Don't know about you, but I've got about 6 or 7 years worth of digital files, and another 30 odd years of film stock sitting around gathering dust. And a pretty poor management system.
Whether starting up, mid flight, or just staring down a pile from the past, I doubt there's anyone out there who hasn't thought to themselves "I've gotta have a system for this". Well lucky for us there's enough OCD types out there in geek land who have developed systems for us!!
I'm now working from a Mac, and am in the process of collating my past files from numerous sources, consolidating them, and backing them up. I'm just going to talk about digital files today.
The software I use is Lightroom.
The reasons:
1. It is a database. If I import all my photos into the LR catalog I can do all my renaming inside the catalog and the catalog finds my photos when I go looking for them. All file management is done from inside the application. One place does it all, and every new version just gets better!
2. It's backup friendly. I actually purchased Lightroom outright, but an alternative these days is to join the Adobe Cloud and get access to the software (in fact all their creative software applications) for a monthly subscription, meaning should you need to reinstall the application you can. If you haven't already set up your own backup that is! Lightroom allows you to backup your catalog - for which most people utilise cloud services like Dropbox - and your photos to a second location. And you can set this all up to occur automatically using preferences and presets.
3. It's intuitive. Look I've struggled with Photoshop for years and I just find all the switches and toggles, layers and masks, brushes and smart filters incredibly overwhelming. I don't understand how to use them and I'm scared I'll do something destructive. I've even bought books and tutorials but it's just got too many bells and whistles for a girl who's just a photographer. Lightroom, OTOH, is completely non destructive and can now do pretty much everything for photographs that Photoshop used to. The way the graduating filter and adjustment brushes work make so much more sense to me. It still can't do HDR or photo stitching but there's good software available to go to for them anyway. Editing really is very easy, and if you make a mistake, you just reset or go back a few steps. And you can make multiple virtual copies from the one photo which I think is awesome.
4. You can do slideshows, make books and upload your pictures directly to online photosharing sites. Be it Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Picasa, Smugmug, there's a plugin available so you can publish your edited collections straight to your online accounts, without having to export them and then upload them manually. And if you then re-edit a photo, it'll republish the edited photo for you! How's that for saving you precious time?
I'm afraid I've never seen Aperture, which is really the only other viable competition, but with a history of PC and Premiere Pro use for my video work, I'm sticking with the Adobe platform, which these days is fully Mac compatible. I've actually heard alot of Aperture fans have moved to LR because of its superior data management system, but I'm making no comparisons, just saying what I use and why.
So you have a nice little application, now you've got to use it properly. Let me give you a few tips.
1. Don't go moving your files around, renaming them or whatever, outside the application. You want to show someone some of your photos? Open LR, find the photos and start a slideshow. It'll take less than a minute to set up and if you've got a good data management system, you'll find the photos really easy.
2. Develop a workflow and stick with it. Naming your files in one consistent way. Adding keywords and location metadata to your files makes them so much easier to find. Learning how to use the filters to find your photos helps of course, and you do have to put in a bit of hard yakka initially to make the database work its magic for you. But because Lightroom allows you to make presets, and remembers what you do often, you get faster and faster at the data entry as you go. Use smart collections to track your progress through the workflow. You want to know where you are along the treadmill, how many photos you've yet to keyword, or edit, or upload to your preferred photosharing site.
3. If you have a system, this job doesn't seem insurmountable. No system and it's a source of ever mounting anxiety. Trust me, get a system!
Let me introduce you to Gavin Gough. Don't know the man but if I ever meet him I'd give him the biggest hug and kiss for publishing not only an eBook, but also a bunch of presets and smart collections that I can use to instantly have a fully functional workflow. Not quite instant, it probably takes a day to read the book and set up Lightroom before you're ready to go, but a day!!! Not bad work for years of barely restrained panic at the sight of those thousands of photos banking up.
You can find Gavin's book here. Use code photowork33Jan to get a 33% discount till the end of January.
Oh, and what he has to say about backing up your files, do it!! I mean, external hard drives are so cheap these days it's a no brainer.
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