Hi all, Firstly apologies if you are reading this twice as I am posting to other forums as well, I would like as wide a range of opinions as possible. During the after Xmas lull, I am finally biting the bullet and looking at cataloguing my collection of images that is in a digital format.
My experience is the more software you have to rely on, the more clashes/crashes/upgrades/patches etc you have, to cause problems and keep up to date with. Ideally Adobe would produce software that could handle our cataloguing in an integrated colour managed workflow that wouldn't have issues talking to layered Photoshop files, layered TIFFs, PSB, DNG, RAW, etc. I know there is Adobe "Album" and although I haven't used it, from what I have read it's not aimed at or really suitable for working professionals. I am on PC/XP only but whatever I end up with would need to be able to be transferred to MAC in future if necessary I am looking for written reference material on the logistics and possible issues and workflows for setting up a searchable image database. Preferably in book form as I hate reading PDFs except as a searchable reference. I have an extensive collection of film material going back many years, some of which has been scanned and therefore also exists in more than one format: Film and various iterations in digital. Eventually stock usable film will be scanned and put into the database as well. I already own both Extensis Portfolio 4 and Canto Cumulus 5.5. After extended "play" I have pretty much settled on Canto as it has good knowledgeable phone support here in Australia and came with a reasonable training disk. I am not that happy even with Canto as I don't find it particularly intuitive or easy to get my head around. One issue with Canto is it doesn't natively handle RAW files, (Nikon NEFs) without an additional cost plug-in, "PhotoSuite", even in the most recent version 6. I am not sure but I don't think Portfolio does either. If anyone is using "PhotoSuite" with NEFs I would be interested in positive or negative comments on it, especially the retention/erasing of EXIF where needed and compatability with PShop CS metadata. generated metadata. I have many Gigabytes of images on DVDs and CD's which are filed via my existing job numbering system in individual envelopes in standard filing cabinets along with the film they were scanned from. I have also amassed a substantial quantity of usable experimental images, mostly NEFs, whilst familiarizing myself with a digital SLR. I am not quite sure how to integrate these into my exsisting filing system as they don't really fit into my existing Job based numbering system. At the moment I am Batch renaming my "non-job" digital files with the shoot date, and some text indicating the subject matter as it seems to be the quickest way to check large numbers (hundreds to thousands) of images by file name only. Any comments on cataloguing workflow, software experiences, reference material, things to watch out for, etc welcomed! Regards, Frank Styevko from OZ _______________________________________________ Prodig subscriber options - articles - links - calendar - items for sale http://www.prodig.org
