Confession Time...
How many of you are like me and have thousands of images in your catalogue that you rarely if ever access? Most likely they are the unrated or * and ** images that never see the light of day because your time is spent working on and publishing the *** and up images (and, ilke me, you're a pack rat and can't get rid of them). Or, they may be images from years past that have been printed or published or uploaded to a gallery or used in some other way but are not being accessed at all now. Or, perhaps you have images from jobs that are so far in the past that you or your client just doesn't need to readily access them any longer. Either way, I'm sure we all have images that for one reasoner another don't need to be taking up local hard drive space any longer but we would still like to have in our main catalogue.
I would like to be able to "archive" these images to some form of long-term storage (a different hard drive or DVDs or the like). While this could be done using "Export as Catalog", I don't want to lose these images from my catalogue - I only want them stored somewhere else to free up local HD space. So this creates a conundrum that I think LR could address with a module or sub-module to Library called "Archive".
The problem is this: As LR is currently configured, we cannot have these "archived" images kept in our visual catalogue in the same folder as their sibling photos (so they appear alongside the *** and up that we want to keep handy), yet have the original or these archived images stored in a different location (e.g. off our local hard drive and on a DVD or external HD). Essentially, it means having sibling images in the same folder located in two different places.
I see this problem being solved with an "Archive" module or sub-module. Here's an example of how it might work:
- In the Library module, select all the images you wish to archive (e.g. unrated, * and ** images from 2004);
- Right-click and in the contextual menu select "Archive";
- A new window (like the Import or Export window) opens and you can select a destination for the archive - either a DVD or another external HD;
- Click "Archive" and LR does two things: (A) it moves the originals from where ever they are located and writes them to their new destination keeping the same folder structure but doing so in an "archiving way" to perhaps reduce space needed (without compressing); and (B) LR changes the Library thumbnail in some way to indicate the image is archived either by slightly greying out the image or making it slightly opaque or making the area around the thumbnail black or...?;
- Back in Library, all the thumbs are still there as usual, but rather than a [?] mark appearing on the thumbnail of an "Archived" image, perhaps a stylized A could appear. When you want to access that image, a "polite reminder" window appears reminding you that "This is an archived image – please insert/plug-in "such-and-such" media to access it."
I don't know about you, but I would find this very helpful. Currently I use a MacBook Pro exclusively and, while I maintain a portable HD with my images (with everything backed up regularly), it would be nice to divest myself of so many images that I just don't need to keep handy. An archive as described above would allow this. I could simply use a larger portable drive, but that's not the point. I'm sure even desktop users might find archiving helpful in some way.
Previously, I have not had to worry about HD space management but two things have happened recently: (1) I realized that I'm into my 10th year of digital files and (2) I am moving to a D800e which means significantly larger files than my previous 12mp and 5mp DSLRs. As more and more photographers move to larger and larger image files, archiving can only become increasingly important.
Anyway, I put this forward to the LR gurus on this forum in the hopes that I can now get some sleep. It's funny how the brain works at 2:45am!
