Drowning in data

[engineer]

I made the switch to digital a couple of years ago, and am already drowning in data.  What do people use to keep afloat? What I'd like is something that more or less automatically tracks an image as it goes from RAW to a converted master image (no corrections except what the RAW converter does), to an image that is being worked on in photoshop (all layers intact and probably more than one version), to the final product that is either printed or uploaded to the web or both.

Right now I'm using Bridge CS3 and a combination of keywords and file name by date.  But this doesn't seem like a long term solution--especially as I move files from on-line to off-line storage.

Les

[RonWhitaker]

I use Lightroom to manage photos.  It keeps the psd files stacked with the original and allows for all sorts of management, tags, ratings, colour code etc.

Ron

[engineer]

Thanks for the reply.  Purchasing LightRoom and PhotoShop seems like a lot of duplication.  How much PhotoShop work does Lightroom eliminate?  How does it handle things when you move images off line, for example to a DVD? 

What would really be nice is a program that would tell me where the RAW file is, where the master developed file is, where the various final versions are (color, B&W, experimental, etc.), and where the various published versions are.

Or maybe I need to change my work flow.  Right now I move to RAW images to my HD and burn an immediate DVD of the RAW images. Then when I start to work on an image, I process the RAW image and store the image as a master image (don't touch it with PhotoShop).  Then I work on the image in PhotoShop saving versions every so often just in case of a crash or in case I really mess something up (I learned a long time ago save early and save often).  When I get what I want, I save it and usually delete the various intermediate files.  I also try to back things up to DVD or external HD.  But not as often as I should.

Then I flatten the final image, sharpen for output (whatever that may be) and publish it (Print, send to Internet or e-mail to family and friends).  I save the flattened sharpened file so I don't have to duplicate the effort if I need to republish.

Right now I only have a few thousand images (between my wife and me) to keep track of so I can usually find a image when someone says send me a copy of something.  But these darn digital images seem to breed and real soon I'll have ten time more images to keep track of.  So I'm looking for something to implement before the shear size of organizing the existing images is overwhelming.
Thanks.
Les

Les

[mitch]

There was a time when I used digital management software. I used Thumbs Plus. I used another, whose name slips my mind.

Between Adobe Bridge and Lightroom, I have not found the need for additional software to catalog my files.

Mitch

[RonWhitaker]

I use Lightroom to catalog and organize images.  Almost 90% of my images don't see photoshop as Ligthroom is adequate and can take it to web.  Photoshop is used only when I finally get one worth printing and want to do the additional efforts.  It has some interesting features.  Lately I wanted to store a little slide show on my wifes ipod-itouch.  The itouch automatically places the image in the correct orientation of the person holding the image.  I prepared the order of the images using lightroom sort by aspect ratio.  The viewer of itouch will view images and only need to reorient once.  The metadata tags are great for finding images.  Like Lightroom a lot.

Ronwhitaker.ca

[engineer]

Thanks.  Guess I'll have to try Lightroom.
Les