Organizing Race Photos

[vic81]

Hey Everyone,

 

I have been shooting 5k races for some time now, but don't have a way to

organize them by bib or by time without a lot of manual work. Any one out

there have a good work flow they don't mind sharing? Thanks for your input.

 

Victor

[ellis_vener_photography]

Lightroom allows you to automatically sort photos by time captured. If you are using more

than one camea you'll need to synchronize their internal clocks.

 

I'm sure other programs like Windows Expression Media (formerly iView Media Pro 3) and

Adobe Bridge, Apple Aperture , and Photo Mechanic, etc. have the same feature.

[vic81]

Ellis,

 

Thanks for the help. I current use lightroom and bridge to sort by time. I am looking for a way to either edit the meta data or file name based on the time or bib of the runner without doing it manually. I use lightroom to edit the meta data now to add my general info, but is there an automated way to add the bib numbers?

 

I have seen some website that allow runners to enter their bib number or finish line time and it brings up all of the photos of that runner. How do they do that without a lot of man hours??

 

Thanks.

[artisitc_eye]

Victor,

 

This is the story of my life! I choose to manually enter the bib #'s in, because it helps my sales out dramatically. I have found that using ACDSee's Pro software is the best for doing batch re-names, and individual re-names. However, the company I use for order fulfillment is Eventpictures.com. They provide their photographers with a software called "Fastcaption" which is fantastic for re-naming images according to bib #'s.

 

I know other companies have some type of # reading software, fully electronic it reads the image data & picks out a bib #. I have heard many customers complain that the "company" said their bib # was far different than it actually was, and it was clearly visible in the image. You don't want to play that game. If you have the option of letting the participants search by bib #, then you want it done right. Only a live human eye can clearly decipher the bib # through a swinging arm or stream of vomit!

 

Bottom line, my .02 is, do it manual. Choose the best software (by trial and error) and sit down with a bottle of water and go! I re-name 1500 images in about 3 hours or less, depending on how often I get distracted. :-) Sure that's a big chunk of time, but in the end my payout is well worth it!

 

Good luck and feel free to e-mail me with ?'s

 

Laura

[jennifer_ross1]

Are you talking about Adobe Photoshop Lightroom?

Thanks

[vic81]

Jennifer,

 

I use Adobe lightroom for renaming and editing my metadata or sometimes bridge. I was looking for something other than that, which would automate the process of naming the files by bib number or finish line time without having to do it manually.

[chrisjb]

Not sure but maybe `Breeze` systems `Downloader pro`

[chrisjb]

http://www.breezesys.com/Downloader/index.htm

 

HTH

[artisitc_eye]

Victor,

 

One more thing to think of...

 

 

A timing guy I work with once mentioned syncing my images with his timing info, by the file time stamp. Now this is not fail proof, so I choose the old school route. But perhaps if you speak to the timing guys on your end, they would likely be willing to share info with you.

 

I have also heard of a radio frequency recording device that would automatically sync the timing data with the image data. No idea where to buy this, or how many big bucks it costs. I'd guess that some of the big dogs (Brightroom & ASI) might use it??

 

Let us know if you find something.

 

Laura