Graphical File Revision Control for Non-Techies?

EagleEyez asks: "Packages like Subversion and CVS are great for code and version control for programmers and developers, but what about for design and creative teams? I'm trying to help my company streamline part of the creative process, but haven't seen a software package that does version control, check-in/out, e-mail notifications, etc. that is specifically tailored toward images and basic HTML content. Full fledged document management tools might work, but they seem a bit much and tend to focus more on office docs. Does anyone have any recommendations?" There are a few projects moving in this direction, they just may not be as usable as some would like. More detail in the full article. Photographers (those using digital cameras or film photographers who edit their photos on computer) might also find revision control useful. From bmcent1: "As an amateur photographer seeking a way to better organize files, it occurred to ask Slashdot: 'What methods are digital photography enthusiasts using to organize the torrent of files that build up over time?' I'm a huge Linux fan, and although I use Photoshop, I would like to use a Linux storage server as the back end and could use Linux EXIF/IPTC tagging tools such as XnView to help organize if they perform as well as commercial products like IMatch.

What tools do you use? How do you manage your workflow and the files that build up as a result? I shoot RAW and keep the original. Post processing usually produces a .PSD file and then any crops are kept separate in case I want to adjust and reprint later. This means a minimum of three files per image and more if I have different crops.

Have people successfully used versioning file systems like EXT3COW or revision control systems like Subversion as an aid to their digital photography workflow?"

Comments

Tortoise

[AKAImBatman]

Allow me to solve your problems right now:

http://tortoisecvs.sourceforge.net/ (For CVS Servers)
http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/ (For Subversion servers)

Tortoise will tell your users everything they need to know about the files status right through Windows Explorer. Teaching them how to do checkins and tree updates is also quite easy, thanks to the customized right-click menu. Advanced options like diffing, merging, and branching are still available through the submenus, but your users should be able to get their work done without resorting to those. (At least, not until they're ready.)

Of course, the fact that these are graphics designers may complicate issues somewhat. If they're using a Mac, they won't be able to use Tortoise. In which case, my next recommendation falls on SmartCVS:

http://www.smartcvs.com/

SmartCVS is great for Macintoshes, although it does take slightly more training than Tortoise. The only problem you may run into, however, is that SmartCVS chokes on massive directories of files. I don't know if this problem has been fixed or not, but it was a serious problem for one of the source trees I worked on. (Think gigabytes of data spread across thousands of files.)

CVS/SVN are by no means perfect solutions, but I can't think of anything better off the top of my head. Hope this helps!

Alienbrain

[Animats]

The commercial leader in graphical content management revision control is Alienbrain. It was originally developed for video game development, where there are many types of unusual graphical assets, from motion capture data to level maps, all with multiple revisions. Now that Avid has purchased Alienbrain, it's also being used for TV and film animation projects.

As with most Avid products, if you have to ask how much it costs, you can't afford it.