So, I made a slight modification to my photography workflow…nothing major, just found the right tool for the job. The new process only affects how I get my images from my flash cards to my PC. Sure, you could just copy them over…but then I have to manually:
- Rename files to my preffered naming scheme
- Apply copyright metadata
- Create a backup copy to another location
- Create a DNG copy to future-proof my RAW files
- Verify all images are not corrupt
- Sort the images by subject matter
It’s the perfect job for automation as the above can take hours.
I used to use an Adobe Photoshop action that I learned about from reading Peter Krough’s Digital Asset Management book. It was all right…a little tweaky to set up, but it just worked thereafter. It did the job…but I am always looking for something better.
In that light, I was crusing the DAM forums and learned of a new tool that Peter recommends – Image Ingester Pro. I downloaded the demo & paid for it in the same day, it was that good. Sure, it’s 3rd party and doesn’t integrate directly into Photoshop – but after thinking about it, I didn’t see why it needed to. There’s a free version too…but I wanted the pro version because it had enhanced metadata capability, image filtering and ingestion tracking built in. It’s also able to handle multi-camera shoots…something that I may need at some point in the future. The free version would certainly work for most newbies and amateurs…and likely most professional photographers.
After having run a couple thousand images through it, I can highly recommend Image Ingester Pro. I like how it breaks the backups into date based folders – this makes it a cakewalk to sort images into their context for my final image structure. I also like being confident that the images have been verified and the conversion to DNG being automated. Sure, it can take a litle while to tear through a large flash card when doing all the above…but the way I see it, I’ve tasked my CPU & ImageIngester with the labor while I can kick back and do other things. I like it.
So, check it out…play around with the free version. I can almost guarantee you’ll like it!
