - keywords are cross-application so you could take them with you if you moved to another cataloguing application. I tend to use collections more for internal projects or groupings - eg a web album (collections quietly preserve manual sort orders and the last web gallery settings applied to them).

Remember iView has a free reader. So you can send read-only catalogues on DVD, get clients to send back a "Notepad" shortlist file, which you can then load into your main catalogue. This should be a lower support issue than sending them LR libraries. In either case, if your clients have low end monitors, have you thought about supplying the images online? That way you could build in more sophisticated order handling.

John
 

Ranjan Sharma

New member
One way to approach LR is to use it as a processing stage and then use iView as the archive manager. So all new images go through it, rather as Peter describes his use of Bridge. You add your metadata, write out xmp files etc. Once a job is done, remove the items from LR if you want, and catalogue them in iView. So you're building up your experience of LR, giving it time to mature, and keeping the archive in an establish DAM program.
Thanks John,
so do I add metadata to the raw files in such case after editing in LR, actually in my case I want this to be done right in the beginning so when I send the proofs to the clients they have all the metadata too, few clients I shoot interiors for would get the shoot done when the location is ready & available for shoot & need processed images some 6-8 months later to be published in magazine now in some cases I have been contacted by magazines asking images of doors/ windows & thats where I got stumped, hence I now want key wording of image content.

You also mentioned going back and burning new DVDs after adding new keywords. What's the need? Your backup strategy is new images + the catalogue file, so you catch each iteration of metadata.
can you be more descriptive about this, I have old images which needs to be cataloged & off course every new images will go through this too & I cant keep all the raw files on hdd so I have to take back ups on dvds.

I'd encourage you to use keywords rather than collections to split your fields of work. I'm picking up what Asher says about thinking ahead - keywords are cross-application so you could take them with you if you moved to another cataloging application.
Ok understood so I use category keywords such as interiors/food/landscapes etc to be able to find images even in 3rd party software later in the years to come.
In either case, if your clients have low end monitors, have you thought about supplying the images online? That way you could build in more sophisticated order handling.
This is what I plan to do in near future within next 3-4 months.

I may appear confused with my comments & questions but thats exactly why I posted this thread.
 

John_Nevill

New member
I'd set a 100k file limit due to OS / hardware limitation, based on my usage of LR, anything above this needs fast hardware. I was on a XP platform and there's definitely some memory issues with LR, however since moving to Vista things are more stable.

I have a master widlife library with ~40k images. I have categorised by species order and sub species. e.g. /Wildlife/Carnivora and /Wildlife/Carnivora/Leopoards etc. I have approximately 300 folders set up on a 500Gb Raid array. The LR database sits on the same drive set in a subfolder /Wildlife/Wildlife LR Database.

So my set up is folder rather than collection organised. I can than use other raw converters and viewers without problem. I adopted this approach in iView but have since moved over to LR. I did try EM and its unstable.

I prefer to use collections for virtually grouping outputs e.g. PSDs, proof sets, web images and tweaked derivative (BW / toned) etc.

I also do high level keywording on import and use LR to sort and move the images around.

When I return from a shoot, I dump the Raws into a temp folder using the OS and then import/keyword using LR. I then move / sort the images using LR and add other keywords as I go, finally deleting the temp folder when empty.

This seems to work for me but your volume of images might call for a different approach.
 
I think you miss my point. 100k is simply arbitrary, your experience, and really should not be advicated as a general guide. As it is, you are matching to folder/drives and that physical matching is a more robust way to divide up catalogues that control large archives.

Right now, I have no stability problems with EM on XP, but there are a couple of serious bugs (not affecting Mac) that prevent me from using it. But there is a hotfix coming soon, and a service pack with new features in a couple of months.

John
 
so do I add metadata to the raw files in such case after editing in LR, actually in my case I want this to be done right in the beginning so when I send the proofs to the clients they have all the metadata too, few clients I shoot interiors for would get the shoot done when the location is ready & available for shoot & need processed images some 6-8 months later to be published in magazine now in some cases I have been contacted by magazines asking images of doors/ windows & thats where I got stumped, hence I now want key wording of image content.
You try to do as much as possible in the beginning, before the next wave of pictures washes you off your feet. But keywording can be like looking after your garden - you try to get it right up front but every so often you have to move a plant or add a new one in between. I find I'm constantly adding new keywords, sometimes synonyms but sometimes new ways of seeing a picture (eg last year someone bought a picture that I thought was a scene in Japan but she saw a particular species of tree). So even once you've finished a job, you should assume you'll add more keywords later - all these cataloguing programs allow for this.

can you be more descriptive about this, I have old images which needs to be cataloged & off course every new images will go through this too & I cant keep all the raw files on hdd so I have to take back ups on dvds.
You asked about adding new keywords after freezing the images on dvd, and raised the idea of reburning the dvd. There's no need to do this - you can carry on keywording and don't need to write the keywords back again to the offline storage. Just back up the database daily - if it goes corrupt or you accidentally delete it, you just restore your database.

Ok understood so I use category keywords such as interiors/food/landscapes etc to be able to find images even in 3rd party software later in the years to come.
One idea is that LR lets you put them into a hierarchy. So a top level keyword could be "My Categories" and it could have those as its children. You can also tell LR that any keyword is provate - so those categories wouldn't be written into any TIF or JPEG output.

I may appear confused with my comments & questions but thats exactly why I posted this thread.
You're 10 times more stupid if you don't ask questions....

John
 

John_Nevill

New member
John, Your right, the 100K file limit is purely the point at which I find LR becomes less than ideal, especially when doing bulk tasks like keywording editing or deleting etc. YMMV.

Asher, High level keywording, an example would be when I shoot at a specific location, I would add a couple of keywords that reflects this on import. e.g. Marwell Zoo, UK, etc.

I suppose the term high level is more to do with setting these intial keywords at a collective level, sort of first pass as it were.

When I sort / move files, say Leopards into their own folder, I then add lower level keywords (such as Leopards, Head Shot, Body Shot, Male, Female, Cub etc. to improve granularity.

As for EM (Expression Media), I do have copy installed but have had more than a few database crashes and to be honest, I've moved on purely because of LR's RAW features and flexibilty.

I had high hopes for EM, but sadly (IMO) Microsoft have done little with it (as first release). Maybe the next version will rekindle the iView passion.
 

Peter Krogh

New member
As usual, full agreement with John.

One point I'd make to Ranjan is that he should probably not be thinking about burning back to DVD for a couple of reasons.

First, there is no need. If all you want to do is to back up the Develop settings and the new metadata, then, as John points out, al you really need to do is backup the database.

Second, I strongly suggest that you don't remove *any* files from primary hard drive storage that you ever want to see again. You make them much less accessible, you will find it harder to migrate, and you cannot perform any data validation on them.

Third, do the math and think about the value of your time.

500 DVDs, if full at 4 GB each, yield about 2TB of data. You can buy 750 GB Seagates for about $225, for a total storage cost of $675.

Now think of the time it will take you to reburn the DVDs, as well as the time you'll spend over the life of the images pulling and loading DVDs. Even if all of this is done by a $10/hour employee, you're probably still losing money to do it this way.

Adn if you're a busy enough photographer to generate 500 DVDs worth of files, I'm guessing that you are looking for ways to reduce your time in front of the computer, not increase it.
Peter
 

Ranjan Sharma

New member
Keywording can be like looking after your garden - you try to get it right up front but every so often you have to move a plant or add a new one in between. I find I'm constantly adding new keywords, sometimes synonyms but sometimes new ways of seeing a picture (eg last year someone bought a picture that I thought was a scene in Japan but she saw a particular species of tree
John thanks for quite a practical example I understand now since I do bit of gardening on my roof top garden. I too recently found that in my interior images a magazine editor found particular kind of windows & he asked for more of such kind of shots, so I am also now learning to be as descriptive as possible & trying to see my images from different viewpoints.

You asked about adding new keywords after freezing the images on dvd, and raised the idea of reburning the dvd. There's no need to do this - you can carry on keywording and don't need to write the keywords back again to the offline storage. Just back up the database daily - if it goes corrupt or you accidentally delete it, you just restore your database.
So does this mean that I have to keep all the data (raw & tiff files) all the time on hdd, thats too much of data & would require separate high capacity hdd. Is there a way out?

You're 10 times more stupid if you don't ask questions....
I agree 100% on that, its never that you learn fully, more you learn you get to know, you need to learn more & this forum is one such good place to do so.

Peter Krogh wrote: First, there is no need. If all you want to do is to back up the Develop settings and the new metadata, then, as John points out, al you really need to do is backup the database.

Second, I strongly suggest that you don't remove *any* files from primary hard drive storage that you ever want to see again. You make them much less accessible, you will find it harder to migrate, and you cannot perform any data validation on them.

Thanks Peter, does it means that I have to have all the raw & tiff files always kept on the hdd..................& thats too much data to be kept in one place, is that what DAM requires?

My current practice is that I make 800 pix jpeg proofs using Rawshooter of all the selected shots which go to the clients & they remain with me too, based on that we do final tiffs when ever needed.
This "whenever" is becoming a problem, 8 months down the line its hard to remember & by then the data is already moved to dvds. I do bi-monthly dvd backups & after that the data is removed from hdd, Clients tells us the numbers & we pick up the dvd & finally process the tiffs from the dvds only, so the data remains on dvd & not required to be copied on the hdd.

Now the twist in this comes when the client give our reference to magazine editors & they don't have proofs with them they need images based on their stories & they call asking for particular kind of bar/drink/food shots or furniture/ fabrics/color scheme in interiors. Now I have to look in multiple dvds as I can remember & the turn around time is often 4-5 days depending upon my shooting schedule.

If I implement DAM it would just require to search all food shots I may have done in last 7 years & then I can refine my search to be precise to the brief of the editor.

Peter your math is right I need to reduce the computer & non productive time searching images in multiple dvds.
 

Peter Krogh

New member
Ranjan,
You are probably making more derivative files (JPEG, TIFF, PSD) than is necessary. DNG can be a big help here, since you can put the JPEG proofing image back into the same file that holds the Raw data, so you only need to keep track of one file.

Lightroom makes this less necessary, since it can keep a proxy preview in the database.

As to searching, any of this software can search within parameters, such as date, format, keyword, location and more.

You might consider reading my book to get an overview on this stuff.
Peter
 

Ranjan Sharma

New member
Peter you are right, my commercial work flow does require photoshopped files too such as skin retouched, perspective correction, hdr images, panoramas composite of multi images etc, apart from this I work on files sometimes giving effects & having multiple variation of the same file.

How would DNG help me in such case, my understanding is that it can only embed a jpeg preview of the LR corrections & while exporting I can save the file as DNG permanently or I do this while importing raw files. Stacking is another LR option but in present version its only allowed if the files are in the same folder,I am not sure if multiple types of files can be stacked or not.

When I need to find my images I need mostly the tiffs/jpeg & not the raw if the job is one year old & if the job is new 6-8 months old then only I need the raws to be finally processed, once processed I would like to index the photoshopped version so I don't need to work again.

Thanks for your help.
 
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Ranjan Sharma

New member
With your active help & direction & reading other post on the topic I made category keywords & sub categories keywords such as

Interiors
> daylight
> artificial light (last 2 are not exported with images they just help me to sort out)
doors
windows
homes
shops
offices
malls
restaurants
bar
dinning

& then assigned the images in LR with these keywords,then exported jpeg proofs & sent them to the client.

The client installed latest version of Picasa v2 (google has not yet implemented color management) & typed in the keyword to search the images & was quite happy that this system works & now they have a search able database, to those who dont know an experimental feature in picasa can identify image colors so now we can type "blue" & get all the images having predominately blue.

So I have taken the 1st step with your help & decided to stick with LR DAM system assuming 1.1 will update many flaws in the present version. I am now reading the DNG chapter of Peter's book next I want if possible that all these key wording I am doing should be written to the raw file for which I guess I would need DNG, as of now picasa can only read raw files not the DNG, but thats ok since the clients only need exported jpeg/tiff files to which these keywords are already tagged.
 
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René Damkot

New member
I already make catalogs for each set of like projects. I also have catalogs for a whole section of a HDD!

so it is easy to have a catalog for just Landscapes or else food, landscapes and have each by year.

Same here: One catalog per shoot, and one huge catalog of the Archive.
Except that, in the big catalog, I use Catalog Sets for different 'topics' (Landscape, portrait, whatever) and different image types (Tif, jpg large, jpg web), and iView allready allows to view by year, file type, or whatever catalog field. (in the Organise tab)

(I have numbered them though)

To find (files on) DvD's easily, I use CD Finder.
 
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