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New user blues

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sscorgi

New Member
Joined
Oct 14, 2019
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2
Lightroom Version Number
Lightroom 6
Operating System
  1. Windows 7
I work in a library and we've been scanning our photos. So far we have about 160,000 scanned tifs. We also have about 50,000 born digital files. It seems like we should maybe get them as identified as possible. Some are well identified, we know the who, what, when and where... Others, not so much. We might have a note "slides found in Fred's desk after he left" Or not even that much. I can't convince the powers that be to get one of the subscription versions of Lightroom, but I do have Lightroom version 6. So, I started importing a few files just to see how things go. I've got maybe 40,000 of the tifs imported into the catalog. I'm not so interested in editing files right now, other than rotating sideways pics and flipping upside down scans (my student scanners have an uncanny knack of scanning and not noticing that everyone is left handed or realizing that the should be able to read what on that sign.

I see that I can identify faces, but I don't know much else about the program. Can I search for the same building? Or similar action shots? Things that look to be duplicates, or near dups? Anyone have a reading list to offer?
 
Lightroom is a relatively inexpensive cataloging program that can keep a LOT of information and search based on it. Provided you have room for the images, it is not challanged by a few hundred thousand entries (for big TIFF's that is a lot of storage though which is a different matter). I am not sure what "born digital files" meas, but assuming it is a type lightroom processes that's fine. Speaking of Classic not the cloudy version.

It does nothing well you mention in your second paragraph; the facial recognition is somewhere between poor and good depending on who you ask, but certainly not great. It does nothing to help with other recognition (buildings, etc.), and is not very good at finding non-identical duplicates. There are some tools (here is an example) that try to fill in these gaps; I have not tried them.

Personally I would not even consider starting such a big project that will have so much people time invested with LR6. It's really old.

Another consideration is that LR is inherently a single user program. THat is not (just) a licensing statement, but a design fact -- having multiple people updating it is either not possible, or will result in all sorts of complicated workarounds. Not sure if that is an issue.
 
Thanks for the feedback. Born digital is simply a photo created with a camera rather than being a scanned photograph or slide.

I wish I could buy a new version of lightroom, but the "subscription" model is something my purchasing people are really wary of. Does anyone know of a similarly robust program that we can just buy? Right now the multi user element isn't an issue... I'll be the loan arranger. Other staff members will need to search, but that's doable.

The Excire software you mention sounds interesting. I wonder if it would work with ver. 6?
 
Re Excire, ask them, last time I made an inquiry they were very responsive.

There are a lot of programs adding cataloging features, partly in response to Adobe's subscription model. I have not been keeping up generally, but hopefully others will make specific recommendations, but you can probably find some.

You can buy a year at a time from places like B&H, might it not just be thought of as a recurring purchase not a rental?

But back to the original comments -- if you really are not editing much, there may be better choices. Look for "DAM" or "Digital Asset Management" if you feel like exercising google a bit.
 
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