Workflow for digital images

BeauJangles

Lifer
Aug 26, 2001
13,941
1
0
Hey guys,

I finally have my primary computer back in 100% working order. For the last year or so, my photography workflow has been interrupted by computer crashes, computer switches, and generally marred by sloppiness. I've spent a few hours rummaging through my old hard drives for images and recovered pretty much everything (thank god).

I just reinstalled Lightroom, which I had experimented with about a year ago. I've got a pretty good system in place for sorting through a batch of photos, tagging keepers and deletes, rating the remaining images, and touching up the best ones.

Before Lightroom, I would copy the raw files directly off my camera into a folder, structured: \yyyy\mm-dd-description. Within that folder I would create the following folders:

\workspace\ - for photos to touch up
\bob\ - for the best photos from the workspace.

Basically, what's the best way to organization sets of photos and mark individual photos within each set as the best of that set? Any websites or guides or thoughts?
 

fuzzybabybunny

Moderator<br>Digital & Video Cameras
Moderator
Jan 2, 2006
10,455
35
91
Lightroom can handle all of this.

Example Workflow:

1. Hook up your camera / card and use Lightroom to import all your photos to a new folder. Here you can add metadata information like your Copyright and keywords for the photo set (John and Jane Wedding, etc) to every photo that's imported.

2. Go through your photos in Lightroom and assign star values to them based on which ones you like.

3. Set your filter to only show you 4-5 star photos.

4. Work on those photos, set the finished ones as flagged.

5. Set your filter to show 4-5 star photos that are also flagged and you've got photos that are DONE and can be exported to a final file. Set your filter to show 4-5 star photos that are NOT flagged and you've got photos that you still need to work on.

6. You can export your final photos into a subdirectory of the main photo folder called "Finished" or what have you.

7. Months down the road you can search through your photos. Set the filter to show photos with keyword John Jane Wedding, flagged, 4-5 stars, and you've got your final photos.
 

BeauJangles

Lifer
Aug 26, 2001
13,941
1
0
Lightroom can handle all of this.

Example Workflow:

1. Hook up your camera / card and use Lightroom to import all your photos to a new folder. Here you can add metadata information like your Copyright and keywords for the photo set (John and Jane Wedding, etc) to every photo that's imported.

2. Go through your photos in Lightroom and assign star values to them based on which ones you like.

3. Set your filter to only show you 4-5 star photos.

4. Work on those photos, set the finished ones as flagged.

5. Set your filter to show 4-5 star photos that are also flagged and you've got photos that are DONE and can be exported to a final file. Set your filter to show 4-5 star photos that are NOT flagged and you've got photos that you still need to work on.

6. You can export your final photos into a subdirectory of the main photo folder called "Finished" or what have you.

7. Months down the road you can search through your photos. Set the filter to show photos with keyword John Jane Wedding, flagged, 4-5 stars, and you've got your final photos.

Thanks man, that's basically what I thought, but I wanted to see if anyone had any neat tricks or ideas.