[Leica] DMR M8 workflows

[harrison at mcclary.net (Harrison McClary)]

Alastair,

iView was a great program, I have up to the last release before it went 
to the black hole that is Microsoft.  I now use Aperture for all aspects 
of photo management and the more I use aperture the more I like it.  At 
download I can enter captions and all EXIF data I want, this stays with 
the file into the converted files.   Aperture works as a file management 
database as well as a great RAW converter.  I do not think it will work 
on DNG files though, I know it did not work on them at version 1.2, I 
have not tried it since I upgraded to 1.5.1.  All in all I'd say 
Aperture is all the stuff I liked about iView combined with Adobe's 
Bridge.  I make prints directly from Aperture that are fully color 
managed.  Of all the work I do on photos I now have to go to photoshop 
about 1/3 or maybe even 2/3 less than I used to.

I do not know if you are aware or not, but if you are entering keywords 
and th like on RAW files in iView or Adobe they will not carry through 
the conversion to jpg or tiff.  The only way they stay with the file is 
if you convert it to a DNG file then it will stay through conversion.  
That is probably why when you are entering file info in in Bridge they 
are not carrying over to iView.  Also in PSCS2 and Bridge there is a new 
way it writes to exif data and you need to be sure it is also writing to 
the "legacy" areas also or some programs will not recognize the data you 
enter in PSCS2 and Bridge.  I have made both of these errors and learned 
the hard way.

I hope this is of some help, if you have any more questions please ask.

Harrison


Alastair Firkin wrote:
> Dear all,
> Now that my digital work will be more than happy snaps from the Diglux 
> 1, I have been considering "workflow". How should I work, please help.
>
> My initial plan was to have enough storage and to that end, I have 
> bought 4 x 300 gig hard drives to store and sort the images.
>
> I have been using iView and iPhoto, BUT iView does not allow you to 
> look at full images from RAW files anymore (part of the Microsoft take 
> over and the bundling with Phase One software), so I have been playing 
> with Adobe: I bought CS2 some time ago and "filing" in bridge and 
> using "camera RAW SEEMS a good combination, BUT the RAW work seems 
> better at the moment in LightRoom beta: any comments.
>
> So at the moment I thought:
> 1. take images in RAW
> 2. transfer to a "holding" folder titled "new images"
> 3. Review images in ? iView/lightroom/aperture/bridge
> 4. Rate images as a)junk to trash, b)record image never likely to make 
> a print bigger than 6 x 4 and c)"potential" images
> 5. Throw out the a images, convert the b images to jpeg files and keep 
> the c images as RAW (but what kind of RAW I have yet to fully understand)
> 6. Label the images with key words (does anyone have a standard 
> "list") and comments:
> -- here I have a problem. iView had a great comments area BUT it does 
> not seem to "map" to the comments area of the other programmes. 
> Putting comments in the Bridge area seems more flexible, but they do 
> not turn up in iView --- I am thinking my days using iView are now 
> numbered, and this saddens me as I just paid for an upgrade, and its 
> been a good workhorse for so long and I have so many comments already 
> filed in it including all the FOM2 stuff
> 7. transfer the folders to the hard disc stores : this perhaps should 
> be done before labels but I think bridge or lightroom can "follow" 
> where they have gone and are "stored"
> 8. remove the images from the new image folder to free up the 
> computers basic hard disc again
> 9. Begin working on the c images, and make displays for web and printing
> 10. go out and do it again.
>
> As you can see, I want to start with a basic plan and keep to it for 
> at least 12 months to try to get some order and filing in my system, 
> rather than the current mess.
>
> Thanks for any comments and help
>
> Cheers and here's luck
>
> Alastair


-- 
Harrison McClary
Harrison McClary Photography
harrison@mcclary.net
http://www.mcclary.net
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