It's far easier to do it on your end, papa. But it depends, what software you use, if any, to process your pics.
If you don't photoshop them, or otherwise edit/touch your photos, then don't worry, be happy
I do very little re-touching...I use photo editing software primarily for cropping. I use Corel Photo Album mostly...sometimes Corel Paintshop XI if I need to do a bit more work. At first glance, the keyword tree in Photo Album does not appear to be near as flexible as SmugMug's tool.
Anyone "Dare to Compare"??? (Maybe I'm slamming Corel to harshly).
I would not be entirely opposed to keywording/captioning software (as opposed to photo editing) if it's a significant time-saver or big-step up from what I already get with SmugMugs bulk editor.
I've used ThumbsPlus, PhotoShop, Bridge and am about to install LightRoom.
Most of my experience, by far, was in ThumbsPlus, which is now a very dated product.
For me, the three primary advantages of ThumbsPlus are:
1. it creates a database of your keywords, which ensures consistency when you're entering keywords into subsequent pictures, whether today, tomorrow or a year from now.
2. I can create metadata sets, which can be recalled for a future set of images that would share the same metadata, e.g., copyright, location, photographer, keywords, caption, etc.
3. I have access to the full set of IPTC data fields, not just keywords and captions.
The above isn't important to a lot of people and I'm not saying it should be important to you. Find what you're comfortable with and stick to it. The fact that you're willing to assign keywords and create captions is much more than 95% of the rest of the world is willing to do.
I've used ThumbsPlus, PhotoShop, Bridge and am about to install LightRoom.
Most of my experience, by far, was in ThumbsPlus, which is now a very dated product.
For me, the three primary advantages of ThumbsPlus are:
1. it creates a database of your keywords, which ensures consistency when you're entering keywords into subsequent pictures, whether today, tomorrow or a year from now.
2. I can create metadata sets, which can be recalled for a future set of images that would share the same metadata, e.g., copyright, location, photographer, keywords, caption, etc.
3. I have access to the full set of IPTC data fields, not just keywords and captions.
The above isn't important to a lot of people and I'm not saying it should be important to you. Find what you're comfortable with and stick to it. The fact that you're willing to assign keywords and create captions is much more than 95% of the rest of the world is willing to do.
What was the defining feature of LightRoom for you?
I've used Bridge, DigitalPro, PS Elements 5, cam2pc, Irfanview, ExifPro, PicVue (may it rest in peace), and others for viewing and captioning/keywording.
I've worked with LightRoom in the last couple of weeks and am mightily impressed. I'm hoping that AlbumFetcher will work consistently (it has bailed out on a couple of my galleries) so that I can download my caption/keywood work in Smugmug; that way, we can have the best of both worlds.
THX - Dianne
What was the defining feature of LightRoom for you?
Hard to say as I had a love-hate relationship with one of the early Betas. I'm moving to an all RAW workflow and though I've been mostly pleased with the CS3/Bridge beta, I just wasn't getting processing fast enough. I'm hoping LightRoom will get me over the hump and now that it is folder-based instead of shoot-based, I can probably deal with it better.
Numbers as Keywords Does anyone have any experience or knowledge as to why SM does not display keywords that are short numbers?
My situation is having taken photos at a state chamionship football game, I have added keywords that include the player numbers that appear in the frame. I had hoped to make it easy for parents to filter by the keyword of the player number to see all the frames that they child appears in.
When I edit the keywords, SM did in fact import the keywords and allows me to edit them, but no luck on display and filtering by this. Thanks in advance for any insider knoweldge on the situation or possible fixes.
To answer my own question, SM help replied that I need to put the numbers in quotes for them to work. Plus, to search on small numbers you need to use their customized script discussed in another thread.
Comments
I do very little re-touching...I use photo editing software primarily for cropping. I use Corel Photo Album mostly...sometimes Corel Paintshop XI if I need to do a bit more work. At first glance, the keyword tree in Photo Album does not appear to be near as flexible as SmugMug's tool.
Anyone "Dare to Compare"??? (Maybe I'm slamming Corel to harshly).
I would not be entirely opposed to keywording/captioning software (as opposed to photo editing) if it's a significant time-saver or big-step up from what I already get with SmugMugs bulk editor.
Most of my experience, by far, was in ThumbsPlus, which is now a very dated product.
For me, the three primary advantages of ThumbsPlus are:
1. it creates a database of your keywords, which ensures consistency when you're entering keywords into subsequent pictures, whether today, tomorrow or a year from now.
2. I can create metadata sets, which can be recalled for a future set of images that would share the same metadata, e.g., copyright, location, photographer, keywords, caption, etc.
3. I have access to the full set of IPTC data fields, not just keywords and captions.
The above isn't important to a lot of people and I'm not saying it should be important to you. Find what you're comfortable with and stick to it. The fact that you're willing to assign keywords and create captions is much more than 95% of the rest of the world is willing to do.
What was the defining feature of LightRoom for you?
I've used Bridge, DigitalPro, PS Elements 5, cam2pc, Irfanview, ExifPro, PicVue (may it rest in peace), and others for viewing and captioning/keywording.
I've worked with LightRoom in the last couple of weeks and am mightily impressed. I'm hoping that AlbumFetcher will work consistently (it has bailed out on a couple of my galleries) so that I can download my caption/keywood work in Smugmug; that way, we can have the best of both worlds.
THX - Dianne
http://www.djea.smugmug.com
Hard to say as I had a love-hate relationship with one of the early Betas. I'm moving to an all RAW workflow and though I've been mostly pleased with the CS3/Bridge beta, I just wasn't getting processing fast enough. I'm hoping LightRoom will get me over the hump and now that it is folder-based instead of shoot-based, I can probably deal with it better.
Does anyone have any experience or knowledge as to why SM does not display keywords that are short numbers?
My situation is having taken photos at a state chamionship football game, I have added keywords that include the player numbers that appear in the frame. I had hoped to make it easy for parents to filter by the keyword of the player number to see all the frames that they child appears in.
When I edit the keywords, SM did in fact import the keywords and allows me to edit them, but no luck on display and filtering by this. Thanks in advance for any insider knoweldge on the situation or possible fixes.
Edit:
I have a few photos uploaded as a test/sample
http://gogetphotos.com/gallery/3863275#223723971