Comments on: Who’s going to solve the mega photo library problem?

By: Adam Finkelstein

Adam Finkelstein — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 20:09:55 +0000

Jeremy, I have had to wrestle with a bunch of these issues doing support for my father. He is an amateur, borderline professional, who takes thousands of photos per trip, and is an incredible photographer. His trip to India netted 8000 photos in one shot (12 mp DLSR Canon shots). I thought about moving him to another program (like Aperature, which is much better designed to handle professional work (including space taken up by editing photos), but while my father is fairly tech saavy, most of the other software is pretty complex, even for very knowledgeable photo enthusiast. Instead, I kept him on what he knows well (iPhoto) but then used a program called “iPhoto Library Manager” (http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/) to create multiple iPhoto libraries and launch them when needed. We basically got this down to a procedure where each year we make a new library (and sometimes for each major trip they take). It works well and keeps photo numbers more manageable — mirrored to a separate HD for backup using Chronosync.

By: Justin Korn

Justin Korn — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 22:45:35 +0000

As a few have already mentioned, there are tools that do everything you have requested above (I personally use Lightroom), they are just not mainstream and will never be comparable to iPhoto.

You do have a good point on photo organization and the need for something new. However, we are so wrapped up around using tags, I don’t see the photo world breaking out loose of that anytime soon.

I’d love to see another method of organization surface, but until then, my 350GB of photos (and growing) are tagged and organized with the tools LightRoom has provided me and I seem to be able to access what I need, when I need without a problem. The key is to come up with a very strict organization schema and having the ability to stick with it.

By: tivoboy

tivoboy — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:48:39 +0000

yeah, I was just going to say lightroom will do a lot of this, but for a general user it is both expensive and has a relatively STEEP learning curve compared to the iphoto solution that many have. taking about 10K “snaps” a year, I find I really have to cull them when I TRANSFER them, making it pretty easy to get the actual numbers down and the actual VALUE up. I also categorize in “albums” based on three criteria.

Would I PRINT this? I don’t have to print it, but it is print quality. These make for the best slideshows. This stays local most of the time, but of course gets backed up.

Would I want to LOOK/SHOW this. Maybe the lighting isn’t right, or the subject isn’t in the perfect position but it SHOWS something that I want to have in my slideshows. Stays local, gets backed up

Is there something in the picture, not included in the two above categories, that I need to SAVE? Scores from a game, a sign in a foreign land, who was at a meeting, or some form of content that I could leverage across another picture. A bridge shot where I don’t want ALL the people on it, but I’m going to ADD some specific people, etc. This stuff moves straight to an external drive.

There ARE some third party tools/applications that let one do a similar type of multi-library plan with iphoto, just don’t know the name off hand.

By: Clay Loveless

Clay Loveless — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:25:01 +0000

Aren’t you essentially talking about Aperture 3? The multi-storage device request is handled by Aperture’s “Library Chooser” …. Aperture supports video libraries easily. For backup, you should be using BackBlaze for this. It’s set-it-and-forget-it easy, and dirt cheap.

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:14:05 +0000

As a father with 12k photos myself, I couldn’t agree more. The one thing I will add is how frustrating it was to upgrade to the iPhone 4 since I had to wait 90 minutes for it to “re-optimize” my 12k photos. At the same time though, it is pretty awesome to have every single digital photo I’ve ever taken in my pocket at all times.

By: Double-T

Double-T — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:05:59 +0000

Do you really have all those pics in one folder? I divide mine into folders for each year. That at least helps some.
The storage problem, at least on site, hasn’t become a problem due to cheap HDDs. Same with off site. I can make a backup on a portable drive and leave it at work.
I do agree with your other points about photo/video management.
Wonder how many files we’ll have in another 5-10 years. Then at some point we have to turn all that stuff over to the kids and then it’s their problem.

By: Eric N.

Eric N. — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 07:10:47 +0000

Does light room also allow you to have multiple photo sets in multiple locations?

I have sets prior to 2007, 2007-2009, and 2010… precious baby pix.

Eric

By: Joshua Weinberg

Joshua Weinberg — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 05:48:39 +0000

Lightroom does just about everything you mentioned. I will demo for you tomorrow.