So I've been following the development of digital darkroom software and hardware reasonably closely, but only recently have started getting 'seriously' back into it.
And have discovered that there are three key 'accessories' to the digital darkroom workflow that I'm finding essential.
Image acquisition and importing
I use Adobe Lightroom, and love it. Getting images onto my drives and into lightroom is one of the less-than-exciting parts, usually consisting of me trying to find the USB cable, connect the camera and then launch the import process manually.
- Tell the Eye-Fi share to automatically upload images to a specific folder that is to be 'watched' by Adobe Lightroom
- Tell Adobe Lightroom to monitor a folder for changes -- 'watch' the folder
- When lightroom notices new images in the watched folder, it moves them to a management folder, and then imports them into the catelog for me, automagically.
Here's how this works for me.
The next time I return with a SD card (the Eye-Fi) full of images, I simply turn the camera on. The card logs into my Wi-Fi network and begins copying files --to my flickr account (a hidden and private set until I get around to editing), and to my Watched folder on my system.
Then, when I want to work with the images, maybe later that day, maybe next week, all I do is launch Adobe Lightroom and the files migrate into the catalogue, ready for me to work with.
Maybe you're fine with doing fine and detailed work with a high-tech hockey puck, but I'm not. I tend to prefer a tablet and stylus - and the one that works in my digital darkroom is the Wacom Bamboo.
The Bamboo acts like a very fine mouse, and using the stylus for fine image manipulation is much more natural than wielding that hockey puck.
Wacom has updated the Bamboo since I bought mine, and I'm tempted to upgrade too -- they now incorporate multi-touch!
Most digital editing software and operating systems can utilize tablets like these, and once you get used to them, you'll find they're a great addition to your digital darkroom.
And, a bonus, with a very thin rubber mouse mat, it makes an excellent mousing surface.
Last, and not least
Ok, you've invested a huge amount of time, skill and money into acquiring and editing your photos. They're sitting there on your computer or server, and now what. Backup them up before something happens and you lose 'em!
The easiest backup solution I've seen recently is really one of the Clickfree drives or Transformer cables -- if you've already got a spare USB drive or two kicking around.
It really is a fire-and-forget backup process:
- Plug it into the USB port of a computer to be backed up
- Let the software start
- Tweak the directory structure if needed
- Start the backup
And now, you have a copy of your hard work. In my case, I have a couple of USB drives that I alternate using. One is stored offsite and the other is my 'in-use' backup. Once I finish the backup, the in-use goes off site, and the off-site comes back to be used again. The Transformer cable works great for this -- and it always ensures you have one copy of your data stored away from home, should something bad happen to you system.
Ok all you digital shooter, what have I missed that's an essential part of your digital darkroom? Share it in the comments!
