A solid foundation for any photographer...
This book was recommended by several people before I purchased it. I thought I had a good grip on my archiving and management system...I was wrong.
This book is a tad dated now but its principles are still standing strong.
I would recommend this to anyone who is making images.
Fashion Photographer David Paul Larson
[...]
good ideas, but specifics are dated
Overall, this is a good book that thoroughly covers all the essentials of putting together a system and practices to organize and preserve your photo collection.
On the hardware side, he shows excessively expensive harddrive setups, when 2TB Western Digital MyBooks are dropping under $500. (Such statements are always relative to the date they're made -- 18 months from now that might be 4TB for $400.) I do agree with some comments he makes about RAID not being such a hot idea. The increasing size of individual drives is making the time it takes to reconstruct a failed drive in a RAID configuration reach absurd levels. When it took five or more drives to assemble 1TB, RAID seemed pretty clever. It's time has passed.
On the software side, he pushes Bridge plus iView MediaPro. That may have been the hot setup when the book was published, but Lightroom is gaining converts at a high rate. A 2nd edition revised to center on Lightroom would be good. At the very least, he'd need to explain exactly what Bridge + iView MediaPro can do that Lightroom can't and why it matters. I believe Lightroom alone offers a much less convoluted system then that combination.
Finally, for a book whose entire point is organizing and preserving photos, it has a curious hole. If your photo archive is all of your family's pictures, as opposed to a wedding photography business, how do you ensure it will outlive you? He makes a few remarks about how having things well organized will make it easier for your family, but that's it. Thinking about such things proves I'm getting to be an old fart, but it strikes me as a major omission in a book on this subject.
My criticisms shouldn't detract from my original statement -- it's overall a good book. Even if I don't follow his exact hardware and software recommendations, he made me think through whether my combination was completely sound. I've changed how I was doing some things, and changed some of my ideas about what I plan to do in the future, as a result. It's the best and most thorough book on the subject available to date.
Confused about managing your photo collection? Start here.
If you're an amateur or a professional getting into digital photography you need to sit down and read a book like this. Managing your photographs (your "assets") is necessary and it will help you find, print and publish your work.
This book isn't 100% up to date but the book's web site is a nice supplement with active discussions.
Great Book
This is a must-have book for photographers who are amassing a large collection of photos.
I needed to read it 2 times before getting a feel for how to impliment it.
Great strategies and it has now changed my workflow completely and for the better
Money very well spent (although it cost me many thousands more since I also updated my computer, server, and softward to impliment this)
Regards, Dean
Organization!
This is a good book. It is very helpful in determining how to organize photographs. It also is a give a good review of Bridge. It would be nice for the book to be up dated to cover CS3.
(62 reviews)
