File Saving LR and PS Help

[EMA747]

First off I am new here so hi to everyone.

I am about to buy a new computer so I though maybe I could get some help on what's the best way to save files as they progress through a workflow.
My workflow in basic terms in as follows:

Shoot in RAW>Do keywords, selection of best images and basic editing in LR>export to PS>do more editing in PS>save

What I want to know is if I am saving my files corrects as I go along or if I am just adding to many steps.
Here's what I do at present:

I have on my hard drive 3 main folders. One called ORIGINAL IMAGES, another RAW and another PHOTOSHOP (the names are a bit strange I think)

1) After a shoot I first make a new folder in ORIGINAL IMAGES into which I put all the Camera Raw files straight off the camera.

2) I then fire up LR and import the pics from ORIGINAL IMAGES, I have "copy as DNG" selected and copy them to a new folder in the folder named RAW.

3) I then do all my stuff in LR.

4) I then export to an new folder in the one named PHOTOSHOP. I export as 8bit TIFF.

5) I do the final editing in PS on the TIFF file.

6) I then same the TIFF to a folder called HIGH RES inside the one called PHOTOSHOP. I then convert to JPG and crop down to about 1024px for flickr etc then same to another folder called LOW RES inside the folder called PHOTOSHOP.

Did you follow that?

So basically for one shoot I have folder as follows (in this example I will called the shoot London May as an example:

ORIGINAL
>London May (in which are CR2)

RAW
> London May (in which are DNG)

PHOTOSHOP
> London May
>High Res TIFF (in which are TIFFs)
>Low Res JPG (in which are JPGs for flickr etc)


Am I adding too many steps? What can I do better?

Thanks for any advice.

Andy S

 

[Chappers]

Andy

I think you may be making things a bit more complicated than you need.

OK import your images as suggested. I can't see any advantage in keeping the original RAW image as well as a dng. So let Lightroom convert the Raw to dng, delete the original and keep the dng in the original location. If you want to keep the RAW image as a back up simply burn it to cd/dvd. Now BACK UP.

Edit you images in Lightroom deleting the rubbish. Add keyword

Any images you need to edit in Photoshop, simply "Open in Photoshop" ( Keyboard shortcut Ctrl/Cmd + E). This will export the image and automatically start Photoshop. Once you've done the work you need to simply save the image. This puts it back into the same folder as the original and updates Lightroom with a preview of the edited image. I'd recommend saving as a PSD rather than TIFF as you can keep all the layers intact if you want to re edit the image.Lightroom will allow you to reopen the Photoshoped file to let you work on it in Photoshop

The only time you really need to export is if you need to send a file off for printing by a 3rd party or for posting on the internet.. You can do everything else from Lightroom

It's the way I work and when you have some 40,000+ images it saves a lot of space on hard drives. It's also a lot easier to find things as well. Don't go to mad on keyword initially. They do help but I find using general type ones a lot easier and simpler to remember.

 

[EMA747]

Thanks for the info Chappers. I will have a go at what you said when I next have some pics to edit.