At home I have a whole series of photo frames and from time to time I like to swap the contents of them. One of the things I have noticed is that often when I open the frame a ghost image has appeared on the inside of the glass.

As the image doesn't touch the glass - how does it happen? Well apparently it is caused by solvents in the inks "out gassing". I came across this article that explains why this fogging occurs and how to stop it.


In a nutshell Epson recommend:

1. After printing, let the print rest for 15 minutes.
2. After 15 minutes, place a sheet of plain paper (not photo paper) on top of the print and let
dry for 24 hours. The paper acts like a sponge to absorb the gasses and accelerate the
outgassing. (You may stack the prints if you are printing more than one. Be sure to
interleave each print with a sheet of plain paper.)
3. After 24 hours, remove the plain paper. You may notice the plain paper is wavy. If it is,
repeat the procedure again with a new sheet of paper for another 24 hours, after which the
print should be ready for framing. If it is not wavy, this indicates that the solvents in the
print should now be completely dry and the print should be ready for framing
immediately.

I'll have to try this and see how it goes.

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Related Posts

Mounting and Finishing Photograpraphs

Labels: cleaning, framing, Mounting and Finishing Photographs, Printers, Printing, Workflow

Well I have managed to stick to one of my New Years Resolutions (from last year) - I suppose there is a first time for everything!

My resolution was to get more organised. There were hundreds of things that I had promised people, decided to do or needed to be done and I was drowning in a sea of disorganisation. I would spend whole weekends doing things that weren't particularly important and then realise that I should have been doing something else.

What I needed was to get myself organised.


What I needed to do was get a jobs to do list organized, prioritise it, add diary entries for repeating items and generally sort out what I should be doing when. I found the ideal tool for this: RememberTheMilk.com. RTM (as it's known to its friends) is a brilliantly simple application for managing your todo list.

First thing I did was to go through, all the emails I had marked, notes I had written, things in my head and add them as a list of things to do. Next I added any repetitions, for instance I like to archive off my work once a month, check my backups once a month, and put the rubbish out every week. Finally I marked the tasks that were important.

Now it is simply a question of adding dates in to do things, I like the way the system takes entries like "Wednesday", "next thursday", "2 weeks" and a whole host of similar entries. Each week I shuffle round all the things to do so I hit whatever deadlines I have.

So what makes it so much better than a paper list or any of the various other options. Well I like the fact that I can have my todo list wherever I need it. I have it showing on my Netvibes page, any web browser I can get to, I can use it off-line on my laptop thanks to Google Gears, and even on my mobile all for free.

The second feature I like is that your todo list comes with it's own (hard for spammers to guess) email address. Forward an email to this and it becomes a task. So when an order comes in from my website I have a rule set up in my email client that automatically forwards the order onto my todo list as a high priority task.

I can also have shared todo lists wih my wife, so we can see which jobs we need to tell each other to do.

It's a really useful bit of software and it's free..we like that.

Labels: Getting Organised, Web, Workflow

It seems that quite a few people who wanted to use my Limited Edition management system were put off by the need to purchase Microsoft access to run it. To get round this, I have created a version that uses the free Microsoft Access runtime.

You can download the latest version of Lemon from here.


The current release features:

• Keep track of editions and sales easily from one screen.
• Block Allocate ~ reserve a group of prints for a particular customer.
• Certificates of Authenticity.
• Print Run ~ Mark a group of prints as printed and generate the appropriate certificates.
• Sales reports.
• AutoAllocate © ~ When creating an edition numbers can be automatically allocated.

Labels: Limited Edition, Workflow

There are few times in my life when I have unrolled the contents of a cardboard tube and exclaimed "wow" but this weekend was one of them!

I have just had some large A1 sized prints made of some of my favourite pictures and I have to say I am very impressed. Up till now I have not bothered getting large prints done as finding a supplier who can reliably reproduce images at a reasonable price can be a bit of a pain, I often have been disappointed with the results…but not now!

My prints were produced by Dave Newton of Photopositive, for those of you who don’t know Dave he is the technical editor of CPN (Canon Professional Network) and EOS Magazine and more importantly he is very, very picky. Years of testing cameras and lenses means that he knows "pin sharp" from just "sharp" and he knows a good colour rendition from a bad one. Dave’s site features printing services, which uses a simple 4 part process to produce your prints:

• Preparation - simply sort out the pics you want printed and create a text file explaining what you want printed.
  
• Upload - either ftp or snail-mail the files.
  
• Payment - The site features a rather wizzy javascript calculator that works out the pricing for you. You then click the paypal button to pay (using either your paypal account or a credit card).
  
• Wait - for your prints soon your prints will arrive through your (or even your customers) door.

Now I have a reliable supplier, it won't be long before I am offering large prints of some of my more popular shots.

Labels: News, Printing, Workflow

I have had a couple of mails from people trying to use my Limited Edition Management System (LEMON) on Access97 and failing miserably.

For these poor souls I have created LEMON for Access 97, I hope you find it of use.

And for no apparent reason here is a picture I took in Southwark Cathedral the other day as part of my Friday Lunchtime Project:

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Related Posts

Lemon ~ Limited Edition Management ONline

Labels: Exhibitions, Limited Edition, Workflow

One of the regular complaints about Capture One V4 is the way it fills up your various directories with its cache and setting files. Personally I have no need to archive or back these up so I wanted a way to remove them from all the sub directories in one go.

In the end I came up with the following solution - but it only works for windows users so you chaps with nice shiny Macs will have to use something else...sorry!

Select and copy the following line:
FOR /R "c:\Working" %%a IN (CaptureOne) DO RMDIR /S /Q "%%a"

Open Notepad and paste in the text
Replace c:\working with the name of the directory where you keep your photos;
i.e. C:\Documents and Settings\Chris\My Documents\My Pictures
Save the file as C1.bat on your C: drive.

Now when you double click on c1.bat in Explorer, all the Capture One temporary files will be removed as if by magic.

Labels: Capture 1, Workflow

Here is a little Photoshop technique I developed the other day to make shiny metal really shiny (click on any image to view a large version).

First duplicate the layer:


Run the High-Pass filter with a large number of pixels so that the shiny areas get emphasised.



Finally then just change the layer blend mode to soft-light ( or hard-light) to make it all shiny:

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Related Posts
Beginners guide to Photoshop Layers:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Labels: Photoshop, Workflow

I often see on forums, people saying that they have shot both raw and jpg and can't see a difference. An additional comment, since Lightroom has entered the fray, is "Lightroom handles jpgs and raws..so why bother with raw?".

Over at The Luminous Landscape, Michael Richeman has produced a great example of the difference between the two formats when you actually do the same processing on them.

Here is a photo from my recent trip to the Lake District and yes it was captured in Raw:

Labels: Lightroom, raw, Workflow

The Second Beta of Capture One 4 has just been released. My first impressions are that they have fixed quite a few of the obvious bugs, the controls seem more usable and it's relatively stable.

From the release notes:

What’s new from beta 1
This is a non-exhaustive list of issues we have solved with beta 2:

• Viewer adjustable background (Windows only)
• Importer (new on Windows)
• Improved, brighter and larger icons
• Better file management (drag and drop, rename, delete)
• More room for sliders (min max labels have been removed)

Capture One 4 beta 2 now runs on Windows Vista 64-bit edition and on Mac OS X
Leopard.

I processed this last night:


And everything seemed to go swimmingly. Why not download it and have a play.
Please Note though this beta will not run on AMD XP processors.

In a separate announcement Capture One have signed a strategic agreement with Microsoft. Hopefully this should mean better integration of iView and C1 as part of an attempt to take on Lightoom and Aperture.

Labels: Capture 1, Workflow

Ohhh, I'm so excited - I'm about to lose control and I think I like it!

Finally, Phase One have released the beta of my favourite raw converter Capture One. I have only just downloaded it so no conclusions yet but if the image quality is as good as Capture One v3 and the promised workflow improvements work I will be a happy bunny.

Why not give the beta a try too?

Update

I've been having a play with it, on some shots I took of a chair I found in the middle of Epping Forest, and I'm very impressed so far.

• It seems pretty stable for a beta, certainly much more usable than the Lightroom betas.
• UI seems to have taken a lot of the good features from Lightroom & aperture and made them workmanlike rather than gimicky.
• Variants are a great addition to the product and seem to work well.

Labels: Capture 1, Workflow

I was talking to another photographer about their workflow the other day and they said something like "I use raw for important stuff and jpg for everything else". I replied with 2 questions - "Why? and how do you know which is which?".

For me the best thing to do is to stick to one workflow and treat everything as important...

Take 2 workflows into the shower?...I just want to raw and go!

The important part about setting up a workflow is that it should become automatic for you. Once you have taken the time to work out what you do at each point, and made sure you have each part of the process protected from failures, the hard work is done. The workflow should automate as much as possible so you can concentrate on creating fantastic images and not worry about filenames/directory locations/backups/etc.

If you have two workflows, each will be slightly different and you have to think what you are doing - and that's not good. It also adds an extra stage when you come to access the images at a later date as the first thing you need to decide is "did I think these were important?" before you attempt to retrieve them.

So what's important to you?

The thing to note is that the importance of an image changes over time.

Many pictures simply have value through their age - take a look at any of the shops selling old photos of street scenes. At the time they were taken most of the photos were as dull as ditchwater, but now they have a value just due to them representing the time they were taken.


Pull out an old photo album and shots that had little importance then, seem to have a magic all of their own as you discover long-lost events and friends smiling back at you from the page.

I have misjudged the importance of an image too many times:

• A simple snap of a friend became very important when that friend died a few days after.
• Some snaps of dogs playing on a beach weren't important to me but one of the owners loved it and wanted a large print.
• Whilst staying at a farm/nature reserve - I just took some shots of the wildflowers to get to grips with a new lens, not important top me, yet the farm has asked if they can use them as 6 foot high posters in their new education centre.

A snap today could be an important historical record today.

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In Praise of the snap
Workflow

Labels: Taking Pictures, Workflow

OK I am officially confused by monitors and colour calibration.

The trouble all began when I accidentally managed to select the wrong profile in Capture1 without noticing. My images colours had all gone wrong when I got them into Photoshop.

The problem was occurring on my Dell Inspiron 9400 laptop, so I used my spider monitor calibration system and colour plus software to recalibrate the screen. Since then things got worse and worse with images looking fine on the laptop but lacking completely in contrast when viewed on other screens.

The most obvious way to see how the monitor was performing was to use the Monitor Black Point tests. Performance was frankly poorer than a Enron share holder. I tried a few things:

• Setting the right profiles in Capture 1
  
• Removing the monitor profile
• Adjusting Screen brightness
• Uninstalling the Colour Plus Software.

Only the last one actually solved the problem. So what exactly is the monitor calibration software for? If it makes things worse, what exactly is the point of it? Anyone less confused than me?

*It's driving me nuts!

Labels: Capture 1, Colour Managment, Equipment, Workflow

Following on from the previous post about image theft, I got a mail from a friend (hi Steve) asking what you could actually do to protect your images from theft.

Its very much like protecting your home from burglars, you can never really stop a determined thief but you can slow them down and make things more difficult so that they go somewhere else.
David Riecks has produced a very useful list of possible image Protection Methods, I hope you find it of use.

As we haven't had a photo for a while - here is a shot from my recent trip to Cornwall.

Labels: Image Theft, Plagarism, Workflow

Its not an uncommon event for people to steal images of photo sharing sites and pass them off as their own work. Usually it is just a kid who enjoys getting the adulation from their piers on the site. They are usually caught out by other photographer who notice a sudden improvement in the quality of their work or just recognise other peoples shots.

Whilst annoying for the photographer who actually took the shots, the disruption doesn't last long as most sites have staff and moderators who are well experienced in dealing with this sort of thing. But today Paul Indigo brings us news of A stolen picture winning a prize in a photo competition. The brazen cheek of the thief involved is amazing - how did he think he would not go undiscovered.

It begs the question how do you prove that you took a particular image? All I can recommend is that you keep hold of your raw files and make sure they are backed up and archived so that you can get your proof if you need it.

Update

Stephen Baker, the same member of the Fuji website has stolen yet another photo from Trekearth and used it in the current Fuji competition. The photo belongs to TrekEarth member: Antonio (aznegrao) and the photo is named 'The Capoeira'.

Stephen Baker has posted the photo on the competition entry page as seen on the Fuji website.

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Related Posts

Archiving

Labels: Image Theft, News, Plagarism, Workflow

LightroomGalleries.com keeps going from strength to strength. Joe has now added a whole raft of features to the free templates there including paypal support.

I won't be doing any more with Lightroom web galleries as I generate all my own galleries using iView Media Pro and the Lightroom Stuff came about as the result of being dared to do it by John Beardsworth. So those of you who have come here looking for stuff on Lightroom and Paypal are welcome to checkout the related links below or surf on over to LightroomGalleries.com and use theirs.


Related Posts

• Creating Web Gallery Templates for Lightroom
  
• ECommerce sites with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and the PayPal Shopping cart
  
• ECommerce sites with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and the PayPal Shopping cart..continued
• Lightroom Paypal Galleries

Labels: Lightroom, Paypal Shopping Cart, Web, Workflow

No sooner had I blogged that the new version of Lightroom works with the Controlled Vocabulary Catalogue then David Riecks of ControlledVocabulary.com has produced a new version for Lightroom and documented it too!

CVKC for Lightroom

CVKC for Lightroom help

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Related Posts
Controlled Vocabulary and Adobe Lightroom 1.1
How to use Controlled Vocabulary in Adobe Lightroom (part 1)
How to use Controlled Vocabulary in Adobe Lightroom (part 2)

Labels: Controlled Vocabulary, IPTC, Keywording, Keywords, Lightroom, Workflow, XMP

Well Adobe Lightroom 1.1 as just been released and in amongst a whole host of improvements the Lightroom team have improved the performance of the database and keywords.

I have just tested using The Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalogue in Lightroom and the performance has really improved beyond all recognition. So it now seems to be a workable option for those of us who really want to control their keywording.

Update:
About the same time as I was testing, Mr Controlled Vocabulary himself David Riecks (that's "i" before "e", but the "e" is silent) was testing 1.1 and the CVKC and here are his observations:

Well, I have to give Kudos to the Lightroom engineers. I imported the PhotoMechanic version of the CVKC in less than 9 seconds (I used a stopwatch). This was on a new MacBook Pro, so it's a different machine than before. I did have to change the file from the ".utf8" extension to a text file. Just to be safe I opened the file in TextWrangler and resaved as with Mac line breaks, and unicode UTF-8
no BOM encoding first.

I imported a 4 gig card with about 2.29 gigs of images (from my recent trip to Italy) and it took about 5:46 minutes to import.
The new Lightroom is able to distinguish between regular keywords, (solid white triangle to left if there are subcategories), excluded category headers (triangle to left is a series of dots, ie not solid), and synonyms.

It took virtually no time at all to actually assign the keywords, even within the 11,000 terms in the current CVKC. However, I'm either confusing LightRoom with another application, or they have changed how you locate the keywords within the tags. The only way I could find within the left side Keywords tag panel was to reveal the lower levels by clicking on the arrow to the left of the term.

I thought there used to be a search function at the top, but if so it's now gone.

There is a new tool (or at least I think it's new) called the "spraycan" which can be used to apply keywords. When you choose this tool, there is a pull down that allows you to select keywords (or labels, flags, ratings, rotations, or other forms of metadata... none of which I tested at this time). If you choose Keywords, then you CAN type in a word here and it seems to find it within the hierarchy.

I found this much easier than having to remember which region Rome is located within (it's Lazio BTW), or where another keyword is located within the hierarchy.

I'll make the converted file part of a new Lightroom download and get that up on the download page in the next day, after I write up instructions for how to install and apply keywords.

I've not had time to test any of the other improvements, and/or possible addition of DAM features, so that will have to wait for a more thorough review. However, the Adobe Lightroom engineers do seem to have listened and made some remarkable improvements in a very short time.

So it really looks like it will works...hurrah!

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Related Posts

How to use Controlled Vocabulary in Adobe Lightroom (part 1)
How to use Controlled Vocabulary in Adobe Lightroom (part 2)

Labels: Controlled Vocabulary, IPTC, Keywording, Keywords, Lightroom, Workflow, XMP

As I detailed in my blogs on workflow I use Capture 1 (C1) for my raw processing. I am still waiting for the next release of C1 to compare it against Lightroom 1.1 to decide which one I will use in future but at the moment C1 produces the results I need with the minimum of fuss so I am sticking with that.

Being a fan of doing the development in the raw converter rather than Photoshop I was glad when I came across a technique the other day which details a great way to create black and white images from C1.

It's quite simple really:

• Download the file, unzip the fie and double click on the profile file to install it.
• Start Capture 1 and change the camera profile to the new one.
• Process your images as per normal to produce B&W how you like.

Cool! Here is one I processed earlier:

Labels: Black and White, Capture 1, Monochrome, Workflow

The final part of my workflow is to archive the files so that they are protected from disaster and so that I can find pictures when I need to. So once a month I archive off the previous months working directory to my archiving system.

First I go through the months images using the Breezebrowser Pro slideshow facility and delete out any images I don't want to keep. Sometimes I also find images that missed my attention first time around and they get processed in the usual way.

Next I load the images in to a temporary iView Media Pro catalogue and do some fine level keywording classification. During the load process images already receive a lot of keywording so this process covers things like the names of people in the shot and descriptive words like emotions and colours.

Once the keywording is complete the keywords are written back to the files using the synchronise command in iView.

The months files are copied and created as a new directory on my heard of buffalo. Finally these files are imported into an iView database covering the entire archive.

My Workflow

• Capture
• Processing
• Output
• Archiving

Labels: Breezebrowser Pro, Controlled Vocabulary, IPTC, iView Media Pro, Keywording, Keywords, Workflow, XMP

The next stage in my image processing workflow is to output to my chosen media. the actual process depends on my intended target.

Web Site
I often display my work on websites like Ephotozine to get feedback on my work. To prepare for a web page I do the following in Photoshop.

• Add a border.
• Select Image>Mode and convert to 8bits per channel.
• Use Image>Image Size to reduce the size of the so that maximum height is 800 pixels and the maximum width is 1000 pixels. I ensure that bicubic sharper is selected.
• Then I convert to SRGB using Edit>Convert to profile.
• Finally I add an unsharp mask of around 40%, 1 pixel threshold 1.
• use Save For Web to reduce the final image size to around 200K.

All of this has been recorded as an action in Photoshop so it is actually a matter of clicking and waiting for a few seconds.

My Web Galleries
I will cover part 4 of my workflow (archiving) soon but for the moment trust me when I say it relies on iView Media Pro quite heavily. My web galleries are generated directly from iView.

A catalogue set for the gallery is created and all items selected for the gallery are added to it. Each picture has the comments updated and a title added. The Gallery is then generated and uploaded through Dreamweaver.

Print
For Print output the image is resized to the required output size at 300dpi with bicubic-smoother selected. I then use the professional sharpening toolkit from The Lights Right Studio to sharpen the image with specific settings for ink-jet at 300DPI on matte paper.

Finally the prints are produced on an Epson 2100 printer on to Epson archival matte paper using genuine Epson inks. Prints are left to dry for 24 hours then checked and signed in pencil and mounted using acid free mountboard.

Part 4 covers the final part of the workflow - Archival.


My Workflow

• Capture
• Processing
• Output
• Archiving

Labels: iView Media Pro, Photoshop, Web, Workflow

In Part1 I covered capture and getting the images on to the PC

Having downloaded all my files to my PC, Downloader Pro then launches straight into Breezebrowser Pro for the initial sort out of images. Breezebrowser Pro is a great tool for handling batches of raw images, it makes it easy to email proofs, generate webpages, edit metadata and sift through a group of images in slideshow mode.

Sorting the wheat from the chaff

The first thing to do with my images is to delete the duff shots from the shoot. First I check that BBPro is in the "High Quality" mode (Ctrl+Q) which applies screen sharpening to each image which makes it very easy to see the sharpness of an image.

I then select all the images in the shoot (Ctrl+A) and display them as a slideshow (Ctrl+S). I move through the slide show using the right arrow key and tagging any images for deletion using the up arrow key. At the end of the slideshow I select only the tagged items (f6) and send them to the recycle bin (del).

The number of images I delete on this first pass varies with the type of shoot: on a carefully measured landscape shoot there would only be one or two deletions but if I was trying to shoot dogs running about on a windswept beach over half the shots can be rejects due to the conditions and the models not being too co-operative!

The reason that I can be quite harsh with these deletions is that my download procedures make sure I always have a backup of every image. If I delete an image then the backup becomes the only copy of the image, so that’s why I use the recycle bin – just in case I decide that I shouldn’t have deleted it.

Deciding what to process

I could use the built in raw converter in BBPro or the converter built into Photoshop – both of which could be started automatically from BBPro but unfortunately I find that Capture One (from Phase One) produces the best results. The current version of Capture One doesn’t support a way to start it in a particular directory, so I have to start C1 and then navigate to the right directory and file to do my more detailed viewing and raw processing.

I now use the full screen view in C1 to work through the images tagging those which will be worth running through the raw converter.

Processing in C1

The raw processing in Capture One consists of the following:

• Adjusting the White Balance
• Adjusting the Exposure
• Outputting as a 16bit tiff

The processed file then opens automatically in Photoshop.I won’t detail the whole process as Keith Henson has done a great job in his Capture One Tutorial.

Photoshop

The first job in Photoshop is to view the image at 100% and clone out any dust spots using either the clone tool or the spot healing brush tool.

Usually I like to keep my images close to what comes out of the raw convertor but the extra processing depends on the images but may consist of:

• Colour adjustments
• B&W conversion
• Digital Velvia

All adjustments are done on layers then the image is saved back to the tiffs sub directory.

For security, all the files mentioned in this part of the workflow (raw, tiffs & web-ready) are backed-up using the Microsoft Synctoy tool, which is set to backup the machine from a scheduled batch file.

In part 3 I will be cover Outputting the image to web and print.

If you are getting a sense of Deja-vue that is because this blog was originally in the Articles section of the site...but I'm having a tidy up!

My Workflow

• Capture
• Processing
• Output
• Archiving

Labels: Breezebrowser Pro, Photoshop, Workflow

"What’s that you are reading?"

"The DAM Book"
"Charming! I only asked!"

Be prepared for this conversation if you read the highly recommended "The DAM Book" by Peter Krogh, but it's worth it.

So what is DAM?

DAM stands for Digital Asset Management, which means managing your images so that you can find your images easily and they are backed up properly, which will ensure you won't loose them in event of a hardware, software or user error. In order to achieve this you need to have a well thought out workflow that you stick to consistently.

A workflow is the series of processes you go through to handle your images. A comprehensive workflow covers everything from downloading from the cards, through sorting, indexing and classifying, raw conversion, Photoshop work, archiving and backup.

The DAM Book provides a complete working and proven workflow based on the Adobe Bridge product (which comes as part of Photoshop CS2), Adobe DNG and iView Media Pro plus some other bits and pieces downloadable from its own website. Even if you don't use the flow described in the book it is a great tool for reassessing how you handle your images.

Reading the book made me decide to re-plan and document my own workflow. So I thought I would share it with my readers. This article describes the very first part of the workflow – Capture and download.

Capture

I shoot on a canon 20D using the raw file format. There are many reasons for using raw which have been detailed in articles such as this one. Two reasons draw me to this way of shooting,: the first is being able to deal with white balance problems easily and the second is that using a good raw processor like Capture 1 allows you to replicate the traditional processes of printing an image, minimising the amount of correction required in Photoshop. For me, the more I get an image right in the camera (and the raw processor) the more I like it.

I use 512Mb Compact flash cards, which seem incredibly small and cheap in these days of 8GB cards. There are a couple of reasons for using smaller cards:

• A 512mb card fits neatly on to a CD which makes backing them up a doodle, by the time I buy my next camera I expect sensors to be up to 20+ megapixel sizes at which point 4GB cards and DVDs might be a good pairing.
• I get 50ish raw files onto one card, which is about the maximum number of images I could bear to lose in one go should I drop it in the sea, a lake, a washing machine, a volcano, etc, etc.

I store the cards in Jessops media cases, which hold 4 cards at a time and provide them with a degree of shock proofing. I know it's not the most original system in the world but I keep track of which ones have been used, by keeping empty cards face up & shot cards face down. I always reformat cards every time I put them into the camera in an effort to reduce the possibility of file system problems on the card.

Numbering the cards helps to identify if there are any recurring problems with a particular card or not.

On returning from the shoot my workflow depends on if I am back at base or not.

Normal workflow

On returning from a shoot, I use a card reader to download the images to my laptop using Downloader Pro. See this Blog for more details on setting up Downloader pro and the Controlled Vocabulary. I have this, deceptively easy to use bit of software setup to completely automate the download part of my workflow:

• Files are copied into a directory within my working area which is named based on the year and month. i.e.: C:\Working\200611_Nov\04Nov06\Raw - where:
• "C:\Working" is my working directory
• "200611_Nov" is a directory for nov 2006-11-04
• "04Nov06" this is the actual date of the shoot
• "Raw" indicates that these are the raw files.


• Files are renamed based on the original name, job code and date i.e.: CS20061104-IMG_0123_Epping Forest.cr2 - where:
• "CS" are my initials
• "20061104" is the date in YYYYMMDD format
• "IMG_0123" is the original file name
  
  
• 2 directories are created at the same level as the "RAW" directory. These are:
  • "Tiff" - for files converted from raw
  • "WebReady" - for files converted too web proofing size.
    
    
• IPTC/XMP data is added to each file automatically adding creator, copyright, contact info, keywords & location etc to every file.
  
  
• Files are automatically copied, across the network, to a second PC (my file server) to ensure I have a backup of every image.
  
• When the download is complete the card is completely erased ready for reuse.

Amazingly it does all this automatically when I insert a card in to the card reader. At some point in the future I may take advantage of downloader pros ability to automatically generate DNG files, but at the moment I don't feel DNG fits into my workflow very well.

Now the images are ready for rating and raw conversion as detailed in part 2.

On-Location Workflow

The normal workflow relies on a network file server to provide a backup of all the images downloaded. This is not possible when I am away from base and simply download all the files to my laptop is not a secure option because the laptop could crash or be stolen and I would lose an entire expeditions work.

Instead I use a digimagic CD writer to duplicate each card to CD. Spindles of CD-Rs are very cheap these days and provide an ideal backup medium. I then load from the CD into the laptop using Downloader Pro which does all the renaming/directory creation as detailed in the normal process. This way I can be sure that not only do I have a backup but that backup works!

On returning I use the Microsoft Sync-toy to duplicate the working directory back to the file server.

In part 2, I will detail the process of sorting the wheat from the chaff and converting raw files into a usable format.

If you are getting a sense of Deja-vue that is because this blog was originally in the Articles section of the site...but I'm having a tidy up!


My Workflow

• Capture
• Processing
• Output
• Archiving

Labels: Controlled Vocabulary, Downloader Pro, IPTC, Keywording, Keywords, Workflow, XMP

Over at lightroomgalleries.com Joe has got galleries with paging working...hurrah!

Why not take a look at the site, it looks like it will develop into a very useful resource.

Labels: Lightroom, Web, Workflow

Those of you who are interested in Lightroom web templates (and there does seem to be an awful lot of you) will be pleased to know that I have extended the template to add two new features:

• Sequential numbering for each item.
• Next & Previous buttons for each image allowing users to easily page through.

Install instructions are the same as for the previous version except you will need to download this new version of the file from here: paypalLightroomForwardBack.zip

I will be leaving each of the different versions available so that you can see how each of the elements was added to the template. hopefully this will help people develp their own versions.

I am currently working on getting paging working.

Things I have yet to work out is how to get keywords & descriptions in to the source xml.

After that I will look at how to get settings in to the lightroom panels...still a long way to go.

---

Related Posts

• Creating Web Gallery Templates for Lightroom
  
• ECommerce sites with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and the PayPal Shopping cart
  
• Lightroom Paypal Galleries

Labels: Lightroom, Paypal Shopping Cart, Web, Workflow

In my previous post I covered what I have learned so far about Adobe Lightroom Web Gallery Templates.

Using what I have learnt so far I have created a template for web-gallerys that uses the paypal shopping cart. It's far from perfect..but I intend to re-visit the issues when I get a chance, and others might be able to progress things faster than me.

To use the template:

1. Download the paypalLightroom.zip file.

2. Unzip it to the Web Galleries folder (by default you don't have one so you will need to create it):

• On Mac, <your home directory>/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Web Galleries/.
  

• On Windows, put the gallery in C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Adobe\Lightroom\Web Galleries.

On a PC the Application Data directory is hidden so you will need to enable "show hidden folders" before you can browse to it.

3. Edit the transformer.xslt file:

near the top you will find a section that looks like this:

<!-- paypal Settings -->
<xsl:variable name="PayPalAccount">You@there.com</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="ReturnScreen">www.test.com</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="CancelScreen">www.test.com</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="CurrencyCode">GBP</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="CurrencySymbol">&pound;</xsl:variable>

<!-- Individual Sale Items -->
<xsl:variable name="Item1Description">10&quot;x20" Print</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="Item1CodeNo">100</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="Item1Price">150</xsl:variable>

<xsl:variable name="Item2Description">11&quot;x22" Print</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="Item2CodeNo">101</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="Item2Price">155</xsl:variable>

<xsl:variable name="Item3Description">10&quot;x20" Print framed</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="Item3CodeNo">102</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="Item3Price">150</xsl:variable>

<xsl:variable name="Item4Description">11&quot;x22" Print framed</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="Item4CodeNo">103</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="Item4Price">155</xsl:variable>

You need to change the values between <> and <> on each line to reflect your settings.

The Settings:

Setting	Current Value	Description
PayPalAccount	You@there.com	Your paypal account ID
ReturnScreen	www.test.com	URL to return to after a succesful purchase
CancelScreen	www.test.com	URL to return to after the user has pressed cancel
CurrencySymbol	£	Currency symbol in HTML (£ = £, $ = $ € = €)
CurrencyCode	GBP	Currency code (GBP = pounds, USD = dollars, etc )
Item1Description	10"x20" Print	Description of first item type you sell
Item1CodeNo	100	A code number for this item if you have one
Item1Price	150	Price for item 1
Item2Description	11"x22" Print	Description of second item type you sell
Item2CodeNo	101	A code number for this item if you have one
Item2Price	155	Price for item 2
Item3Description	10"x20" Print framed	Description of third item type you sell
Item3CodeNo	102	A code number for this item if you have one
Item3Price	150	Price for item 3
Item4Description	11"x22" Print framed	Description of fourth item type you sell
Item4CodeNo	103	A code number for this item if you have one
Item4Price	155	Price for item 4

Having made all the changes, save the file.

4. Now use the new template

In Lightroom generate the web site using the new Paypal Template.

Summary

As I said it's not perfect yet but hopefully it will give those of you who wish to dabble, something to dabble with.

Update 16 April 2007

Improved version with forward and back buttons added.

---

Related Posts

• ECommerce sites with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and the PayPal Shopping cart..continued
• Lightroom Paypal Galleries

Labels: Lightroom, Paypal Shopping Cart, Web, Workflow

I have started looking at the process for creating your own custom HTML web galleries in Lightroom and I thought I would pass on what I have learnt so far.

1. There ain't much documentation out there.

For a flagship product like Lightroom Adobe seem to have been particularly tardy in providing the documentation as to how to create your own web galleries. The entire total of what I have found is this:

• This post in the Lightroom journal ,which updates this original post.
• This article, which majors on Flash but has a lot of useful nuggets of information.
• This pdf, which gives you some clue about the XML Specifications
• Seans Blog which is full of tips about Lightroom.
  

2. Getting Started

Check you have a Web Galleries folder (by default you don't) so you will need to create it:

• On Mac, <your home directory>/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Web Galleries/.

• On Windows, put the gallery in C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Adobe\Lightroom\Web Galleries.

On a PC the Application Data directory is hidden so you will need to enable "show hidden folders" before you can browse to it.

Download the demo template from here: lightroom_wpg_example.zip

Unzip the file into the web galleries folder you just created.

If you now open Lightroom and go to the Web module, you should see this available as a new option:

Now close Lightroom as it caches the web templates so you won’t see them unless you close and reopen them.

3. Create your own web Gallery

Copy the example folder in Web Galleries and give it a new name.

Now open the galleryMaker.xml file and edit the values in the <galleryInfo> section to describe your template (unless you change these values Lightroom won’t detect your new template):

Original version
<galleryInfo>
<amg ver="0.5" />
<thumbnail path="preview.jpg" />
<galleryName>Demo Template</galleryName>
<galleryDescription></galleryDescription>
<gallerVersion ver="1.0" />
<livePreview enabled="yes" />
<creator company="Adobe Systems, Inc." designer="Adobe Lightroom Engineering" />
<category>Web photo gallery</category>
<identifier>com.adobe.wpg.demo1t</identifier>
<ag:galleryType>HTML</ag:galleryType>
<ag:maximumGallerySize>20</ag:maximumGallerySize>
</galleryInfo>

My Version

<galleryInfo>
<amg ver="0.5" />
<thumbnail path="preview.jpg" />
<galleryName>PayPal Template</galleryName>
<galleryDescription></galleryDescription>
<gallerVersion ver="1.0" />
<livePreview enabled="yes" />
<creator company="www.shepherdpics.com" />
<category>Web photo gallery</category>
<identifier>com.shepherdpics.wpg.paypal</identifier>
<ag:galleryType>HTML</ag:galleryType>
<ag:maximumGallerySize>20</ag:maximumGallerySize>
</galleryInfo>

Start Lightroom and you should now see your new template in the available list.

Once again close Lightroom.Edit the GalleryMaker.xml file to Generate the output sizes you need.

For my templates I wanted both thumbnails & large images so I changed the <sizes> section from this:

<sizes>
<size height="130" name="thumb" width="130" />
</sizes>

To this:

<sizes>
<size height="130" name="thumb" width="130" />
<size height="500" name="full" width="500" />
</sizes>

Though you might want loads of options - like this:

<sizes>
<size name="thumb" width="160" height="120" />
<size name="small" width="640" height="480" />
<size name="medium" width="880" height="660" />
<size name="large" width="1024" height="768" />
<size name="video" width="400" height="300" fps="30">
</sizes>

Open Lightroom and Export the web gallery to a new directory. If you open this directory you should see contents similar to this:

In the main directory are the index.html and individual html documents for each image. The thumbnail images have been created in the images/thumb directory and the larger images are in images/full.

4.Edit the transformer.xslt file

The transformer.xslt file is an XSLT template that you use to transform the XML in source.xml into XHTML files. If you didn't understand that last sentence you are in for quite a rough ride and it might be worth looking through some tutorials on XSLT now.

Some things I have learnt about the transformer.xslt file are:

• It does not support the <xsl:include> tag so you have to put everything in the same file.
• If you have any errors in your transformer.xslt file then Lightroom will just not generate the file…no error messages, no logs nothing.
• A good XSLT tool like Stylus Studio makes developing the pages considerably easier.

Some things I have still to work out are:

• How to implement multiple index pages
• How to get resource files (css/buttons/graphics) copied to the new directory
  
• Why Adobe picked quite such a complicated way of doing things.

Next blog I will be posting my first go at integrating Paypal and Lightroom Web-Galleries. This will include example download files for you to use.

I hope this posting has been of use, please feel free to add a comment if this has helped you or if you have discovered anymore information.

Labels: Lightroom, Web, Workflow

In Part 1 I discussed how to set-up Downloader Pro and The Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalogue to enable easy file management and downloading. So now we have set it up, how do we go about using it.

Insert a Card in your Cardreader.

Once Downloader Pro has been setup to detect card events, inserting a card with images on will automatically fire you into Downloader Pro. If you have the option to prompt for job-code set then the first dialogue will prompt for job-code:


Enter a descriptive job-code or select a previously used one from the dropdown and click OK. Next you will be prompted for the metadata and the dialogue will appear, prefilled with the entries you added during the setup.


Click on the Keywords tab, here you can enter keywords separated by commas. To use the Controlled Vocabulary click on the catalogue button.

You can either browse the catalogue using the tree view or just enter a search string and click find. For example entering "beach" returns two possible results:


Select the ones you want and click OK. Repeat this process bringing in all the keywords that apply to your set of images.

Note: that some terms or phrases are in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS and may not make much sense as keywords by themselves. These terms are needed in order to create a branch under which other terms may be grouped. However, once you have pulled them into the BreezeBrowser list, they have served their purpose and can be removed from the list.

Once you have added all the keywords you need then clicking OK will bring you to the automation dialogue.
Click Yes and everything happens by magic! Files are downloaded, renamed, keyworded, backed-up , metadata added, directories created and the card deleted..all in one little measure - marvellous!

Labels: Controlled Vocabulary, Downloader Pro, IPTC, Keywording, Keywords, Workflow, XMP

I am still investigating using the controlled vocabulary when keywording images. David Riecks at www.controlledvocabulary.com has produced a controlled vocabulary keyword catalogue, which is a great basis for a structured keywording of files and now the new version of Downloader Pro integrates with the controlled vocabulary keyword catalogue. This blog is the first part of a 2 part blog showing how to use downloader pro and Controlled Vocalbulary to manage your images. This first blog covers the set-up of the programs which you should only have to do once and the second covers day to day usage.

Downloader Pro is a great tool for downloading images from a memory card - the main benefits I get out of using it are:

• Intelligent File Renaming based on attributes in the file.
• Intelligent directory creation based attributes in the files.
• Supporting directory creation (../Tiffs,../Webready) to improve workflow
• Immediate backup of every document to a different drive
• Bulk keywording and metadata.

Of these keywording and metadata are one of the most neglected areas for most photographers. The download process is one of the most useful times to apply metadata to your images as this bulk information will usually apply to a whole shoot and stay with the images throughout your workflow.


Installing the CVKC

1. Order the Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalogue.
2.Download the breezebrowser zip file: cvkcv3_0-BBpro16.zip
3. Unzip cvkcv3_0-BBpro16.zip
4. From the downloaded files copy cvkcv3_0.txt into the Downloader Pro program directory (usually C:\Program Files\BreezeSys\Downloader Pro), replacing the Keywords.txt file that is there already.


Set up your Downloader Pro configuration

Run Downloader Pro and Select File>Preferences and on the Download Path tab you can use the {tags} to allow files to be renamed in whatever way you like and placed in named directories according to your preferred naming scheme. if you use the {J tag and select "Prompt for Job code every time Downloader Pro is run, the system will request a name/code for each batch of pictures you download and build them into the naming of the files.

On the general tab make sure you check "Add ITPC/XMP data to downloaded images" and "prompt for ITPC/XMP data every time Downloader pro is run. The first means that your standard metadata will be written to the files as you download. The second means that you can change this each time you download.

On Automation tab it is best to check all the options so that downloading is completely automated.
Setup the custom button for your preferred software for browsing the downloaded images, In my case I use Breezebrowser which makes things quite simple:


On the plug-in screen I have 2 plug-ins enabled , director maker and Backup.Backup is configured to automatically copy every downloaded image to a second disk drive whilst the directory maker is set to create the directories that support my workflow.



Setup your default metadata

One of the clever things with Downloader pro is that the {tags} can be used all over the program and they really come in handy when configuring your standard metadata. On the Origin Tab I use {tags} to set the date & time correctly and enter the standard origin information I want to write to every file:


My contact information stays the same from one day to the next , so again this is set for all images: The Caption information can be defaulted as well - here I have used the {J} tag to render the job-code into every image.
Now we are all set-up and ready to go. In part 2 I will take you through the actual download process I use on a daily basis.

Labels: Controlled Vocabulary, Downloader Pro, IPTC, Keywording, Keywords, Workflow, XMP

First visit Dave Beckermans guide to using iView and PayPal as it covers an awful lot of the basics you will need, The main difference between his method and mine is that he has individual sizes and prices for each picture where as my method is designed for a gallery where all the prints are the same sizes & prices.

Take a look at the Galleries on this site, to get an idea of how the web pages generated by this method. While you are there why not buy a picture or two.....you know you want to.

How to do it

• Download the Paypal.zip file.
• Unzip the contents into the iView HTML template directory which is under the Plug-ins directory of iView media pro.

Set your products and paypal items

Open the Media.html file (its in the paypal directory you just created) in notepad or an HTML Editor. Find the section that looks like this:
<!-- iView HTML Engine Directives
(iView:InMediaWidth 500)
(iView:InMediaHeight 500)
(iView:Variable name = "Gallery Title" default = "")
(iView:Variable name = "PayPalAccount" default = "paypal@paypal.com")
(iView:Variable name = "ReturnScreen" default = "http://www.yoursite.com/Success.html")
(iView:Variable name = "CancelScreen" default = "http://www.yoursite.com/Galleries.html")
(iView:Variable name = "CurrencySymbol" default = "£")
(iView:Variable name = "CurrencyCode" default = "GBP")
(iView:Variable name = "Item1Description" default = "18 x 12 inch Mounted print")
(iView:Variable name = "Item1CodeNo" default = "")
(iView:Variable name = "Item1Price" default = "75")
(iView:Variable name = "Item2Description" default = "18 x 12 inch Framed & Mounted print")
(iView:Variable name = "Item2CodeNo" default = "")
(iView:Variable name = "Item2Price" default = "125")
(iView:Variable name = "Item3Description" default = "24 x 18 Mounted print")
(iView:Variable name = "Item3CodeNo" default = "")
(iView:Variable name = "Item3Price" default = "250")
(iView:Variable name = "Item4Description" default = "24 x 18 inch Framed & Mounted print")
(iView:Variable name = "Item4CodeNo" default = "")
(iView:Variable name = "Item4Price" default = "300")
-->

You need to change the value in quotes for default for each line that begins with (iView:Variable name

The Settings:

Setting	Current Value	Description
Gallery Title		Title of your Gallery - best left blank
PayPalAccount	paypal@paypal.com	Your paypal account ID
ReturnScreen	http://www.yoursite.com/Success.html	URL to return to after a succesful purchase
CancelScreen	http://www.yoursite.com/Galleries	URL to return to after the user has pressed cancel
CurrencySymbol	£	Currency symbol in HTML (£ = £, $ = $ € = €)
CurrencyCode	GBP	Currency code (GBP = pounds, USD = dollars, etc )
Item1Description	18 x 12 inch Mounted print	Description of first item type you sell
Item1CodeNo		A code number for this item if you have one
Item1Price	75	Price for item 1
Item2Description	18 x 12 inch Framed & Mounted print	Description of second item type you sell
Item2CodeNo		A code number for this item if you have one
Item2Price	125	Price for item 2
Item3Description	24 x 18 Mounted print	Description of third item type you sell
Item3CodeNo		A code number for this item if you have one
Item3Price	250	Price for item 3
Item4Description	24 x 18 inch Framed & Mounted print	Description of fourth item type you sell
Item4CodeNo		A code number for this item if you have one
Item4Price	300	Price for item 4

Having made all the changes, save the file.

Creating the Galleries

Now go to iView and select the items that you wish to appear in your gallery.
Select Make>HTML Gallery...
On the Theme tag check the settings.


Click the Theme Fields Tab and change any fields that you need to.


Click Make... and chose a directory to load the gallery into.

That's about it, if you have any questions please add them as comments at the bottom of this article and I will see if I can help.

---

Related Posts

An Alternative template for Paypal and iView Media Pro

Labels: iView Media Pro, Paypal Shopping Cart, Web, Workflow

I've been a bit busy over the last few days changing the Galleries and Exhibitions Sections of the site. The site even includes the obligatory gradient background that all css based sites seem to have these days.

The main reason for this is that I wanted to change the way the galleries were generated. Previously I used Breezebrowser to generate the web galleries through The EOS template. There were two main reasons for deciding to change.

• Breezebrowser is an excellent product and I use it at the front end of my workflow to sift through the images and quickly sort out the shots I don't want. The trouble is that generating web galleries is usually an end of workflow thing for me, and by the end of the workflow my images are all safely stacked away in iView Media Pro. So using iView would be a much better option.
• The EOS template is a fantastic piece of javascript programming an for event/wedding photographers it does a great job of delivering galleries for users to buy prints from. The problem from my point of view is that all that javascript stops the site being indexed by search engines. Additionally i wanted something I could easily controll with css and minimal javascript and it was time for a change.

I decided to use the iView HTML generation technology combined with the Paypal Shopping Cart system to produce exactly what I wanted. In a future blog I will provide some instructions on how to do this yourself for those who are interested.

In the meantime here is a picture I found whilst tidying up the galleries:

Labels: iView Media Pro, Site Updates, Web, Workflow

Many photographers who produce Limited Edition prints of their work have developed ad-hoc systems to manage them.

Faced with the constant headache of maintaining what has been printed and sold, which numbers have been allocated, etc. I decided to develop a system to bring this under control. The current release features:

• Keep track of editions and sales easily from one screen.
• Block Allocate ~ reserve a group of prints for a particular customer.
• Certificates of Authenticity.
• Print Run ~ Mark a group of prints as printed and generate the appropriate certificates.
• Sales reports.
• AutoAllocate© ~ When creating an edition numbers can be automatically allocated.

This is free software. The only thing I ask is that you mail me if you use it. The reason for this is so that I can mail out notices of any bug fixes/enhancements to existing users as soon as they are spotted. I like to keep track of the number of users out there. It's not much to ask is it?

New Release - Version 1.1 Released 23 Oct 2006

• First Release used in anger :)
• Added ability to generate single certificate
  Added Image path rename form
  Added version History
  Added new certificate Format "Shepherdpics"
• Recreated the reports to provide useful info!
  Various minor fixes

Where can I get this fantastic software ?

Click here to download

Access97 Version

How do I install it ?

The Installation is very straight forward. Here are the instructions.

Where can I get support ?

Check out the users guide, if that doesn't help then simply mail me and I will see if I can help.

Does it cost anything ?

Nope not a sausage. If you would like to donate a thankyou gift then please use the paypal button below and I will make sure all payments go to charity.

Labels: Exhibitions, Limited Edition, Workflow

Strangely (for me) this is the fourth consecutive blog on the same subject, normal service will soon be resumed and I will go off at a tangent soon This keywording thing has a lot going on, and the joys of Lightroom are still a bit of an enigma but its an interesting adventure.

Having loaded The Controlled Vocabulary Catalogue in to Lightroom, you may find that things seem to slow down quite a lot. Well I say a lot, but really we are talking response times that are measured by the time-scales usually reserved for geologists. Hopefully the clever people at Adobe can fix the problems in the next version or service pack.

Until The Lightroom team can fix the problem it may be more usable to delete blocks of keywords that you don't use to reduce the load on the system.

To use the keyword hierarchy you can enter keywords in the "keyword Tags" panel:


As you type in keywords, separated by commas the system prompts you with keywords that are available in the list. Once you have entered a few base keywords then pressing enter will cause a bit of a wait if you have a large keyword list. Actually unless you are running Lightroom on a Cray super-computer now would be a good time to put the kettle on.

Eventually all of the parent categories in the vocabulary will appear in the implied keywords box, this is the real power of using a Controlled Vocabulary, simple keywords generate a lot of information.



Finding by Keywords

To search the Keywords you have entered, you can use the the Keywords tag tree on the left. To search for a particular tag, open the find panel on the left or select Library>Find (ctrl+F) on the menu. Select Keywords from the dropdown and enter the tag you are searching for.


As you type your library is instantly filtered:


If Adobe can deal with the performance issues then I think using CV with Lightroom will be a seriously useful combination.

---

Related Posts
Controlled Vocabulary for Adobe Lightroom 1.1 released!

Controlled Vocabulary and Adobe Lightroom 1.1
How to use Controlled Vocabulary in Adobe Lightroom (part 1)

Labels: Controlled Vocabulary, IPTC, Keywording, Keywords, Lightroom, Workflow, XMP

Now that I am tryling Lightroom and I thought I would try out if it is possible using a controlled vocabulary when keywording images. David Riecks at www.controlledvocabulary.com has produced a controlled vocabulary keyword catalogue, which is a great basis for a structured keywording of files.

It turns out its not to difficult to get the Control Vocabulary file into Lightroom, all it requires a simple bit of Excel work to convert it. This is what you do:

1. Order the Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalogue.
2. Have Excel installed on your PC
3.Open Excel
4. Select File>Open. Change the file type to text and select the CV text file:

5.The text import wizard appears. Select Delimited:

6.Click Next and make sure only "tab" is checked:


7. Click Next and Finish.
8. The CV file is now loaded in Excel.
9. Select File>Save As and give the file a new name - make sure the file type is set to Text - Tab Delimited.
10. A warning message may appear:


click Yes.
11.Start Lightroom.
12.In the Library module, select Metadata>import Keywords and select the file you have just created.
13.Lightroom will grind to a hault for a few minutes but eventually the CV keywords will appear in the Keyword Panel


Within Lightroom selecting a keyword will cause keywords higher up the hierarchy to be allocated as implied keywords.

Be warned that keywording does seem to slow down a lot when using this number of keywords - lets hope Adobe manage to sort out the performance issues.

Update 22 Feb 2007
People have asked why import a file in a tab separated format only to immediately output it in the same format...which is a fair question. The reason is that CV file currently available seems to have an end of line character that Lightroom does not recognise and this process removes it.

David Riecks tells me that the next version of the Controlled Vocabulary Catalogue should not have the problem with the end of line characters in which case you should be able to start from step 11.

I have had a lot of people tell me that this is causing them performance issues in Lightroom, I have yet to do a thorough investigation but it seems that every time you access a keyword Lightroom is calculating on the fly how many images in your catalogue are using it.

Controlled Vocabulary in Adobe Lightroom (part 2)



Update 26 March 2007
It seems my experience with the number of keywords severely impacting performance
is not unusual - Anne Gall has created a thread in the Adobe forum covering the problems in quite some detail.l

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Related Posts
Controlled Vocabulary for Adobe Lightroom 1.1 released!

Controlled Vocabulary and Adobe Lightroom 1.1
How to use Controlled Vocabulary in Adobe Lightroom (part 2)

Labels: Controlled Vocabulary, IPTC, Keywording, Keywords, Lightroom, Workflow, XMP

A while back I became interested in using a controlled vocabulary when keywording images. David Riecks at www.controlledvocabulary.com has produced a controlled vocabulary keyword catalogue, which is a great basis for a structured keywording of files.

The only problem with the system was that it didn't work with iView Media Pro, but a bit of research and some excel coding and I came up with a way to do it. If you would like to do it yourself then you need to:

1. Order the Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalogue.
2. Have Excel installed on your PC
3. Download this Excel file.

I am hugely grateful to David Riecks for writing the following user guide to the using the Excel File:

---

When you first open the ProcessCV file it appears to be deceptively
simple. There are two fields

The first labelled the "Controlled Vocabulary filename" is the path to
the location where you stored the text version of the CVKC (or
another file using the same format and saved as a tab delimited text file).

In the Target Keywords File Name: use something like the following.

C:\Documents and Settings\[username like your name or
Administrator]\Application Data\iView\Plug-ins\Vocabulary\Default\keywords.txt

When you click on the "Create Keywords file" one of three things will
happen. Either it will start processing your file, or you will get
one of two warnings.

If you get one that says "Run Time error 1004" this means that the
source file you indicated in the first field is incorrect. The other
indicates that the ability to run Macros is disabled. It will look
like the following:

-----
Macros in this workbook are disabled because the security level is
high, and the macros have not been digitally signed or verified as
safe. To run the macros, you can either have them signed or change
your security level. Click Help for more information.

OK or Help
-----

In order to enable these in Excel go to:

Tools >> Options >> Security tab, and look for the "Macro Security"
button in the lower right.

In the subsequent dialog, change the radio button from "High" to
"Medium" which states, "Medium, You can choose whether or not to run
potentially unsafe macros."

Click OK in the "Security" dialog, and then OK in the "Options" dialog.

You will need to close the file and reopen it (or perhaps even restart Excel).

When you reopen the ProcessCV.xls file, you'll probably see something like:

---
"A file named "c:\Documents and Settings\[username]\My
Documents\[foldername]\ProcessCV.xls contains macros.

Macros may contain viruses. It is always safe to disable macros, but
if the macros are legitimate, you might lose some functionality.

Disable Macros Enable Macros More Info"
--

Click on the "Enable Macros" button and insure that you have set the
location of the source and destination files in the ProcessCV file.
Then click on the "Create Keywords file" and you'll see in the lower
left corner information about "processing row XX of XX" as the macro
does it's work.

At the end you may also receive a warning like:

"A file named "c:\Documents and Settings\Adminstrator\Application
Data\iView\Plug-ins\Vocabulary\Default\keywords.txt already exists in
this location. Do you want to replace it?
Yes No Cancel"

If you wish you can copy the file, before you run the ProcessCV.xls file.

If there is no Keywords.txt file then the process will simply stop
when completed.

Start iView, then choose Edit >> Preferences >> Vocabulary Editor

Make sure that "Default" is chosen in the Vocabulary pull down, and
that the "keywords" field is selected in the "Field" pull down.

Then check, OK

If you start typing a particular word, such as "dog" into the
Keywords field in the Info Panel, then you can click on the downward
pointing arrow and see all the strings which contain that word, and
you can pick the most appropriate line. Since it's a comma-separated
string when you press the return/enter key, each term in the line is
entered as a separate keyword.

In the example above you might get "animals, pets, dog, puppy" or
"animals, wildlife, mammals, canine, dog" depending on where you
intend to place the images.

If you just click the downward pointing arrow and don't enter a word
in the keyword field the drop-down list will be very long. All of the
terms, however, are organized hierarchically so it's not that
difficult to find what you want with scrolling. Once you are familiar
with the list, entering a high level category word narrows down the
set considerably.

---

David has stated that future versions of the Keyword Catalogue will come with the iView format supplied. So hopefully things will be even simpler in the future.

Update 5 April 2007
Version 3 of The Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalogue has just been release. As promised this provides native support for iView Media Pro, installation instructions can be found here.

Labels: Controlled Vocabulary, IPTC, iView Media Pro, Keywording, Keywords, Workflow, XMP

Its not uncommon for people to believe only pro photographers who sell to image libraries really need the keywording and organisation facilities of products like Lightroom and Iview Media Pro.

Well since reading "The DAM Book" by Peter Krogh I have come to realise that keywording is not just for pros. It can give real benefits to anyone who has a lot of images to manage.

As part of my current workflow I have Downloader Pro set up so that every time I download from a card it prompts me for keywords. I usually enter the location and the event only, all the shots downloaded from that card are then tagged with that information (also known as metadata).

When I move the shots to my archive system I just add extra tags for any people in a particular shot. I also rate mark shots for later use in my web galleries with a star rating. The keywording of A single months worth of shots takes about 10 minutes using iview media pro.

This makes image retrieval significantly easier, as generally I am looking for a person or a place. The advantage over a structured file system is that you can have multiple keywords whereas the file can only be in one place.

Files are actually stored by date and type in a Year/Month/Day/Type directory structure where type is either raw,tiff or webready.

My initial thoughts about Adobe Lightroom is that it may actually remove the need to store different versions of the same file due to its sophisticated print options & stacks, more playing may confirm this. The Keywording facilities of Lightroom seem reasonably comprehensive so far..which is nice.

The image download system on Lightroom is highly configurable and (almost) meets my needs and could possibly make Downloader Pro redundant.

I am not completely happy with the workflow Lightroom seems to want me to work with though. It seems to be based around a single library and I prefer my current setup of a "working" and an "archive" library. Though it is early days yet so maybe I will find a way to implement this structure within Lightroom.

Labels: Lightroom, Workflow

So I have finally got round to completing part 2 of my articles documenting my digital workflow.

To be honest this part is a bit messy as very little of it is automated...and that is not a good thing if you ask me. I am hoping that as the year progresses I will move to either Adobe Lightroom or the new version of Capture One as both seem to offer the possibility of a more automated workflow.

The idea of having the workflow as articles is that I can update them as my workflows improve, the ultimate goal being that I only have to make the "Creative" decisions i.e. should this be in B&W ?, how about a crop? etc. The software should automate everything else: file locations, keywording, backups,etc.

Soon I will start work on part 3 which deals with presentation: prints, websites and web galleries. The final part will deal with archiving.

Labels: Workflow

Over the last few weeks I have been carefully documenting my photographic workflow. As I looked at each part of my process I kept checking that everything is backed up and safe.

Looking at my archive of images for the last 5 years I realised that I was on the verge of running out of disk space as I had room for just a month or twos shots left. I make that time to get me a pair of Buffaloes.

The Buffalo Linkstation Pro is a network file-server in a box. I got myself two of the 500GB version which should give me plenty of room for my photos for a few years.

I'm sure many of you think "two 500GB drives - that's a terrabyte" - well actually it's not. It's one 500GB drive with a backup to mirror it, I stopped buying hard disk drives in ones a few years back when I kept getting asked to help people who had lost loads of important documents due to a hard disk crash. Now I always buy drives in pairs so I have a live and a backup, a 120GB internal drive and a 250gb USB drive to back it up for example.

My first impression of these drives is that they are a real quality product and the people at Buffalo have really thought about what you might need from an external drive.

Installation is a breeze:

• take it out the box
• plug it in to the mains
• plug it in to the network
• Switch it on
• Sorted!

You don't really need to install the client software, but it's worth doing just so that you can find and rename the Linkstations to something more memorable.

Configuration of the backup is done through your web browser. I had a little bit of a problem with this and in the end was forced to read the manual that comes on the CD. The trick is to first configure the backup target share as a "Disk Backup" (you will find it under Shared Folders set-up>Shared Folder Support). then go to the primary drive and set-up the backup to this share.

What is really neat about this backup is that the drives do it themselves, even if my PCs are switched off the drives will still back themselves up every night...cool!

I'm currently looking for a good location for the backup drive as I've just realised that it is directly under the cold water tank in the loft. I will try to ensure that both drives are as far away from each other as possible to increase security a little in event of a flood.

A real quality product...I'm impressed.

Labels: Equipment, Workflow

Efficient workflow is the key to managing your digital photography. I have just added the first article detailing my digital workflow which deals with the first part of the process.....capture.

Labels: News, Site Updates, Workflow