I’m not a professional photographer. But I do take a lot of photographs and if I’ve learned anything in my time behind a camera it helps to learn from the pros.
Two months ago, I had 6,500+ photographs in my hard drive. I had no idea which ones I liked best, when they were taken or whether they were worth keeping. More worryingly, I had no back up copies of any of them in case of a disaster. In short, my photo organization was a mess (for those of you reading this by email you can see the video here).
My photography workflow:
Download images to ‘Raw files’ folder on desktop
Create new Lightroom catalogue (or use existing)
Import photos with generic keywords (rendering 1:1 previews)
Rate photos 1 or 2 (delete / happy to keep)
Filter to view 1 star images and remove from Lightroom and hard drive
Select all 2 star images and review again, marking any up to 3/4 star
Downgrade any images if required and remove as above
Batch rename the remaining images and mark as a Red label (unprocessed) or Yellow label (unprocessed part of panorama)
Process 3/4 images in Lightroom and add proper keywords and captions (with an option to downgrade but remembering to rename if I’ve done so)
Export processed images, either direct from Lightroom via a plugin to my photography website or to a ‘Processed images’ folder on my desktop (sometimes via Photoshop if needed)
Change the raw file for exported images to a Green label
Exit Lightroom, choose to back up catalogue and regularly remove older back ups (I save to my hard drive and to a portable)
All files are backed up regularly by Apple’s Time Machine (though I do manually if I’ve made a lot of changes)
Workflow summary:
1 star – delete
2 star – happy to keep for archive
3/4 star – publish on photography website and share (e.g. blog, Twitter, Facebook, 500px)
5 star – keep aiming for!
Red label – unprocessed image
Yellow label – unprocessed panorama
Green label – processed and exported
As a result;
• I’ve spent 2 months of evenings/weekends choosing and processing photographs (my wife thinks I’m nuts)
All my photographs and Lightroom catalogues are stored in two places – on my hard drive and a portable hard drive
I’ve cut images down from c.6,500 to c.5,200
All are rated 2, 3 or 4
All are named consistently with location and date
I can find any photo very easily
Which may not mean much but it makes me feel much more organized! About the Author:
Written by UK mountain and adventure sports photographer, Colin Henderson. I specialize in adventure photography, e.g. people hill walking, backpacking, trekking and mountain biking. Find out more at my website.
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