Catalogs and Master Photos

[rcdanek]

I'm new to ASP2. In reading the online documentation, I came across this...

"Your Library is where you store one or more catalogs of photos. It is a key part of the asset management system. It lets you access the master files (original photos) as well as all the versions that you create."

I had assumed that this meant that when importing photos, that they were copied into the catalog. I inferred this because of how the catalog function is described. So, to test this, I used an SD card, imported images from it into a catalog, and exited the program. Then, I removed the SD card and restarted ASP2. When I tried to access the photos. I could see thumbnails, but not the images. I assume this is how it's supposed to work. That is, master files are not stored in the catalog. The catalog only stored thumbnails and data about image manipulations. If master images are removed from the computer for some reason (like pulling an SD card), then there's nothing you can do in terms of image manipulation.

Is this correct? ...or have I somehow misused ASP2.

Along a similar line, I have a dual boot configuration. I primarily use Linux (Linux Lite, an Ubuntu flavor) and occasionally boot to Windows 8. I have ASP2 available there, too. I thought I might be able to share the same catalog that was created under Linux. Apparently, this is not so. (The catalog is stored on a separate NTFS drive.) The problem is that the Linux based ASP2 catalog makes no sense to the Windows based ASP2. At best, I could just use the File System mode.

Is this correct? ...or have I, again, somehow misused ASP2?

See, newbie questions.

[lathspell]

Concerning part 1, storing actual image data in a database:
Even if any software was offering this, I would always happily decline. Primarily because the idea of having a x00 GB or even x TB database after a few years makes me shiver, particularily when a database gets corrupted and is the only source for all previous images.

Therefore it is a good idea to not store the actual image data in the database but only links to the original files (which should find their permanent place somewhere on a harddrive or whatever storage) + information about all changes, versions, history etc.

[rcdanek]

Two points to make.

First, the write-up in the online document wasn't clear in describing the catalog function in terms of where photos actually end up. That was part of my inquiry. It actually states, "A catalog is a collection of photos and their associated image data." I could interpret "a collection of photos" to mean the master photos.

Second, I could see a situation where I might want to have the master photos stored in the catalog. I agree that over time this could lead to massive databases and that could be bad. But, if smaller catalogs (say, a month's worth of images) were created say, from SD cards, then moving catalogs around (like to a back drive) might be easier than having to move a catalog and a separate image directory and hoping that the links between the two are maintained.

Like I said, I'm new to this and there may be a way to move things about that maintains the proper links.

Thanks for the update,

RCD

[afx]

B5 used to have catalogs that stored images in the catalog. It was dropped because of many issues one of them mentioned in a previous post.

In general, being locked into one specify cataloging software is a recipe for disaster.

Store your images in a reasonable file system hierarchy and then have the catalog point to it.
make sure you have XMPs (and standard XMPs) for your images.

And check out moveable paths for your OS switching.

cheers
afx

[lathspell]

Like I said, I'm new to this ...

No problem, and no offence intended. As afx said, Bibble 5 (the predecessor of ASP) was capable of doing what you were expecting by the description of the catalogue functionality. I am a file-system-only user and have never used catalogues beside for testing purposes.

The good thing with the files being stored seperately is that you can process one raw with a variety of software products. If they were in a catalogue, software Y and Z simply wouldn't have acess to the catalogue of software X and so to the images. ASP (v1) is still my main raw converter but I also use i.e. RawTherapee, ACR and other programs ...