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Author Topic: Here's my workflow - what are my alternatives (if any) to ACR and LR?  (Read 8598 times)

ErikKaffehr

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Re: Here's my workflow - what are my alternatives (if any) to ACR and LR?
« Reply #20 on: November 17, 2013, 05:00:11 pm »

Hi,

I have something like 70000 images, about 2 Terabytes. Mostly raws, from 85 different cameras.

Tried to create a new catalog, and add all images on the disk. After an hour 45000 images were added and I stopped building the new catalog for practical reasons.

So I think the number of images you have is managable.

Best regards
Erik



If your 100GB of images is in some sort of rational folder structure, you could do the same thing: Import all of them into Lightroom (keeping them in their current location), then use the organizational and editing tools in LR to keyword, rate, edit, and then develop your final images.

Unquote
 
Are you serious? ;D I think I would be dead before I completed that task? And there are the GB'S of images I add every week. Sorry that is for masochists.  ;)

Just done a search of three of my disks. 74,000 nef's and 9,000 cr2 files. I have another 3 external disks unplugged which weren't searched. How long to catalogue that lot? :)
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Ken Bennett

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Re: Here's my workflow - what are my alternatives (if any) to ACR and LR?
« Reply #21 on: November 18, 2013, 08:56:53 am »


Are you serious? ;D I think I would be dead before I completed that task? And there are the GB'S of images I add every week. Sorry that is for masochists.  ;)


Well, yes, I am serious. For a start, I'll give you the same advice I have given to others in your situation: Start Now. Every new photo that is added to your collection gets a full set of keywords. It's really not that hard, especially with something like the amazing Structured Keywords Panel in Photo Mechanic, but even Lightroom has a decent keyword editor.

In a year, you'll have a year's worth of photos organized and searchable in Lightroom. If you have also catalogued your older photos (which I would recommend), then you could, as you have time, keyword and rate those. Even twenty or thirty minutes here and there can make a difference.

If you don't do anything, the problem just keeps getting worse. Unless, of course, you don't see it as a problem, and that's fine, too. :)
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jjj

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Re: Here's my workflow - what are my alternatives (if any) to ACR and LR?
« Reply #22 on: November 18, 2013, 09:33:22 am »

I don't see any difference between what you do and transferring you images from a card directly to your hard drive. You don't need LR to do that?
True, it's just that LR makes even that bit easier for me as I organise by date and just import and pictures get sorted into date folders [set up to match my way of working]. Not a huge issue if unloading cards every day, but if offloading off my pocket camera or worse my iPhone, then it saves me huge amounts of time.
And seeing as the hardest part of working with images is dealing with images at a later date than when they were first taken, not using a database organiser like LR makes life much, mud, much harder than it needs to be.

Anyone who thinks LR's [or equivalent's] library way of working is hard work, either has less than a few hundred photos or is sticking their heads in the sand. It's a bit like the monks writing manuscripts by hand, claiming Caxton's method of producing books is hard work.
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jjj

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Re: Here's my workflow - what are my alternatives (if any) to ACR and LR?
« Reply #23 on: November 18, 2013, 09:49:26 am »

I don't use the Library and only use LR for processing because I like the UI and the extras that ACR doesn't have. My workflow is to browse my hard drive with Faststone viewer - free and powerful - and when I see an image I like I highlight it and press E on my keyboard. All of the contents of the folder is imported but only the one I want is ticked and this is imported and the rest aren't and then I enhance it and save or import to PS. Now some will say I am ignoring the main part of LR but in all honesty life is too short to catalogue all of my images.
I'd say that life's too short not to catalogue one's images.
But since you clarified that and than said keywording, I'd have to both agree and disagree.

Adding keywords can indeed be time consuming, but nowhere near as time consuming as dealing with images that are not keyworded.
I think the secret is not to be too anal about keywording. Just add main keywords en masse to folders [can be done on import] and specifics to a few sub groups if need be. So on a day trip with girlfriend to the town of New Mills, everything gets imported with keywords New Mills, Peak District and then if I feel like it I may label a few sub groups with things like Millennial Bridge, river or Cows for pasture shots. Also I can take a shot at each location with my iPhone and then find shots in the map module as I can sync location info too.

Work stuff gets dealt with in the same way - client + job are the main keywords for each shoot then further keywording for specific stuff. I so wished I'd had a LR style organising when I used to do film stills.
The beauty of LR is that I can quickly keyword and then set up smart folders to pick up shots with say specific actors, locations or scenes even if shot at very different times. File Browser organisers like Bridge [which I was a big fan of until LR overtook it] are simply no match for the speed of such a way of working.
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: Here's my workflow - what are my alternatives (if any) to ACR and LR?
« Reply #24 on: November 18, 2013, 02:11:07 pm »

Hi,

When Apple's 'Aperture' arrived I was into writing my own image management program, and really wanted to include raw conversion, my program had some parametric editing capability, so I was familiar with the concept. When LR Beta 3 arrived, the first version on a Windows PC, I had it running within a couple of days, after upgrading my PC with new OS and a faster CPU.

So for me, LR simply satisfied my wants and needs.

Best regards
Erik

 


I'd say that life's too short not to catalogue one's images.
But since you clarified that and than said keywording, I'd have to both agree and disagree.

Adding keywords can indeed be time consuming, but nowhere near as time consuming as dealing with images that are not keyworded.
I think the secret is not to be too anal about keywording. Just add main keywords en masse to folders [can be done on import] and specifics to a few sub groups if need be. So on a day trip with girlfriend to the town of New Mills, everything gets imported with keywords New Mills, Peak District and then if I feel like it I may label a few sub groups with things like Millennial Bridge, river or Cows for pasture shots. Also I can take a shot at each location with my iPhone and then find shots in the map module as I can sync location info too.

Work stuff gets dealt with in the same way - client + job are the main keywords for each shoot then further keywording for specific stuff. I so wished I'd had a LR style organising when I used to do film stills.
The beauty of LR is that I can quickly keyword and then set up smart folders to pick up shots with say specific actors, locations or scenes even if shot at very different times. File Browser organisers like Bridge [which I was a big fan of until LR overtook it] are simply no match for the speed of such a way of working.
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Rory

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Re: Here's my workflow - what are my alternatives (if any) to ACR and LR?
« Reply #25 on: November 24, 2013, 11:23:06 am »

High-volume deadline-driven shooters often do it the way you suggest, culling using apps like PhotoMechanic, but that's because of their unusual time pressure.

Very true, but there is another reason to use PhotoMechanic, or another fast browser/viewer.  The Lightroom flag to re-render a preview sometimes fails, so when you are reviewing an image it may appear blurred when it is not.  The solution is to make a small change in develop to force a re-rendering, although this can sometimes fail as well, and is impractical when making an initial culling pass.  This behavior does not occur in the import module, where lightroom uses the embedded JPEG, but the performance of the import module is pedestrian at best.  I do not understand why this preview rendering issue does not get more attention as I know I am not the only user to experience this behavior.  Perhaps it is difficult to reproduce.  Bottom line - you cannot totally trust lightroom previews for culling decisions.
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