Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers - Martin Evening [76]
When you have finished shooting in tethered mode, you will either need to move the files from the watched folder and place them elsewhere, or rename the folder. The main thing to be aware of here is that every time you start a new shoot, you will either want to choose a new job folder to download the photos to, or move the files from this folder to a new location and make sure that the watched folder you are linking to has been emptied. Of course, you could always create an Automator workflow action (Mac) or VB script (Windows PC) that allowed you to press a button to do the transfer and clearing of the watched folder.
Importing images via other programs
Figure 3.8 highlights some of the various methods that can be used for importing images. There is no one program that can do everything perfectly, but of these, I would say that Capture One is the only program capable of ticking all the essential boxes (as long as your camera is supported). ImageIngester is a great little utility that can provide a fast and robust import workflow and the standard version for Mac and PC is currently available as a demo version. One of the plus points about ImageIngester is that the newest version allows you to download from up to eight cards simultaneously. It can also provide raw file verification, apply default Camera Raw settings and incorporate GPS tagging.
Figure 3.8 In this table I have compared the features that are available when using some of the various different methods for importing camera images into the computer. As you can see, there is no one perfect solution out there that will let you do everything. The latest public beta version of Lightroom 3 does now include the ability to shoot tethered, but does not provide as extensive support or as many options as other methods of tethered shooting.
ImageIngester™ program
The ImageIngester™ program designed by Marc Rochkind is aimed at photographers who shoot raw files, and who need to ingest hundreds of images from a typical shoot. You can download the ImageIngester program demo from the following link: www.basepath.com/ImageIngester/ .
Ever since Adobe Photoshop Lightroom made its first appearance, I have been using it in the studio and on location to import images from cards as well as when shooting in tethered mode. In fact, I have now stopped using Bridge completely at the import stage. With this in mind I thought I should show you how I use Lightroom to import new photos into the computer. It would be less than honest of me to pretend otherwise, but I should mention that I do still use Bridge for various other browsing tasks. For example, it would be difficult to manage a project such as this without using Bridge to manage the files that are used in the book.
Lightroom imports
One of the main reasons I have adopted Lightroom as my program of choice for importing and managing photos is because I need a program that is dedicated to the management of images. With Lightroom, photos have to be explicitly imported into the Lightroom catalog before you can work on them, but once they are there, they are easier to manage and retrieve when needed. With Bridge you do have the immediacy of being able to browse the entire contents of your computer, but the trade-off here is that because you can browse everything, this doesn't always make it so easy to locate the photos you are specifically looking for.
Bridge versus Lightroom
The main thing to note here is that Bridge is a file browser, while Lightroom is a dedicated cataloging program. The times that I find Bridge most useful are when I am working on a project like this book and have hundreds of files to manage that are stored in specific book folders. The times where I find Lightroom