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[Mathmosman]

Hello ladies and gents...

New to this forum, but intend to post some more... In the first instance, I wanted to see if many of you could help. I work in Marketing, and am managing images that come in from many different people, which we then use in print, web etc.

Basically, at present, we're just storing in basic windows folders. However, it may be that someone resizes an image and the original is then gone; people may copy an image to a new folder, and in six months we realise, we have one image six or eight times. Also, because different people add the images, there's no consistency re naming.

I'd also like to be able to tag images so that we can search more easily for them. Essentially, it is easier to keep them in windows, stored just in one HUGE folder?; is there a piece of software that doesnt require huge amounts of licences, etc...

I did look into one piece of software, but it comes at something like £400 per user, and we cant justify such a cost for say three of us.

Look forward to hearing from you.

 

[Kerioak]

I do not know whether Lightroom would be of use to you IF you all reliably keyword the images (for instance you can include description, price, primary colours, where it originated, when it's licence expires if you have purchased from a stock library ad infinitum). It is great for putting images into collections as well so you can pull up virtual collections.

 

[Chappers]

I'd go with the Lightroom option as well. That way you can keep the originals intact. You work non destructively on the image and output a modified copy not the original. Works best if you are shooting RAW but handles jpeg and tiff as well. Cost around £200.

Se some of the tutorials on the web and see what you think. You can also download a 30 day trial from the Adobe web site, but to get the best watch some of the tutorials first.

The NAPP web site has some good ones as well as Ian Lyons site

 

[pxl8]

I'm not sure sure Lightroom is the right solution. By the sound of it the OP needs a multi-user solution but LR is single user and doesn't play well with networks, etc.

Mathmosman, can you give a few more details of how the images are used? Are they accessed via a network by multiple users, several users on the same machine, etc?

 

[Chappers]

The other alternative to Lightroom would be what used to be I-Views Media Pro, which I now think is Microsoft's Expression Media. However this I think is a much more than they really need.

The answer may be to change the way they work, in other words when they change a file save it with a new name it so that the original is not changed, or opt for a single workstation and use lightroom.

 

[pxl8]

ACDSee might be a cheaper alternative, even windows photo gallery supports keywords, tagging, etc. but again single user really. I think there is a bit of a gap in the market something like this - I'd like a solution that would let me work from any of my machines with the same database that didn't cost an arm and two legs

At the moment I just us MS SyncToy to replicate a few folders each day so my other machines have the latest versions of the LR exports but it's very much a one way thing.

 

[will69]

There may be a web based solution you could use that would solve the multi user problem.

 

[Mathmosman]

Thanks for all of your replies...

I work for a tourism board, so in effect, we're using images in print, web etc... As people work on different projects, we are all moving images, copying them, and starting new folders, etc.

Perhaps one main option is literally to sort out a naming policy for images (which helps searching), but also then allows us to store everything in one holder, rather than many? I also think we'd benefit from literally not letting the complete organisation have access to all of the images - thereby reducing the hap-hazard use, etc.

We do have Adobe Photoshop CS4 and it's associated software, but I dont think one of those is really suitable. A colleague from another company has also suggested Lightroom... but does this not work over networks?

 

[Craikeybaby]

What about Bridge? That comes with CS4 and does all of the management side of Lightroom.

I used to work at a fairly big tour operator and we had an image database which sounds like exactly what you want, however I can't for the life of me remember what the application was called...

 

[Mathmosman]

Anyone aware if you can obtain Bridge free? The company has already purchased two licences for Photoshop CS3, but won't get another for me..

I've installed CS2, but the version of bridge that comes with it is quite different...

 

[pxl8]

Lightroom doesn't play well on networks, it won't let you store a database on a network for example and only one user at a time can access the database.

I'm not sure about Bridge but I think it might have the same problems as I'm sure I read it also uses the same version of MySQL as Lightroom - ie, the lite single user version.