I just found this thread again - I don’t remember getting any emails about the new posts.
Things for me are pretty much just like what I described at the beginning of the thread.
I capture images in whatever camera I use, and move the memory card to my iMac. I use PhotoMechanic to ingest the photos into a newly created temporary folder for ingested photos.
Since PhotoMechanic is a very fast way to go through even my raw images, I delete photos I don’t see any reason for keeping. After making three passes through the ingested photos, I’m left with an Ingest folder of good images.
Depending on what program I intend to use for editing, I move the folder of captured image into one of three “main folders” I have created, Lightroom, Luminar, or PhotoLab. Until now, I have used an organizing method for the location, the event, and the year. This is my electronic “shoebox” photo storage system, as someone recently named it.
With PhotoMechanic, all photos are renamed automatically with enough detail to identify them to me in the future.
Photos taken with my Fuji X100 camera need to be converted to DNG format before they are filed away.
With Lightroom, I do the same things I have been doing for ages, but while I’m still subscribing to Lightroom, I’m not sure how long I will continue.
Lately, all my photos have been going into my PhotoLab folder. I am still working on a way to find them in the future, and as of today, I might end up using “keywords” for that purpose.
It sounds like you and I are in a similar boat.
I also have a Nik Collection, but that edits images, and sends them back to the appropriate folder.
I used to have a problem with WaterMarks, but PhotoLab has solved that brilliantly, much better than any other software I’ve tried.
I hope I didn’t make my system sound overly complicated. It’s really pretty simple, take photos, move them to the computer with PhotoMechanic, cull out the resets, then save into PhotoLab for editing.
1 Like
Bebop
(Barb Mac 11.7, PL6, FP6, VP3, Canon, Olympus)
22
Thank you for sharing. I have now made the move away from Lightroom and am a little further down the road than I was. I can follow your ‘system’. The only difficulty I could foresee might be finding images if you do not know where they were processed, or perhaps you are able to search at a higher level.
Surprisingly I am still able to access my edited photos in Lightroom although I cannot change them. I can still export and import, and add keywords, which is not what Adobe had led me to believe. I also feel a sense of freedom!
I am very impressed with Photo Mechanic and I’ve also been trialling Fast Raw Viewer which is a lot cheaper. The latter is also very quick to view raw files, but it has limited functions - no keywording or facility to compare two photos.
So far I have been ingesting into Photo Mechanic with a reverse dated folder and a word or two description in the folder name. I cull and keyword and then press E to take me to Photolab. The only oddity seems to be that once a .dop file has been created, any changes to the star rating in Photo Mechanic are no longer updated in Photolab, although keywords are. Also if I raise the star rating in Photolab, that is not fed back to Photo Mechanic - presumably because it doesn’t update the xml file.
I’ve signed up for the coming webinar on library management and organisation, so perhaps I will learn more.
I’m still indecisive and am waiting until Black Friday before I purchase any of the software just in case they are reduced. Photo Mechanic particularly, is rather expensive. I don’t think I need the Plus version, but I can see it’s merits.
I spent the past hour or so on the phone with John at Camera Bits. It seems like the new “plus” version can and will do everything I want in way of photo management.
I think you said you already have PhotoMechanic - the upgrade price to get to PLUS is highly discounted.
More later - I’ve got a lot of reading to do.
Bebop
(Barb Mac 11.7, PL6, FP6, VP3, Canon, Olympus)
24
I have not yet purchased anything.
I haven’t really explored the cataloguing side too much as I felt there was quite a lot to learn with just the other part of the software - it does look comprehensive.
If you want to find what you have processed, I’m not sure how you can update images from Photolab such that PM+ would see it, other than perhaps with a keyword.
I’m interested in your findings if you find time to keep us updated
