Analog asset management - digital asset management but for film and prints

Hi all,

I am looking for a solution to catalog my film photography, both film and prints. For film, I would like to have a contact sheet of every roll that would be cataloged by film type, date, subject, developer, etc. And for prints, I would like to capture details such as the enlarger settings for time and f-stop, the filter settings, print developer used, date, subject, etc.

Is there a solution such as this for the darkroom? I thought about setting up a database and put serial numbers on everything, or even bar codes! The serial number would refer back to the proper entry in the database.

Thanks!

JJ

Film is easy, scan the negs and use Digital Asset Management software to record all the info (Keywords are your friend here) and associate it with the scans, with naming and folder conventions that map to your negative storage. This is what I do, with Microsoft Expression Media 2 (from PhaseOne, not MS now). It actually works better for film than it does for digital in my experience. Scans don't have to be much more than web-resolution either.

Prints are harder, since the info is more complex for the most part and the subjects less amenable to scanning. A dedicated database might be a good idea here, or an Excel spreadsheet.

I had a great Access (1) database that did it all early to mid 90's, thumbnails of images, links to scanned contact sheets, printing data, nothing was missing. But in Microsoft's infinite wisdom they made later versions incompatible and the database needed re-writing very upgrade.

I still have the data now in Open Office spreadsheets but only update the neg data, all my negatives have had code numbers since the early 70's. I've abandoned Microsoft Office entirely now and one day will rewrite a s an SQL database

Ian

Use a handwritten chart with diagrams for the printing details, and use the software to help locate that chart in your filing system.

If you have the computer storage space, you could store scans of the chart. Personally, I would prefer to have it on paper when in the darkroom.