A Photo Phun Weekend

[madshutterbug]

As singingnettle recently commented (though possibly in her guise as singingpixel), there is a certain amount of "skut" work involved in most occupations, passions, pass-times, hobbies, What-Ever! This weekend is one for me, and despite it being skut work I'm fairly satisfied with progress.

I am cataloging images.

Specifically, I am also trialing a share-ware copy of ACDSee, a Micro-Shaft Windrs application which provides for cataloging (category, keywords, notes, title or caption), as well as displaying other information/data of significance to a photographer though not necessarily to other viewers. I'd previously tried a not-quite share-ware version of Adobe's Photoshop Elements (it came with the CD with my Wacom Tablet, a handy little tool for working with digital imagery). And just like singingpixel) (though possibly in her guise as singingnettle), discovered that Adobe's decision to use a Micro Shaft Access data-base engine in the background created a most annoying limitation to the process, to whit, somewhere between 30,000 and 70,000 (don't recall the exact number) images cataloged, the database seizes and will no longer allow access to the data.

This may or may not be a problem for a casual photographer. For those of us who've become addicted enamoured of capturing light on sensitive surfaces, though, it is a problem. I've a 40 plus year accumulation of images in film and digital formats, it's a rather active history for those 40 years (there is one gap of about five years when I did little photography... not zero, but little), and there are Significantly More Than 70,000 images in my library as it were.

Ah, well, the biggest aggravation of that prior seizure is that the work done cataloging is lost.

Now, ACDSee is similar to Photoshop Elements in these ways:

• It will record catalog data for images


• There are fields for Category, Keywords, Caption(Title), Author, and Notes


• There is an image editing package included (not quite the full capabilities of say Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro)

It is unlike Elements in these ways:

• At least in the share-ware version, I am unable to create 'top-level' categories, though apparently no limits in the number of sub-category creation


• I am unsure what database engine is being used for the database work

Still, there's a great deal of sloggin' goin' on.

Nonetheless, this process is necessary. An example is that during this process, I've found three more images of the Studio 318 refurbishment project. Might include them by editing that entry, might skip it, but include them in a future version of that photo-essay. It's also facilitating collecting information in one place regarding the images I use for my LJ Icons, since I think it would be nice to do a photo-essay about those one of these days as well. Little things, like the image used for this particular entry's icon is courtesy of singingnettle in her guise as singingpixel, or is that the other way around?

Meanwhile, I'm procrastinating on going out for morning Ranch Rounds. Need to feed everyone and do head-counts. I've the Ranch Watch this weekend as Herself is off to Trimaris' Coronation.

Comments

[kalilove.livejournal.com]

good luck with the cataloging. I spent 2 yrs of my life re-re-re-cataloging photographs and I very much understand what you are going though.

[bordercolliebrs.livejournal.com]

It's really very boring. I know Herding, but I don't understand this kind of Herding.
*sigh
Houdini
::wags tail across Boss' feet

[singingnettle.livejournal.com]

Eh, most people know I'm both singingnettle and singingpixel. I use them sort of interchangeably on LJ.

You can fool Elements by having catalogs of no more than about 9,000 items each, but I don't know if it hits a limit of total number of items even if they're in different catalogs.

Does your app let you stack photos into groups? I find that immensely useful.

[madshutterbug.livejournal.com]

Yup, the groups are called Categories. There are four basic: Albums, People, Places, Various. Can't make any more at this level, but can make as many underneath them as... well, haven't found a limit yet. And images may be in more than one Category or Sub-Category. Likewise, I find that helpful.

I haven't done much with the editing software part; as you know I prefer Photoshop. Well, it doesn't hurt that I could get it at a discount price. *G*

I think that work-around in Elements will keep away from the limits bug; I suspect (but am not positive) that each Catalog in Elements represents a new instance of the basic database. I'd already started working in that direction before it locked up on the first Catalog (the default) I'd started. What aggravated me is that there's no way to get back into that default Catalog. As you know, that represents a fair amount of work. Not the imagery part (that's unaffected), but the background info.

[singingnettle.livejournal.com]

Oh yah, that's a "fair amount of work." Like, in my case, about two years' worth.

[madshutterbug.livejournal.com]

Must admit I don't recall how much time span the cataloged work covered; nor do I now recall how much time I spent working with Elements. Several months, I'm sure. What I am most annoyed about is that even though I did have secondary catalogs started, since it froze trying to open the 'default' catalog, I couldn't get to those secondary catalogs anymore.

Major design flaw. Major.

[singingnettle.livejournal.com]

That's some seriously bad programming.