Deduping hints

[dogberry]

I have a very large number of photos, nearly all *.jpg (commercially digitized film) but including *.pcd (a Kodak format not supported by some freeware programs).

I want to dedupe them without losing hyperdata (typically the date the film was digitized, as well as details of the scanner), I want to separate personally edited shots from the 'originals' (very few if any), and I want to retain full films for sequencing purposes to the extent possible. Typically, I expect to replace ‘newer’ with ‘older’, other things being equal, as I want whichever is closest to the original.

I am loaded for bear in photo programs, both commercial and freeware, I have assorted means of deduping, but I would welcome tips and hints for others who may have done the same thing. To pick an example, I have a freeware program called Clonespy, and if any Lounger is familiar with it, I would be interested in hearing about it.

I am just asking about deduping and retaining data (lossless, to the extent possible). For sorting, I will use Lightroom 4. (I also have Corel AfterShot Pro, which I bought just before the price of Lightroom plummeted.)

Cameras are now a lot smarter at getting the photo right in the first place. If I take decent shots then Lightroom will catalogue them and polish them for me, which makes Photoshop an extravagance (although I have that too).

[Doc Brown]

Wow, there's a lot here to consider. I will say that I'm aware of only one or two photographers here. Most of the people on this forum are either techies or computer hobbyists. So you may not find the specific info you're looking for. You may want to post this on a photography oriented site.

For my part, I have been a Bibble (now called AfterShot Pro) user for many years. Bibble 5/AfterShot Pro is an excellent RAW conversion tool, but for asset management other programs are far better. It has too many weaknesses to be taken seriously as a DAM. I use ACDSee Pro 5 for DAM, file type conversions, and some light editing, but there are many others that are very good. You already have Lightroom, so I'd say to just stick with that. As far as deduping, I can't offer much advice. I've been keeping things well organized with ACDSee products for so long that I've never really had an issue with duplication of files.

As far as retaining metadata, I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying that you have directly edited some photos, lost the metadata and are trying to merge that from your duplicates? If so, this is something that AfterShot Pro does very well. Highlight an image, go to Edit/Copy Selective Image Settings, then select ITPC and Metadata from the options. Click OK, then click on the target image and press CTRL+V. I know of no software that can do this in bulk, making a one for one correlation, without writing some kind of complicated script.

[dogberry]

Thanks for the interest. I will let you know how I fare with the means I am using, and at present all appears to be progressing well.

Folders containing a reference, typically Picasa.ini, are a good example of sets of shots that I know I used with Picasa, and which are probably incomplete, so I am trying to exclude those unless they happen to be the only folders containing the shots in question. I haven't used Picasa in years, but I may go through those folders with it to see what I was up to.

I am just beginning with it, but I got Lightroom for ninety-nine bucks, which may or may not have been a special offer to me, but it is one commercial program that I really look forward to using based on my tutorials from Lynda.com. (I have no vested interest in either commercial product, but use the latter on a regular basis and am just starting with Lightroom, and am offering a personal opinion.) Lightroom actually has a feature that will exclude 'apparent duplicates' for you, but I am trying to sort my source files carefully before adding photos to the catalogue.

I will (try to remember to) post back to let you know the outcome.