Kayakers near the mouth of the Connecticut River in Old Lyme, Connecticut.

Last week, I wrote about the procedures I follow for getting RAW files from my camera edited, captioned, and processed into Tiff files. (See Ah Workflow...Part 1.)

Today's article deals with how we manage these tiff files once we decide to add them to our collection of marketable stock.  For me the great thing about this part of our workflow is that a lot of it happens without me doing anything as Marcy handles some of the work and we outsource most of the rest.

For managing our image database, we use Extensis Portfolio (you can download a demo version at extensis.com.  Another popular program is iVue Media Pro.)  In Portfolio, you work with "catalogs" for keeping track of where images are on your hard drive(s) (or removable media), updating metadata, tracking submissions, etc.  We have set up two catalogs.   The first catalog (which we call the EcoPhotography Main Catalog) contains all of our images that our fully captioned, keyworded, and tweaked in Photoshop.  All the images in this Main catalog are ready to be sent out to clients as is.  The second catalog is our "Production" catalog, which we call (not surprisingly) the EcoPhotography Production Catalog.  It contains images that are in tiff format, but still need to be keyworded and tweaked in Photoshop.

One of the benefits of using a program like Portfolio is that it is much easier to keep track of images and move them around than it is by using Adobe Bridge or the windows explorer or Apple Finder.  You can also view like images side by side in Portfolio even if they are not stored in the same place on your hard drive.  Once an image is added into a Portfolio catalog, you can basically forget where it is physically stored because Portfolio remembers that for you.


After sunset on the Connecticut River in Old Lyme, Connecticut.

O.K., so here are the steps we go through to take a batch of new images from just created Tiff file to a file that is ready to send out to clients and/or stock houses:

1) From within our Production catalog, we add a new batch of images to the catalog and have Portfolio move them to our "Images in Production" folder on our hard drive.
2) Using Custom fields in Portfolio, these new images are marked as not keyworded and not processed in Photoshop.  Using somegthing called "Smart Galleries", we have set up the Production catalog so that we just have to click on one button to find all images that need keywording and/or Photoshop tweaking.
3) Images just added to the production catalog are first opened in Photoshop and any dust spots, scratches, etc. are cleaned up (most of this is done by our part time "photoshoppers". )  If images need any advanced Photoshop work, that is done next. Once an image is cleaned-up, it is marked as cleaned-up.
4) Once the image files are visually perfect, they are then sent out to be keyworded.  We use the folks at www.keywords-to-go.com to do this, and they do an amazing job. Once an image is keyworded, it is marked as keyworded.
5) When images are cleaned-up, tweaked, and keyworded, they are ready to be added to the EcoPhotography Main Catalog.  To do this we first move the files (using the Item - Original - Move command in Portfolio) to a folder we call "Ready to Add to Main."  Then we open the Main Catalog and add all files from this Ready to Add folder.
6) Once new images are added to the Main catalog they are ready to be sent out to our website, stock agencies, and to clients to fulfill requests. 
7) We have created custom fields in the Main catalog that we use to track whether or not a specific image has been uploaded to our website or submitted to our various stock agencies.  Using these custom fields, we know if a specific image has been submitted to a specific agency, whether or not that image was accepted by that agency, and whether or not that image is exclusive to that agency.  Using the Smart Gallery feature, finding new images that have yet to be submitted to agencies or uploaded to our website can be found with the clik of one button.  In a catalog of 8,000+ images, this is a very handy feature.
8) Images that are chosen to go on on our website or to agencies are sent one of three ways: uploaded via FTP, sent on CD/DVD, or sent on portable hard drives.  With Portfolio's features for managing metadata, tracking file locations, and tracking submissions, it is relatively easy to maintain a large collection of digital images that are sent out to numerous clients and stock outlets.

I know some of this is probably confusing if you're not familiar with Portfolio, so feel free to write with questions about the specifics.  Extensis does offer a great document on their website for setting up your catalogs, called the Portfolio Best Practices Guide.  It's worth a download and a read before you start using Portfolio.  Also download their Portfolio User Guide.

That's all for now.

-Jerry

        

 

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