[Mac Write]

I am so overwhelmed right now trying to build a system for managing my photos (over 14K backlog+photos I will be taking). I am trying to figure out how to use Smart Folders in Tiger to help organize my photos. The problem I am seeing is, I want to use keywords so that photos for xx date are displayed that are orignals (RAW) or progress (PSD), etc. I know you can do resolution, but how do you give photos keywords without using iPhoto which I find is not up to the task.

[Mithras]

Is this a Tiger support thread?
Anyway, the comments field is how I give files keywords IN PANTHER. and I imagine it might work the same in Tiger, if one were to use it at some point in the future.

[Mac Write]

Originally posted by Mithras:
Is this a Tiger support thread?
Anyway, the comments field is how I give files keywords IN PANTHER. and I imagine it might work the same in Tiger, if one were to use it at some point in the future.

I am not using Tiger. I am in Panther, being overwhelmed by the photos I have to manage and need to figure out how I can do key words across thousands of files to manage all these photos. Smart Folders in Tiger are going to help. The question is how to utilize them.

[Millennium]

Using keywords across thousands of files is very impractical. Tiger itself doesn't appear to support a "keywords" concept outside the Comments field, and this is most of the reason why: no one is disciplined enough to keep those keywords updated consistently across that many files.

That said, if I'm reading your post correctly, you don't need keywords for this task anyway. Have the folder search for files created on the date you're looking for, and have it use those files' format (RAW or PSD) to indicate whether the file is the original file or a working file. That will give you what you need without having to maintain keywords across thousands of files.

[Mithras]

Also, I'm quite sure that shortly after the release of Tiger we'll see a bunch of apps for managing metadata, including keywords.

[adam1185]

try out shoebox from kavasoft, maybe once tiger is out they will have a plugin for spotlight (*hopes)

[larkost]

Originally posted by Mithras:
Also, I'm quite sure that shortly after the release of Tiger we'll see a bunch of apps for managing metadata, including keywords.

You are half right: we will probably see a whole bunch of apps to manage EXIF tags in image formats that support it, and Spotlight will pick up much of this information.

I have not seen any indication that Finder comments are a supported meta-data (they could be.. I just have not seen it mentioned), and it would be a bad idea for an application to try and just inject arbitrary data into the Spotlight database. The information has to come from the files themselves (through a plugin).

[Mac Write]

The Orginals (RAW) will be processed on day of shoot and use a side car for storing the changes to the file. Then the In Progress files will also be archived leaving the Final, Large and thumbnail files on my system (120MB+ for RAW+ In progress. Think thats bad? D2X is 25MB PER PHOTO in Camera!!! I am only at 6MB/photo in camera).

[OreoCookie]

Don't use smart folders. If you talk about 14000 photos, then I suggest urgently that you take a look at apps like iViewMedia Pro or Cumulus and the likes. I use iViewMedia Pro, my largest library contained about 16000 photos (I brought it down to 12000) and it handles everything gracefully even on old machines like a TiBook 667 (with QE) or my iBook G3 800. I can't say anything for the others. But you can manage the files in folders, reorganize them as you see fit. You can even organize the photos `offline' (working within the catalog).

So, don't bother with the Finder anymore, get a profession application to do the job (especially since you mention RAW files). BTW, iView handles RAW files just fine, and my guesstimate is that the others do so, too. It requires you to have Nikon's RAW reader installed (so it can use the libraries), I think. RAWs from my Olympus E-20 were read right `out of the box'.