Best tool for image file management

[Marko]

This, IMO, is one of the good examples of "If you want it done right, you've got to do it yourself".

As a both digital and film user, I tried really hard, but couldn't find an application that would do what I want. So I just do it all myself and use the Bridge for previewing and batch operations.

I settled on a very simple method - I name each folder as eventname_yymmdd (some times I would omit the dd part) and then name the images within as eventname_yymmdd_serno. Tools built into the Bridge make the renaming really easy - one step process most of the time. From there, it is a simple matter of keeping them all in one place and having regular (multiple!) backups, but that's another topic.

[PenGun]

I currently use PS CS3 and really need a tool/programme/plug-in that will allow me to manage the saved files. Currently, they are all over the place with no real method in the madness. Saving with simple file name tags isn't cutting it...

This needs to include files dumped from digital, not just scanned images.

Can anyone suggest good products to do this? I'm guessing Adobe Lightroom might be an option.

Thanks in advance,

A lot of the problem you face is the insane windose file system. The Mac abstraction is not much better. You need the finder and I guess some kind of app in windose.

I very seldom do any kind of search as I know where everything is.

The *nix file system spreads it's self across all your drives seamlessly. There are no C: or D: drives, why would you care?

So with a coherent file system most of your problems go away. Just put your stuff in /usr/local/scan and make directories below that for your various needs. Simple and you'll never lose anything.

[Jeffrey Sipress]

I don't understand why you are not using Bridge, which you already have, yet no one here mentioned it. I shoot digital and LF and it works well.

[bdkphoto]

I currently use PS CS3 and really need a tool/programme/plug-in that will allow me to manage the saved files. Currently, they are all over the place with no real method in the madness. Saving with simple file name tags isn't cutting it...

This needs to include files dumped from digital, not just scanned images.

Can anyone suggest good products to do this? I'm guessing Adobe Lightroom might be an option.

Thanks in advance,

One of the things that needs to be made clear is the differences between the programs discussed in this thread. If you are looking for software to organize your files into a catalog or library then Lightroom, Expressions Media, or Aperture might be the way to go.

Lightroom and Aperture are Image Editor / Browser / Catalogs combined into one program.

Expressions Media is standalone catalog software, to be used with Bridge/ACR (or any other IE/Browser combo).

Bridge is a browser

Picasa, Faststone are browsers/IE programs.

[Ken Lee]

Bridge is nice - but rather slow with files of the size that we often handle, when scanning Large Format film.

Compared to Picasa, CS3/Bridge is very slow because it seems to forget the thumbnails it has already rendered during previous visits to a directory: it appears to render them from scratch.

[NoBob]

I still miss Faststone image viewer. Have settled on hitting space bar and moving pic around with cursor in Bridge CS4 (mac). Tis a bit slow when checking big files though.

[NoBob]

I still miss Faststone image viewer. Have settled on hitting space bar and moving pic around with cursor in Bridge CS4 (mac). Tis a bit slow when checking big files though.

[kkeller]

I have been looking for a image management software for a few years. I have tried acdcee, bridge, free ones and lightroom. Lightroom has a bit of a learning curve but overall I think it does the job better than others I have tried. There is a 30 day fully functioning demo of it you can get from adobe. It sped up my workflow significantly and I have had no problems with large files from leaf back images which are 50 meg and my scans of 4x5 negs which range alot higher up to 300 meg. One secret to lightroom is have lots of memory at least 2 meg if not more. Because lightroom is a database, the catalog can become a large file itself. The other strong point for lightroom is that it is all non destructive editing. Once you edit in lightroom you can rightclick on the image and select edit in photoshop and it gives you some choices but will apply the corrections you made in lightroom and open a new file to edit in ps. Once done with that file it will import the new edited image back into lightroom. I hope this info helps and I am willing to answer and questions you might have. I have been using lightroom now for over a year and find that it meets 80 percent of all my editing needs and use photoshop for special images or projects. Lightroom is like being in a darkroom for me and I like it.

[kkeller]

One more point for lightroom, When you import images you can choose the preview images size which is stored in the catalog file, this allows viewing images even if the file itself is not available like it is on another harddrive which is not connected to the computer at that moment. Choosing the small size helps speed up view previews and save space in memory and I find the small previews just fine for organizine and viewing work.

[Allen in Montreal]

I would never suggest this is the "Best tool for image file management", it is all I know and it meets my needs. You may want to look at it, it is not very labor intensive.

http://www.extensis.com/en/products/...on.jsp?id=2000


I have hundreds and hundreds of DVDs, many back up drives and four computers.
I run Portfolio over folders and disks that have any images, it saves a thumbnail, the routing code to the file's location and the iptc data.

The data on 8 gigs worth of final images, almost 4,000 images, I sent to the newspaper last year are held in a single 33 meg database file.

I have my database broken down into groups, Newspaper work, general freelance, personal work etc. each has a portfolio catalogue. Open the catalogue and search by key word or any word in the caption or in the title. Find the thumbnail, click Get Info, you have the caption and the name of the DVD or backup drive where the full rez version of the image is held.

I have adopted the naming convention that the newspaper uses, because it works and is simple.

AMC09 1228 McGill 1, 2, 3 etc etc.

I can now search by year (09) by month and date or just date or just month or by title, or by keywords written into the file using Photo Mechanic during editing.

It is a pain to get going from zero, but a breeze once done.

After you work on images and save them, run Portfolio to update the folder.

One advantage over programs such as light room and aperture is that the browser is a free download, I can FTP a catalogue and a link for someone to download the browser and view the folder quickly and cleanly. I am not aware if LR or Ap now has a browser function similar to Portfolio's, but at the time I went down this road, it was the only one to offer this.