Catalogue structure

[Anthony]

I would like to see better facilities for creating an heirarchical file strucute directly in a LR catalogue.
I want one big catalogue so that i can search my entire data bank using filters, keywords etc.
so a structure such as
[all photos]
[199']
[2''']
[2''1]
.....
[2''8]
[phot file 1]
I have put my year folders into blocks of 1' [197',198',199' etc] so that it is easy to collapse the unwanted years out of the way.

At the moment the only way I have found of doing this is to create this structure on my hard drive and download to the catalogue.
but if i wanted to download files from a CD directly into year 2''8 say then i cant do this directly I must first put them in the 2''8 folder on the hard drive.:?

Tony

 

[Sean McCormack]

Anthony, I'm not sure what you're doing, but you can create any structure you like using Lightroom on Import.

In fact you can cheat any date naming import into any hierarchy...
E.g. change by day 28'8'8 into sean/1/2/3 and it creates the folder hierarchy Sean>1>2>3

 

[Replytoken]

Anthony,

Have you considered using an external hard drive instead of CD's? I am not certain if LR is your best choice if you are primarily keeping your images off-line on CD's. CD's and DVD's are usually used for backing up data. How would you plan on updating or modifying your images, or their derivitives, if they are on CD?

--Ken

 

[Anthony]

Reply to ken,

I am using CD's for 2 reasons:
1. A burned CD is more secure than holding data on a hard Drive.. keeping in mind that in these days of digital once off loaded from the camera it is the only ssource.
2. I began my interest in photography at the age of 15 in 1955. I still have every negative since that time and am now scanning these into my computer and after processing and cataloguing commiting them to CD. An awesome task....

with a good catalogue it is easy to go find any particular CD and reprocess/print etc

Tony

 

[Anthony]

Reply to Sean,
Sean i will try your suggestion but up to now i have not been able to create an empy file in the catalogue with the intention of putting photos into that file from time to time.
The priority of LR seems to be in knowing exactly where the photo in the catalogue is..e.g a location on hard drive or from an external source such as a CD.and on importing thats what it shows..

once i can identify a particular photo by using keyword searches then i know where to find it...all of my photos other than those currently being worked on will be on CD.

I will try your suggestion thank you and try to import directly into an existing file..

many thanks

Tony

 

[Replytoken]

Reply to ken,

I am using CD's for 2 reasons:
1. A burned CD is more secure than holding data on a hard Drive.. keeping in mind that in these days of digital once off loaded from the camera it is the only ssource.
2. I began my interest in photography at the age of 15 in 1955. I still have every negative since that time and am now scanning these into my computer and after processing and cataloguing commiting them to CD. An awesome task....

with a good catalogue it is easy to go find any particular CD and reprocess/print etc

Tony

Hi Tony,

I share your concern about backing up digital files. However, with the cost and convenience of hard drives, CD's and DVD's are often used as a back-up set (one of several), not the working set. And, I assume that you have more than one set of CD's in case your media become damaged or defective. I used to back up on CD's, but now I back up to multiple hard drives. (Good DAM practice would recommend that I also back up to a media like DVD's, as well as store one copy off-site.) The speed and convenience of hard drives is a huge factor in making back-ups quick and easy. Given that I have at least three sets of my images, I cannot easily imagine a situation where all three would be lost at the same time. And, CD's and DVD's have their own storage issues. You mihgt want to conisider reading 'The DAM Book" by Peter Krogh. Its a great introduction to Digital Asset Management.

Kudos to you on your scanning efforts! Some day I will tackle all of my slides and negatives. But again, why not place them all on a drive so they can be actively managed by LR or a DAM program? I cannot imagine having to track down and loading CD's every time I want to view or work on my images. If you are really into off-line storage and do not need LR's RAW converter capabilities, you might want to consider a program like IDImager. Just some food for thought.

Take care,

--Ken

 

[Richard Earney]

Multiple Hard Drives are definitely preferable. I use syncing software rather than RAID.

CDs can get corrupted!

 

[Victoria Bampton]

I have a similar backup route - main copy of the files on an internal hard drive, backup on an external hard drive (set to read only), and a third backup on DVD offsite. That said, I've seen DVD's go bad far more often than hard drives, so I'm not setting too much store by those DVD's.

 

[Anthony]

Well,
that is a lot of advice 'coming from experience' you guys are giving. I guess old habits are hard to shake off...

You are so right hard drives are getting cheaper, faster and bigger...
I am converted.
Victoria, your comments re DVD aging is so right. DVD's [more than CD's] do age and as such deteriate. then of course with the current change in technology to blue ray i might find in a year or two that i have a file cabinet of useless CD's.

I have used photoshop for quite some time and had looked at setting up an external data base..even looking at how to export metadata into something like Microsoft access.
But with LR2 you have everything under one roof photo editing and archiving...I am determined to make this work

Many thanks for your time. This is certainly a wonderful Group