DAM: looking for versioning help

[feppe]

I finally wanted to get more organized with 10+ years of photos, and downloaded the LL DAM tutorial. While otherwise quite good intro to the subject, the item which I'm struggling most wasn't covered: managing different versions of same file.

I currently use color labels in LR, and have RAW, To Edit, Master, Edited Master. This is quite rudimentary, and not very useful as I'm limited to five types.

I'm mostly looking for how to deal with different final versions of the same photo (B&W, cropped, square thumbnail, etc), frames of a stitched pano, and bracketed exposures.

What works for you?

[JRSmit]

I finally wanted to get more organized with 10+ years of photos, and downloaded the LL DAM tutorial. While otherwise quite good intro to the subject, the item which I'm struggling most wasn't covered: managing different versions of same file.

I currently use color labels in LR, and have RAW, To Edit, Master, Edited Master. This is quite rudimentary, and not very useful as I'm limited to five types.

I'm mostly looking for how to deal with different final versions of the same photo (B&W, cropped, square thumbnail, etc), frames of a stitched pano, and bracketed exposures.

What works for you?

Feppe,
See my website on this topic, www.fromklicktokick.com , there are publications in it that cover an approach for versioning using lightroom, in particular the virtual copy function of lightroom, in combination with certain metadata fields.

[tived]

I finally wanted to get more organized with 10+ years of photos, and downloaded the LL DAM tutorial. While otherwise quite good intro to the subject, the item which I'm struggling most wasn't covered: managing different versions of same file.

I currently use color labels in LR, and have RAW, To Edit, Master, Edited Master. This is quite rudimentary, and not very useful as I'm limited to five types.

I'm mostly looking for how to deal with different final versions of the same photo (B&W, cropped, square thumbnail, etc), frames of a stitched pano, and bracketed exposures.

What works for you?

www.thedambook.com is a good starting point. Checkout Media Expression, now a PhaseOne Program www.Phaseone.dk

Henrik

[john beardsworth]

I currently use color labels in LR, and have RAW, To Edit, Master, Edited Master. This is quite rudimentary, and not very useful as I'm limited to five types.

Labels also have text - you can use Metadata > Color Label Set to set up different text labels for each colour.

Alternatively, consider using collections to manage a job. Look up my workflow smart collections suggestion and adapt it to your needs.

I'm mostly looking for how to deal with different final versions of the same photo (B&W, cropped, square thumbnail, etc), frames of a stitched pano, and bracketed exposures.

Most commonly, people add a suffix to the file name such as BW, Pan, HDR. That works well.

John

[BobFisher]

Labels also have text - you can use Metadata > Color Label Set to set up different text labels for each colour.

Alternatively, consider using collections to manage a job. Look up my workflow smart collections suggestion and adapt it to your needs.



Most commonly, people add a suffix to the file name such as BW, Pan, HDR. That works well.

John

I'd suggest investigating collections as well.  Using stacks may also help.  A good naming convention also helps a great deal.  

Here's a short article that discusses using stacks for just the purpose you're looking at.

[feppe]

Thanks for all the tips!

John, I'm using a related approach for worklists.

Jan's virtual copies look like the most promising option. I'll have to do some checking on how they work with metadata (ie. if I change keywords in one image are they propagated through virtual copies).

I didn't realize you can nest stacks, that's very useful.