Image Management and Categorizing

[CatherineA]

Thanks very much Manfred, I appreciate your advice. I will look into renaming my folders and making them more descriptive. I see the benefits that could have and perhaps after all it won't be as onerous as I'm imagining.

[William W]

. . . I think that given the mess I am in, with an enormous pile of photos that I have to sort retroactively, I might use Lightroom’s keywords or collections. I think it would be a faster way to impose order at this stage . . .

Irrespective of what Categorization System that you use: have you seriously considered first using a Vetting System?

Bluntly put -

1. Do you need to keep 'an enormous pile of photos'
2. Of those that you do need to keep is it necessary to catalogue all of them?

***

I thought there was a recent discussion on the topic of what to keep and what to shed - I couldn't find it. Anyway, in a nutshell my input to that conversation was that I seriously try to edit my files the same night or the next morning, keeping only the top quality; meaningful; or historically significant images.

For examples:

"top quality" - been at Luna Park all day maybe shot 100 frames of things (not people): typically have up to 5 angles/brackets/timings of each Subject, maybe 15 Subjects, 8 Subjects 'didn't work' after intense scrutiny: from the 100 shots, I end up keeping about 7. That would be what's in the "Luna Park" Folder - those seven files, and, (eventually) the Post Production of them . . . NOT 100 files.

"meaningful" At Niece's Child's first birthday. Take "Family Photos", maybe 50 comprising a few 'controlled group portraiture' and several informal Portraits - especially of the kids; - send copies of edited JPEGS (all of the shots) to Family that night or next day. Select the 'meaningful to Bill and Wife' shots (perhaps two or three) keep those, dump the rest.

"historically significant" - pretty much self explanatory, necessarily: historically significant to me and Wife.

I haven't always followed this procedure this: Our Studios ALWAYS stored EVERY negative: ridiculously that business model was based upon the Client coming back six years later for a reprints. I know of nil (serious) Photography Studios in the 70’s 80’ and 90’s that didn’t stress to their clients how they would ‘preserve and archive these precious negatives for you.’

For all my personal work, I simply transferred the same model and the same cataloguing system: I had an enormous pile of negatives, and, in 2004 I started filing my digital images the same way. It soon drove me nuts: then I realized this system of ‘keeping’ was wrong (for me). I shed and shed and shed – firstly when I could track them down, giving negs and digital files to the clients and/or friends and family – that makes the storage their responsibility, not mine. Once that was done, I started to edit (cull) immediately (or as soon as practicable) after every shoot.

WW

[pschlute]

Irrespective of what Categorization System that you use: have you seriously considered first using a Vetting System?

Bluntly put -

1. Do you need to keep 'an enormous pile of photos'



WW

Agreed. Be ruthless !

I delete over 80% of the pictures I take.

[mugge]

Keep it simple. I, like Peter, delete over 80% of pictures I take.
Cheers Ole

[george013]

Am I right that 1) if you shoot raw and 2) you add keywords to it those keywords are saved both in the sidecar files and the jpg's. But not in the raw files. That would mean that when using another converter you've lost those keywords.

George

[pschlute]

Am I right that 1) if you shoot raw and 2) you add keywords to it those keywords are saved both in the sidecar files and the jpg's. But not in the raw files. That would mean that when using another converter you've lost those keywords.

George

I could give this a try later to test.

In LR (and in Photoshop Elements before that) I only keyword the jpeg files. If I wanted to do further work on the raw (or tiff),once I have found the jpeg I now know which folder to find the other files in.

Same goes for collections. As I regard these as primarily viewing tools, if I want to see all my images of dogs for example, I only want to be presented with edited finished jpegs, not raw or tiff files too.

[george013]

I could give this a try later to test.

In LR (and in Photoshop Elements before that) I only keyword the jpeg files. If I wanted to do further work on the raw (or tiff),once I have found the jpeg I now know which folder to find the other files in.

Same goes for collections. As I regard these as primarily viewing tools, if I want to see all my images of dogs for example, I only want to be presented with edited finished jpegs, not raw or tiff files too.

As long it's not in the raw file the keywords will be lost when using another converter or do a new conversion with the raw file.
I'm asking this because I only keep the raw files. That was no problem with nikon capturenx2 but is with capture nx-d. I can read/write keywords etc. from/to the rawfiles from the d80,d300 and the d700 but not from the d750.
I just succeeded to add keywords etc to the d750 raw file. I tested them with the convertersI've and with irfanview. Up to now it worked. Readable by the image browsers and when converting that info is added to the jpg too.

George

[DanK]

As long it's not in the raw file the keywords will be lost when using another converter or do a new conversion with the raw file.
I'm asking this because I only keep the raw files. That was no problem with nikon capturenx2 but is with capture nx-d. I can read/write keywords etc. from/to the rawfiles from the d80,d300 and the d700 but not from the d750.
I just succeeded to add keywords etc to the d750 raw file. I tested them with the convertersI've and with irfanview. Up to now it worked. Readable by the image browsers and when converting that info is added to the jpg too.

George

Interesting. This is important for me because I virtually never bother keeping JPEGs. LR makes it trivial to re-generate them when I need them, e.g., to post online or to send to a competition. Many of my photos can be edited completely in LR, in which case I have nothing stored but the raw and xml sidecar files. In the other cases, I have one or more TIFFs as well.

I believe that DNG files can include more information than original raw files, but I don't know the details.

[xpatUSA]

Interesting. This is important for me because I virtually never bother keeping JPEGs. LR makes it trivial to re-generate them when I need them, e.g., to post online or to send to a competition. Many of my photos can be edited completely in LR, in which case I have nothing stored but the raw and [xmp] sidecar files. In the other cases, I have one or more TIFFs as well.

I believe that DNG files can include more information than original raw files, but I don't know the details.

For what it's worth, I've started using XnView to add keywords to image files. I had some NEF and DNG files from past Nikon D50 work and some JPEGs in the same folder.

XnView would not allow keyword editing of either the NEF or the DNG files, that is to say that <CTRL-!> did not bring up a meta-data editing dialog. I get the same nothing with Sigma X3F files. On the other hand, the JPEG's XMP or IPTC was editable of course.

Hopefully the LR development module lets you add meta-data to the raws or to the xmps; the which meta-data, again hopefully, then gets embedded in the output file. Being non-Adobe, I don't know, but it would be easy enough to check with such as ExifTool ...

[pschlute]

I am interested to discover that a number of members do not keep jpeg files at all. I understand that if you re-open that dng in your converter/viewing program of choice, you will see an image that represents the last edited stage you reached with that file, but what do you do if you quickly want to send someone by email an image or a number of images? Or post an image to a webpage ? I presume you have to create a new jpeg at the time.

[george013]

I am interested to discover that a number of members do not keep jpeg files at all. I understand that if you re-open that dng in your converter/viewing program of choice, you will see an image that represents the least edited stage you reached with that file, but what do you do if you quickly want to send someone by email an image or a number of images? Or post an image to a webpage ? I presume you have to create a new jpeg at the time.

That was so wonderful with the old NEF's from Nikon: 1 file that contained the raw data, one or more edit lists and a full size high quality jpg embedded. The D750 therefor is still a struggle for me.

As far I can see it now, when your cataloging/searching flow is dependent on keywords, you have to add them every time you create a jpg. Unless you put it in the raw file, then it will be written to the jpg too. As far I noticed so far.

George

[DanK]

but what do you do if you quickly want to send someone by email an image or a number of images? Or post an image to a webpage ? I presume you have to create a new jpeg at the time.

I can only speak for myself. Most often, when I want to send someone one or more images, or want to post some online, I already have them on Smugmug, either in a public gallery or a private gallery and just send or post a link. I use one of Jeffry Friedl's plugins (http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies) to put them there, and that plug-in does not leave a JPEG behind. When I post images that I am not certain I want to keep, I post them first in a hidden directory called "test images" on smugmug. (That's were most of the images I post here are, at least to start.) In the rare cases when I want a JPEG without putting it on Smugmug--for example, if I need an image of a specific size--I just create a new one and put it on the desktop or in a temporary directory. It takes only seconds to do, since Lightroom by default shows the image after all of the edits, so I just have to hit "export".

In addition to saving space, this guarantees that I don't have an out-of-date JPEG if I go back to an image and re-edit it.

Until several years ago, I didn't do this. I stored JPEGs. I found it was a nuisance, and when I went back to old images, I really didn't want the old JPEG anyway.

[pschlute]

That was so wonderful with the old NEF's from Nikon: 1 file that contained the raw data, one or more edit lists and a full size high quality jpg embedded. The D750 therefor is still a struggle for me.

But that embedded jpeg is produced by the camera at the same time the raw is captured using the camera jpeg settings. The embedded jpeg is used to display your image in camera on the lcd screen, and when opening the raw file in some image viewers. It is not the same as a jpeg that has been "worked on" by processing the raw file.

[george013]

But that embedded jpeg is produced by the camera at the same time the raw is captured using the camera jpeg settings. The embedded jpeg is used to display your image in camera on the lcd screen, and when opening the raw file in some image viewers. It is not the same as a jpeg that has been "worked on" by processing the raw file.

That's what was so wonderful. After an edit that jpg was replaced by a new one. It always contained the last edit, at high quality. Browsing with by example IrfanView I just could export it to disk. I even could make changes in IrfanView, cropping, resizing etc. All done on that raster image in memory and exported to disk. I'm really missing it.

And I could search on keywords or whatever in the exif/iptc.

George

[xpatUSA]

But that embedded jpeg is produced by the camera at the same time the raw is captured using the camera jpeg settings. The embedded jpeg is used to display your image in camera on the lcd screen, and when opening the raw file in some image viewers. It is not the same as a jpeg that has been "worked on" by processing the raw file.

I wonder what George means by "high quality"? All the ones out of my camera raw files are chroma sub-sampled; I don't consider them to be high quality.

[pschlute]

I have always thought the "embedded" jpeg in a raw file was simply the preview image and was unaffected by any raw processing of the raw data into a new jpeg file.

[george013]

I have always thought the "embedded" jpeg in a raw file was simply the preview image and was unaffected by any raw processing of the raw data into a new jpeg file.

As far as I knowCaptureNx2 was the only converter that updated its embedded jpg. And containing the edit list. When browsing with IrfanView one could see directly which one was edited and which one not in the thumbnails. The not edited had a black band around it.

As said before, it's just a pity....

George

[CatherineA]

Hi Bill,

You are right, I do not need anything like the number of photos I have and the plan is to delete, delete, delete. I thought though, that since I would be wading through all the photos, it be a good time to get some key-wording and/or some collections in place.

I hope not to get myself in this state again. Going forward I will delete and catalogue on import. At least that's the plan. It was really helpful to read how you do this. Thank you.

(Bit worried about scrupulous deleting. What if I end up with only a dozen or so photos? That would be sad. Not sure if that is the hold-up or if it is because it just seems so tedious a task.)

[pschlute]

Hi Bill,

You are right, I do not need anything like the number of photos I have and the plan is to delete, delete, delete. I thought though, that since I would be wading through all the photos, it be a good time to get some key-wording and/or some collections in place.

I hope not to get myself in this state again. Going forward I will delete and catalogue on import. At least that's the plan. It was really helpful to read how you do this. Thank you.

(Bit worried about scrupulous deleting. What if I end up with only a dozen or so photos? That would be sad. Not sure if that is the hold-up or if it is because it just seems so tedious a task.)

If you have 50 pictures of a visit to a landmark building, say a castle. Subdivide them into different views. You may have 12 of a distant shot which encompasses all the castle and its grounds, basically from 4 different angles. Without going into detail, which view works best ? Of those 3 pictures which is sharpest; exposed best; least distracting elements? Keep that one , ditch the other two. now do the other three angles work as well as images, or do they just record the fact you were there? If they work well, keep the best from those and ditch the rest. Now you have kept 4 photos from 12.

Do the same with the rest. Keep only pictures that are good photographs. Don't duplicate. When you come back later to look at those photos you will be reviewing your best work, not all your work.

[CatherineA]

Thanks Peter, I really like that method!