OK, I am slow to get things moving. I purchased LR1 when it was released. Evaluated several other programs including PM. I have many very good photos and it has been slow going approaching getting everything ready to start selling pictures. Now that I have lived with LR 1 for a while and my interest in photography has gone from front to back burner and back again, I have a little better idea of what works for me, but not much.
I am considering now if I really need to upgrade to LR2 or to change directions with what I am now making use of. I am wondering if I Need to learn to make better use of what I have (upgrade to LR2), switch paradigms entirely (Bibble Pro), or enhance my current methods (adding PM to the mix)
First, I am not one of those folks that organizes easily. The organization of lots of photos has to make sense to me visually, not so much logically. I would say I have in the hundreds of photos right now. I still have my first camera and RAW is beyond what it does - for now. Once I take this next step I plan on evaluating a 4/3s system and RAW and professional studio shots as well. Everything now is from nature and wildlife.
I have also done a very sloppy job of making backups so I have to go through all my pics on all my drives, check for oldest dates and make a proper archive. Then I have to go in and tweak what I want to have for my pics so they all finally make sense to me as to what I actually have that is in salable condition.
Today I am using LR1 to select a few dozen more of my best shots to add to my portfolio. I don't think LR1 will allow me to show one photo next to another one, it's grid view or single view only. And the bottom slide bar will openly go so big.
I have no ego invested in one solution over another. I only want to find something that makes sense to ME.
I see here in discussions that PM is still a good solution to go with LR2. I know already how LR1 organizes files. Can anyone comment about how or if LR2 makes file organization any easier than in LR1? I am especially interested in how PM organizes files and if any comparisons could contrast with how LR2 vs PM does it I would appreciate it.
LR1 has to import any photo that touches it, so any looking at images on the internet or quick views of a photo on my Mac doesn't really work in LR. Does PM allow me to manipulate ALL pictures on my Mac and my drives? Can I use PM to REALLY organize things to my liking? IT seems from what I have been reading that this is what PM does well.
Bibbble Pro was mentioned, I almost forgot about it. I remember it has noise ninja which would probably make it a more head to head product with LR1 or 2. But can anyone comment on BP and how it compares for cataloging with LR1 or 2? And PM and Bibble, do they play nice together?
And finally, I also purchased Lightzone. LZ has given me features I haven't found anywhere else but it really doesn't organize well. IT is more like Graphic Converter. IT shows a view of all my folders and I can click on a folder, but it wont show me any contents of nested folders.
There is an old out of date freeware program that I still use called GL image Browser. IT is what I use to scan for any picture file type anywhere in any directory or sub directory. Basically I want to find everything, do a quick side by side comparison of the IPTC data and the image view and start putting photos together as I want them to be. LR1 seems to do well organizing by levels once a file is already in LR1.
I hope all my questions have been clear enough for some good responses? Much thanks for any feedback.
I am still on Tiger on a 1.25 DP Mac. It works fine. I will upgrade to Intel and faster eventually but I would rather spend on a newer camera next.
