Digital workflow

[alexgrio]

Dear all,

This is my first post. I would appreciate some opinion in how you do your digital workflow. Up to one month ago I use to:
1. shoot RAW
2. create a folder yyyymmddLocation
3. create subfolders: RAW (original files), TIFF (with layers) and JEPG (reduced)
4. and using "Bridge" and "Photoshop" to tidy everything up.

I now try to use "Lightroom" and I feel I should reorganize my photos. Do you feel the need of creating so many folders? Using "Lightroom", do you just leave all the files (RAW, TIFF JPEG) in one folder using labels and ratings you organize them?
Any other suggestion?

I think I have to streamline the whole process.
Thanks a lot in advance for your help.

alex

 

[pakman]

Alex, welcome . It's Mike...

I don't use lightroom but keep hearing rave reviews about it.

One suggestion I would make is to backup those original RAW files (burn em to a DVD-R/W or archive on an external HDD).

Here are some workflows examples online.

A Suggested Alternative Lightroom Workflow - O'Reilly Digital Media Blog

Adobe Digital Photography Workflow - Introduction to the Lightroom and Photoshop series. Nikonians.org

 

[boydski]

Using "Lightroom", do you just leave all the files (RAW, TIFF JPEG) in one folder using labels and ratings you organize them?
Any other suggestion?

alex

Hi Alex,

Like you are doing, I organized my photos in a folder structure, but in my case it is by location. I then created subfolders RAW01.24.08. for the RAW images, and additional subfolders for JPEGs, etc. I have over 10,000 photos structured this way, so really didn't want to change it when I started using Lightroom about a year ago.

I still copy my RAW images to the same structure off of my CF cards, then import them in place into Lightroom, tagging the photos as they are imported. This allows me to easily find and manipulate my raw images using Lightroom, but also allows my to find and use my photos outside of lightroom as needed. Lightroom is a great tool for organizing and finding images. If you have multiple copies of the same image (RAW, JPG, Tiff), you can stack the images so it appears as one image in Lightroom.

For me, a quick glance at the path to an image in lightroom will tell me where it is located in the file system and I can easily check to see if I already have a correctly sized copy of the image available without re-doing my work. (I hope that made sense).

The real key to Lightroom is tagging all of your photos. That was a chore when I first did it, but it makes finding images soooo much easier now.

Good Luck,

 

[danclem]

Hi Alex:

I follow the same process as Boydski: by location, RAW to TIFF to JPEG. I have been using Lightroom, but am not overwhelmed by its functionality. The tagging has been its most useful feature for me.

Good Luck,

Dan

 

[alexgrio]

Thanks all for the replies. I do have multiple backups of the photos. When I imported them into lightroom for the first time (about 23000 after it got stuck!) it was a bit confusing, it didn't import some folders and it refused to import them after individually select them. Well, I thought my folders tree was too long and complicated to slow all the process down (and I still don't know why it doesn't import some folders and it gives me errors).
Staking them is something I didn't consider, but I guess it's because I'm still new with this program. I will definitely do it.

Thanks again.
alex

 

[fpoole]

There's also the Book "The DAM Book... Digital Asset Manangement"
Amazon.com
The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers (O'Reilly Digital Studio) [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)
by Peter Krogh (Author)
While I'm still trying to wrap my head around the filing system, it seems to make some sense.

HTH.....