If you save settings as .xmp’s, they’re available as separate files, but you have to manage them. (If you use the File Browser, you can set it to keep the xmp’s with the image files, including doing batch renaming.)
If you save settings in the ACR databse, they’re indexed by image content, so the settings will always get associated with the right images, but if you burn a CD or move the images to another machine, the settings won’t go with them.
I usually save to xmp’s because while it’s slightly more work, it offers much more flexibility.
Curious:
in Database, why wont the setting go with the files once they leave a machine? Seems a bit odd.
If you use database, you can always still remove all your changes and work with the original RAW file correct? or not?
Anyway, I’m tending towards xmp’s, but what does that mean, you have to manage them? you mean you have to make sure, if you rename, they come along for the voyage and don’t get lost in the shuffle?
I use iview media to look at images by the way. I find it much faster than PS file browser. Renaming and thumbnail propagation is so much faster — I wish it wasn’t so. I suppose I will have to contact them as well about these details.
–> in Database, why wont the setting go with the files once they leave a machine?
Because all the settings are stored in the Camera Raw database. If you copy your Camera Raw database to a different machine, it will overwrite the Camera Raw database there, so any settings that were stored on the second machine will get lost. And of course, you’d likely be copying a bunch of settings for images that you aren’t moving to the second machine.
–>If you use database, you can always still remove all your changes and work with the original RAW file correct? or not?
You can do that withe either method, .xmp’s or the database.
–>you mean you have to make sure, if you rename, they come along for the voyage and don’t get lost in the shuffle?
Yes. Basically, as long as you
a) include the extension as the last element when you do batch renaming, and
b) set the File Browser Preferences to "Keep Sidecar Files with Master Files"
it all happens automatically.
My experience has been that if I let FB finish caching the information (thumbs, previews, metadata) before I start working with it, it’s no slower than iView, and a great deal more flexible in that it lets me apply Camera Raw settings to multiple images, and quickly select source files for Batch operations. If you don’t let it finish caching, or, even worse, allow background processing, it’s truly agonizing.
Bruce-
Agonizingly slow allowing background processing even with your new DP G5? That surprises me. I would think it would fly.
Agonizingly slow even with my no-longer-terribly-new DP G5!
But it’s pretty quick at building the cacheabout two minutes for a 620MB folder with 100 rawsit’s definitely worth waiting. I can do email, web surfing, word processing etc. while it’s working in the background, but it’s not fun trying to work in either Photoshop or the File Browser until it’s done.
Faster drives would probably helponce I’m out of book hell I plan on striping the two internal SATA drives into an array.
All of us waiting will also be happy when you are out of book hell! And I will be interested to hear how the RAID project goes too.
Jeff Schewe striped the internal drives on his G5 and got 190% of the throughput of the same drives unstriped.
I’ve been putting it off because I’ll have to erase both drives and create a startup partition on the larger one, leaving two equal-sized partitions for striping, and I just don’t have time to undertake something like that until I’ve finished the Camera raw book and the update on the color management book…
Couple of quick things:
Does the cache build automatically, or do you have to select for that each and every time? In other words you have a lot of Raws up in file browser, and if you build a cache things will work fast, but if you do not you are in PS browser hell? Why does i view not need this cache to work as fast as it does?
"Faster drives would probably helponce I’m out of book hell I plan on striping the two internal SATA drives into an array. "……striped the internal drives on his G5 and got 190% of the throughput of the same drives unstriped. "
What does this mean "striping internal drives"?
From my understanding, most internal drives are at 7,500 rpm, and you can go to 10,000 but they produce a lot of heat. I been looking into getting fast drives since I’m thinking of getting a G5, so when I think of fast drives, I’m looking at that rpm number. "stiping drives", have not heard of that. You are saying, that if you were to get a G5 today, you would get several internal hard drives (specifically which models?) and then you would link them together as one? and that make the computer much faster? Please clarify. — (what about external over internal– any advantages?) In short if you were to get G5 today, what would be the ideal hardrive set up.
Also, curious, you have shot Raw+ jpeg. And you did this so you can Raws for your high end needs, but then can burn a cd of the 50 or so jpegs for the model to have. Is it possible at some point to just pull the jpegs only into the file browser, or do you always have to have the Raw, next to the jpegs, next to the xmps?
The cache builds automatically, and sticks around unless you have permissions problems.
For striping drives, do a Google search on RAID 0. RAID stand for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, but RAID 0 doesn’t actually use any redundancy. Basically, it combines two separate physical drives into a single volume, thereby doubling the number of read-write heads. There’s always some overhead, so you won’t get quite double the performance of a single drive, but SATA comes close.
I shoot raw only, not raw+JPEG. If you only wanted to work with the JPEGs, you could either
1.) Segregate the JPEGs from the raws prior to pointing the file browser at them or,
2.) In the File Browser, search for File Type – is – JPEG, then move the search results to a new folder.
