Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (
More info?)
On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 18:05:49 -0600, "Don Lathrop" <dl682@concrete.not>
wrote:
>Alan Meyer wrote:
>
>> Meanwhile, I'd love to hear any more ideas.
>
>I save all my raw images in a hard drive
>folder with a folder name that starts with
>the date, then includes some info, like this:
....
>When I'm ready to save, I save to a subfolder
>under the original, named for the type of
>image I've created. So I end up with this folder
>scheme:
....
>Some of the shots might be copied out to a
>higher-order folder with a specialized purpose,
>like this:
....
>Now all this said, I often rename images to
>descriptive names, scatter them in junk folders
>and have a heck of a time figuring out where
>they came from!
What I do is to get everything into Photoshop format (.psd) as soon as
possible, after which most variations can be made and saved in a
single file. For example, the black-and-white version can live
alongside the full-colour version, just as 1 or 2 adjustment layers.
Even if I sharpen or blur, I do it by copying the background layer and
applying the filter to the new layer, so I could turn that tweak on or
off, or redo it.
To save on space, I use the UNIX underpinnings of Mac OS X to create
symbolic links to the original files. For example, I'll have a
directory full of pictures, all taken on the same day but encompassing
different subjects. I'll make two more directories, each for one of
the specialized subjects, and fill each with symlinks to all the
original files. Then in whatever file-browsing application is most
convenient, I'll delete all the irrelevant files from these new
directories; only the links go away, the original files aren't
touched. I can rename the files in the specialized directories to
have descriptive names, but the original files off in the main
directory still have their IMG_1234.JPG names. (Only ran into a
problem with one viewer program, which when asked to delete a symbolic
link, would follow it and delete the original file instead.)
Another way of filtering is to use the "Flag" function in the
Photoshop file browser. Make a directory full of all the shots on a
particular subject, then flag only the best ones that deserve to be
printed or uploaded, and hide all the unflagged ones.
The only time I create other versions is when resizing for a
particular medium. For the web, I'll auto-resize/rescale a whole
bunch of files to a particular width or height; those files can be
thrown away because that operation is easy to repeat anytime.
I'm wondering if it's practical in Photoshop to crop to 4x6, 8x10,
etc. and save that info all in the original file. For example, select
a 4x6 region and save an alpha channel, select an 8x10 region and save
another alpha channel. That way, maybe the cropped versions wouldn't
need to be kept around, they could be regenerated as needed, with the
crop area tweaked a little if necessary.
John
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram