Need help navigating image archiving software?

I know we're supposed to be discussing Bridge here, but the simple fact is that many folks don't use Adobe products and yet still need to find a way to archive a large collection of image assets. More critically, perhaps, Bridge as we know all too well is a browser program and for truly effective image archiving we should be using a database program. (Money, money, money.)

So, if you're keen on finding just the right database program to organize your images, where to turn?

There are few resources today that provide a broad, up-to-date look at DB programs available to help you sort and archive images. One that I've recently discovered is an incredible print magazine called c't Digital Photography. affiliated with Rocky Nook Publications in the US, the magazine is in fact printed and published in Germany, and is also available in a cool app for the tablet. The magazine is in a large format, feels solid, looks professional, id in English and comes with a free cd of tutorial files and demo software (something that has pretty much gone away here in US magazines).

In the Fall 2012 issue (no. 9) one of the feature articles is called "Organize your Photos," and covers a wide assortment of database archiving software. Using tables, charts and wonderful illustrations, the article, deftly written by Sascha Steinhoff, discusses everything from "Database Basics" to "File Import and Management," and "All about Metadata."

The really important part of this very long article comes, of course, near the end: "Image Database Software Test Results," where the author nicely lays out in two easy-to-read tables, "Image Database Software for Network and Multi-User Environments" and another table for "Single-User Environments."

Finally, there is a page-by-page look at each of the major programs discussed, with key information and handy screen shots.

Anyway, I subscribe now. For more information check them out online. Oh, and their magazine app is tres cool.

Using Bridge CS6 - an update to my Guide to Using Bridge

Well, this isn't really an update because little has changed in Bridge with CS6. I recently "bit the bullet" and now subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud, which gives me basically the entire Master Collection as well as 20 gigabytes of space on the cloud; all for one reasonably low monthly fee.

After testing the newest iteration of Bridge I can safely say that nothing warrants an update to my print guide. The interface looks virtually the same and there are no new features.

But there is one thing worth noting in Photoshop CS6.

For the past several versions of CS, Photoshop has always had two small icons in the upper left portion of the main menu bar to allow the user to switch back to Bridge or MiniBridge with a simple click.

No more.

With CS6 you can only access Bridge from either the File menu or with a keyboard shortcut: "Option+Command+O." The same is true of MiniBridge, but no keyboard short, only a panel that can be docked.

Does this mean that Bridge is going away? One can only wonder. . . 

Using Home Movie Depot and ScanCafe to transfer movies and tapes

This may be a bit off point but I'm going to post this anyway since I feel it bears some relevance to archiving photos.

I recently used Home Movie Depot to transfer old Hi-8 videotapes to a digital format that I can use to edit and archive along with my photos.

The online process was pretty simple: you choose the services you wish to purchase (in my case a straightforward video-digital transfer), make your payment and then ship the tapes off. That's it. They return the original media with the DVDs.

The turnaround time was impressive: in less than two weeks I had my original tapes and the new DVDs. Unfortunately, I discovered that half of the movies suffered from out-of-synch video and sound. I attempted to contact Home Movie Depot and it took a week before I could get through to someone in customer support.

The woman I spoke with was honest with me: they had a problem with "a setting" used during the transfer process of numerous movies and if I would send back the discs and the tapes they would redo everything.

Which they did. And mailed the original tapes and discs back to me soon afterwards.

I have also used ScanCafe as a test run form work. The idea was to see how well they handled the transfer of a series of different formats, but particularly slides. I also included medium-format negatives and prints as well.

Straight off I should warn you it took more than 3 months to transfer less than a hundred items. And they outsource to Bangalore. And their customer service was often unresponsive and certainly difficult to track down.

I would say that you should use ScanCafe at your own risk.

Sharing collections in Bridge?

"Bridge Booster" claims that we can now share collections, at least in the latest iteration of Bridge.

Here's his comment on an earlier post here:

You can share regular Collections in CS5 for images stored on a server that other users have access to. You can just copy the .filelist file from /Users/username/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Bridge CS5/Collections and paste it into the other users Collections folder and relaunch Bridge. This will not work for local files. Please note that there is a bug in CS5 Collections where any file names or folder names that use an apostrophe will cause the Collection to not list any files after that file. If you search on the Adobe forums you can find a script to fix the Collections file and replace the apostrophes with the proper characters (%20 I think).

So far I haven't been able to test this out yet -- can anyone confirm this?

DO NOT UPGRADE TO BRIDGE CS6

OK, sorry for the uppercase scream in the title but Ive recently upgraded to CS6 and learned that the latest iteration of Bridge has at least one VERY SERIOUS bug buried in the program's bowels.

When indexing a folder, in this case a mixture of 793 jpgs and tiffs, the program extracts all the existing metadata (keywords and the like) but appears to hang up with extracting the thumbs and apparently the previews as well.

In the lower left corner of the program where the number of items and extracting progress is found, the item numbers shows up but the extracting process is interminable. By that I mean that the number of thumb extractions decreases but  before finishing goes back up again, then down and then back up and so on. And if you try to resize the window during this process it will happen with a larger swing in number differentiation.

Note that the settings and preferences are the same used in CS4 and CS5.

I googled the issue and sure enough this problem has been identified on the Adobe forum site (http://forums.adobe.com/message/4500258) but there doesn't appear to be any clear-cut answer at this point --  it is a cross-platform issue as well.

If anyone has an answer or possible solution please let me know and I'll post it for them right here.

Final note: there doesn't appear to be any reason to upgrade to Bridge CS6 anyway, no cool new feature or enhancement (such as easily sharable collections) worth the hassle.

One final note, and a curious one as well: the Bridge and Mini Bridge icons are missing from Photoshop CS6. Coincidence? I hope so. . .

Cache workaround if you have to update/upgrade Bridge

Upgrading your present version of Bridge will require a completely new cache for your image library. (Indeed, each version of Bridge is cache specific.) If you need the latest version of Bridge to help keep up with your design teams but don't want to have to completely reindex your image library there is one reliable workaround: Don't do it.

OK, what I mean is keep your "old" version of Bridge and use that for all your searching needs -- you're already indexed. After all, the latest version probably won't make a significant difference for searching. You can still upgrade, of course, just don't overwrite your old copy of Bridge.

That way you can take your time and grow the next copy of your cache with the latest version, at your own pace -- if you wish.

Error, bug or server glitch?

It's been too long since I posted an update about our central image library but things have been going well and I suppose I didn't want to jinx that. We're at nearly 160k (that's 160,000) photos archived using Bridge and so far, so good.

Well, OK, all is not perfect in the Emerald City,  at least in respect to one machine in particular, a Windows PC running Bridge CS5.1.

Lately I've notice an odd behavior occurring on this particular Windows machine: when I save a search by creating a collection of images (~5k), and then return to review the collection later, once it completes building criteria and I start sorting through the collection, duplicate thumbs and filenames appear, first a few and then hundreds.

Mind you, this phenomenon is machine-specific only and does not seem to affect copying files to another folder; it does not actually create duplicate files in the image library (housed on a separate server).

Anyway, if I click out of the collection and then back in the phenomenon is gone; the collection has returned to its normal state. (Or what passes for normal in Bridge).

Odd? It's not so much the frustration that arises when I try and use the collection for sorting, etc., but the concern that something is going on deep inside Bridge's bowels (not a pleasant image either) that may be causing unseen or unknown things to occur inside the image library.

Any ideas?