Photo Management?

[RusherRacing]

So I made the switch to a Macbook pro after a lifetime of using window's PC. I am struggling to figure out how to manage my photos. I have a couple hundred gigs of photos - went from a 1tb hard drive on my desktop windows desktop down to a 256gb. So I can't store all my photos on the mbpr. Also since all our families phones etc are apple it would be nice to have everything sync together and be able to access the storage of all photos.

Basically I would like a home server that stores all the photos, and backs up all our "devices".
Can this be accomplished with the time capsule? How do you select what photos are stored on each device? Will all the photos be backed up automatically? How would this work if I had a larger 1tb icloud account - I would prefer to stay away from this option due to cost?


Right now I just have photos but I am considering getting pixelmator and if needed for photo file management more than editing the adobe photo suite.

What do you do for large qty photo management on a mbpr with limited hard drive space?
I am sure this has been discussed many times before but I can't seem to find a thread on it.

Ryan

 

[Apple fanboy]

So I made the switch to a Macbook pro after a lifetime of using window's PC. I am struggling to figure out how to manage my photos. I have a couple hundred gigs of photos - went from a 1tb hard drive on my desktop windows desktop down to a 256gb. So I can't store all my photos on the mbpr. Also since all our families phones etc are apple it would be nice to have everything sync together and be able to access the storage of all photos.

Basically I would like a home server that stores all the photos, and backs up all our "devices".
Can this be accomplished with the time capsule? How do you select what photos are stored on each device? Will all the photos be backed up automatically? How would this work if I had a larger 1tb icloud account - I would prefer to stay away from this option due to cost?


Right now I just have photos but I am considering getting pixelmator and if needed for photo file management more than editing the adobe photo suite.

What do you do for large qty photo management on a mbpr with limited hard drive space?
I am sure this has been discussed many times before but I can't seem to find a thread on it.

Ryan

I don't use photos, but on its predecessor you could set up a photo stream. So photos you take on your iOS devices, appear on your Mac. Then you back up your Mac to a separate drive using TimeCapsule.

 

[phrehdd]

If you have a network that engages a router, you can possibly add a hard drive to the router or opt to purchase a NAS (network attached storage). The former can be problematic depending on the router. I prefer to put my media files on a NAS. All of the computers on my network have access to the NAS and I can also set permissions on the NAS for personal space as well as shared space (such as uploading photos and who gets to delete, rename etc.)

If a NAS is of interest, they can be moderately priced to very expensive. I would strongly suggest you look at the smallnetbuilder site. Given the usefulness of the NAS for more than just photo storage, you may want to consider something that would give you at least 2 tb of usable space and preferably 4 tb.

If you opt for an external hard drive on your router, make sure to read up on the router via any forums that are dedicated to the router and see how others have been successful or not with that combination.

If you are the only one who will handle the photos in their entirety, you could certainly opt for a DAS (directly attached storage) a la external drive or mutli-drive unit attached via USB, Firewire or Thunderbolt to your MAC (depends on which Mac you have).

Software - to each their own. Many here like to get a DAM (digital asset management) software that also does edits such as Lightroom, Aperture, Capture One Pro etc. The catch when using a NAS or drive attached to the router is to make sure that the NAS/drive is available first.* That is to say that which ever computer will use the software must first establish an active connection with the NAS/drive THEN open up the software for working with your photos. Nothing hard to do but an often necessary step.

As for NAS units - it seems that Synology is very popular among MAC users but there are other decent NAS units out there that you might prefer. As for drives attached to routers, just know that if the drive fails, you may lose all unless you make backups. Ideally you should have 3 copies of your data with one away from your home but most people get along with 2 copies but this is a topic unto itself as is using offsite storage such as any cloud service.

Whatever you decide to do, please share with us here.

 

[RusherRacing]

I will look into it tonight some more. One of the issues I am seeing is that with just photos it only has one library folder. So inorder to edit any photo from outside that folder you need to import it into photos first. Which would require it to be stored on my internal hard drive first.

It looks like I will have to get different software that better manages my photos.

As for price - I don't want to spend over $500. Would prefer around $200-$300. (Time Capsule - WD My Cloud and others including some synology).

 

[Ray2]

I assume if you went from a 1tb drive to 256gb you have an hdd and don't mind an hdd based solution??

You can load the images in folders on the external and "reference" them on near any photos software including Photos. There's an Igotcha with Photos with respect to referenced libraries and iCloud functionality. Read up on it (Apple Support doc for Photos) and see if you can live with it. Keeping in mind you can set up multiple libraries, referenced and managed. So if shared is a subset of total, just create a managed library for the iCloud portion.

We have multiple iOS devices. One Mac is the designated mother ship. When they are sync'd with iTunes they are backed up as well. That's where everything can be sync'd together or partially sync'd together. Easy to select what get's sync'd on each device, iTunes.

I assume you "access storage" you're referring to iOS devices and not multiple computers. If you want multiple computers to access your images, you need to "share" your Photo's libraries on the network. Other computers would access the "mothership Mac". I'm skipping this for now.

If you want a constant update of photos, iCloud. If not constant, iTunes. I'd start with iTunes and see how things go. You and your family will grow into what you want to do.

iTunes libraries can be share across a network as well. Anything on the main Mac can be made accessible via built-in Sharing routines (System Preferences, Sharing).

Pixelmator is a bit of Lightroom and a bit of Photoshop. If editing and simple management is limited to photography, Photos will get you by just fine. Once you know what limitations you need to address, you'll know what you need.

You will want to backup your Mac and the external containing the data and images on your external. Time capsule can do both. Its not transparent how to configure it to backup the external. Google is your friend. Another approach is: My son has an Oyen Digital miniPro RAID v2 configured to have 2 independent drives (JBOD). One drive is for data and media, the second to backup his Mac and the data/media drive (2 partitions). All via Time Machine. A less expensive approach.

Hopefully this is understandable.

 

[MCAsan]

I have TBs of images in my Lightroom CC catalog. No problem at all. With LR it is easy to use plugins as wanted: Photoshop, Nik collection, Topaz Labs, Perfect Photo Suite....etc.

 

[RusherRacing]

I did some research last night and it looks like any external hard drive plugged in through a decent wireless router and Adobe CC for photographers will get me what I want. I used to use photoshop and etc fairly regularly but not taking near the qty of photos and not nearly as serious as I was a few years ago but I have since defaulted to Picasa but that software is getting dated. $200+$120 a year isn't much when considering I was looking at $500 just for a good NAS system.

 

[MCAsan]

If you shoot landscapes, wait until you use the Dehaze tool in the Develop module of LR CC. It is one of the features only available via CC compared to the LR 6 version. Yep, compared to what Adobe used to charge for just Photoshop, the CC bundle is not bad at all. I got my subscription for just $99 via a special at B&H when LR CC/6 launched.

This is a very good site for LR and PS topics. http://www.lightroomforums.net/forum.php

 

[robgendreau]

Not trivial; running a family sharing set up like that is just as complex as running a small business—but at least with a business you could tell the other users what to do, unlike a family

I use a HDD attached to a Netgear R7000 router, USB 3. Love it. Thought of using a dedicated NAS, but I can move around the HDD on the router to perform various tasks, and so it's more versatile.

Without knowing what stuff everyone is using (mobile devices, computers, HDTVs, gaming consoles, etc), and what they wanna do with photos, it's tough to give specific advice. Do go to smallnetbuilder.com. I'd avoid a Time Capsule or Apple router; you need proprietary software to run them, and they are expensive vs the performance you get. And what backup works depends on what other devices you're backing up; impossible to say. One backup to rule them all can be a big pain to setup and maintain, unless you wanna be household IT dept.

I'd start with something really basic, an HD connected to a router. The workflow would be for each user to put pictures they wanna share there, and then everyone would have access. And back up all your devices as you have been, with maybe an external for that new Mac, or use something like the Netgear with Time Machine. You could have two partitions, like maybe one ExFat to share photos, one HFS+ for TM or for archiving just the photos.

Pixelmator is nice, but if you know Ps, definitely go for the Photography CC sub. It's a great bargain, and Lr works great.

Another thing to consider is Mylio. It can work in conjunction with Lr, and its core function is synching across devices, including other computers, NAS, externals, iOS devices. It does peer-to-peer over your LAN, and is free for up to three computers/mobiles, unlimited NAS, and something like 5k images. So it could work for just the shared images. Way more useful than Apple's options since it gives total control over what synchs and what doesn't. And it shares edits across devices, even using Lr's edits.

 

[Ray2]

If you shoot landscapes, wait until you use the Dehaze tool in the Develop module of LR CC. It is one of the features only available via CC

https://cutthruthefog.wordpress.com/lightroom-6-dehaze/
http://prolost.com/store/dehaze

Both free. Both for non-CC Lightroom. Agree, very effective and recommended for anyone on stand-alone. I prefer the ProLost presets. Fast and easy.

 

[Ray2]

I did some research last night and it looks like any external hard drive plugged in through a decent wireless router and Adobe CC for photographers will get me what I want. I used to use photoshop and etc fairly regularly but not taking near the qty of photos and not nearly as serious as I was a few years ago but I have since defaulted to Picasa but that software is getting dated. $200+$120 a year isn't much when considering I was looking at $500 just for a good NAS system.

Wait until your drive falls asleep, then let us know how well you like it. About 5 minutes should do it.

As another mentioned, you're about to enter a complex world.

 

[robgendreau]

Wait until your drive falls asleep, then let us know how well you like it. About 5 minutes should do it.

It? external drive?

 

[Ray2]

OP: "I did some research last night and it looks like any external hard drive plugged in through a decent wireless router"

Ray2: "your drive falls asleep"

Yes, external drive.

 

[MCAsan]

https://cutthruthefog.wordpress.com/lightroom-6-dehaze/
http://prolost.com/store/dehaze

Both free. Both for non-CC Lightroom. Agree, very effective and recommended for anyone on stand-alone. I prefer the ProLost presets. Fast and easy.

So was the official integrated tool in the Details section of Develop. I had already paid for my CC subscription and was not charged extra for any of the latest round of new features released on June 15.
http://www.adobe.com/products/photo...troom&ef_id=VdDE7wAAAV-xSapw:20150816171431:s

 

[Ray2]

So was the official integrated tool in the Details section of Develop. I had already paid for my CC subscription and was not charged extra for any of the latest round of new features released on June 15.
http://www.adobe.com/products/photo...troom&ef_id=VdDE7wAAAV-xSapw:20150816171431:s

No, you didn't get charged at all for CC. It's "free" every month for as long as you use it.

 

[MCAsan]

Oh, you got the same deal. Great.

 

[WabashSphinx]

So I made the switch to a Macbook pro after a lifetime of using window's PC. I am struggling to figure out how to manage my photos. I have a couple hundred gigs of photos - went from a 1tb hard drive on my desktop windows desktop down to a 256gb. So I can't store all my photos on the mbpr. Also since all our families phones etc are apple it would be nice to have everything sync together and be able to access the storage of all photos.

Basically I would like a home server that stores all the photos, and backs up all our "devices".
Can this be accomplished with the time capsule? How do you select what photos are stored on each device? Will all the photos be backed up automatically? How would this work if I had a larger 1tb icloud account - I would prefer to stay away from this option due to cost?


Right now I just have photos but I am considering getting pixelmator and if needed for photo file management more than editing the adobe photo suite.

What do you do for large qty photo management on a mbpr with limited hard drive space?
I am sure this has been discussed many times before but I can't seem to find a thread on it.

Ryan

For organization, I like Aperture, which took me a while to structure to my multiple needs, but once I got there, I've found it indispensable. But, Apple has discontinued support--please Apple--sell Aperture to someone who will move on! Down the road, I'll have to find a replacement, but I like it's handling of metadata and mapping as well as multi-level organizational tools.

I use a Drobo for primary photo storage for my Mac. However, Drobo makes versions that will serve multiple computers from either a wifi network or connected to a computer acting as a server. Someone mentioned drives going to sleep. I'm not sure if that's an issue with the network Drobo, but it's worth a look. I use Dropbox Pro to share pics but you won't be able to share your whole 1 TB unless others want to pay for just as much storage. Dropbox does work well with sharing and multiple individuals contributing to the same sharing folders on this limited basis.

 

[Miltz]

So I made the switch to a Macbook pro after a lifetime of using window's PC. I am struggling to figure out how to manage my photos. I have a couple hundred gigs of photos - went from a 1tb hard drive on my desktop windows desktop down to a 256gb. So I can't store all my photos on the mbpr. Also since all our families phones etc are apple it would be nice to have everything sync together and be able to access the storage of all photos.

Basically I would like a home server that stores all the photos, and backs up all our "devices".
Can this be accomplished with the time capsule? How do you select what photos are stored on each device? Will all the photos be backed up automatically? How would this work if I had a larger 1tb icloud account - I would prefer to stay away from this option due to cost?


Right now I just have photos but I am considering getting pixelmator and if needed for photo file management more than editing the adobe photo suite.

What do you do for large qty photo management on a mbpr with limited hard drive space?
I am sure this has been discussed many times before but I can't seem to find a thread on it.

Ryan

Well now this sounds familiar. I have a VERY similar issue when I went from Windows 7 to OSX a few months ago. My end result was going back to Windows 7 as my main machine. I found OSX took to much control over my files and was harder to use. ( I know, sounds crazy ) I went back to Windows 7 and I've been even happier using it after struggling for a month with OSX.

 

[kenoh]

I have the same issues. If I ever get time I will smooth this out as it is clunky as hell. I have Windows machines and Mac hardware in the house. For example, iMac in the kitchen for my daughters. They have iPads, my wife has an iPhone but an Android tablet and a windows laptop. I have a work Windows laptop and Surface Pro plus my own Macbook Pro with android phone and tablet. Every socket in our house has some form of charger hanging out of it!

I take photos and PP on both my 2010 Macbook Pro and Surface Pro. The latter only when out and about and want to post before getting back home. So I ignore that one mainly - would love to get it to share my overall catalog but hey ho.

I have a Synology unit with 2x3TB mirrored drives. These then have a 3TB USB3.0 external drive hanging off it.

Every Monday morning, the external drive backs up the Synology contents to itself.

I have been shooting for around 2-3 years now and I am creating between 100-150 GB of images a year so I have about 2 years left before I need to think about a new setup. Unless I buy a new Sony A7Rii in which case each image is 120MB!!!

I also use the Synology for Time Machine AND windows backups.

I use Lightroom+every plug in under the sun it feels and Photoshop for processing.

Previously I used Aperture. To do that I had to create a Mac disk image on the Synology and then mount that prior to every time I wanted to go into Aperture. This of course meant only the Macs could see the library and it was a bit of a bind after a while.

The Synology has an application on it called PhotoStation. I publish photos from Lightroom into the PhotoStation app and then all of the family can see the photos that are published. They can then download what they want to keep on their phones - they dont take their own pictures that they want to keep.

Messy but works for me right now. I think I need to consider a newer setup with faster network links as importing and loading into Develop module beginning to get on my nerves.