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?"

MediaWiki

[vossman77]

MediaWiki [mediawiki.org] (a la Wikipedia) has reat revision control for HTML and image content. I use it for almost everything (thesis, wedding information, blog). It's also really easy to use!

Two things ...

[jgrahn]

1) It seems to me, from using version control and watching others use it, that there is no substitute for understanding. Fancy GUIs help to some extent, but to really use revision control, you have to be willing to think, to learn, and to adapt the way you work. (Is that is the same as being "a techie"? Perhaps.)

For images, video and other non-text data, I suspect that it doesn't matter if you use Subversion's "superior" support for binary data or CVS's "inferior" one. I believe you will have problems, no matter what -- concepts like branching and merging are meaningless for those. Possibly there are dedicated tools for such things.