Lightroom Workflow?

Bazza

Bazza

Suspended / Banned
Messages
561
Name
Brian
Edit My Images
Yes
I know I'm not doing this right and can't quite get my head around how to make this work as efficiently as I can...

My workflow at the moment is

> Take Photo
> Transfer photos from card to Macbook Pro
> Import images from Macbook Pro into Lightroom (LR5)
> Edit / Export into a new folder where RAW files are
> Lift the whole folder (RAW files, edit folders, the lot) and drag it into my external hard drive
> Delete folder from Macbook Pro

Not ideal, the main issue is when I want to import a RAW file back into LR at a later date, the original edit disappears. I know this is something stupid but can't put my finger on it? Can anyone shed any light?

Thanks for the help in advance (y)
 
You need to leave your raw files and catalogue where they are (in relation to each other) for your edits to remain. Once raws are archived and no longer on your working drive, you can relocate the folder in Lightroom (right click - find missing folder) that will sync up all your edits again.

My workflow for what it's worth:

- Take photos
- Open Lightroom and plug card into card reader. Use Lightroom import dialogue to copy and import photos to internal SSD.
- Edit and process.
- Mark unused photos as rejected. Use Lightroom to remove them from Lightroom and delete from disk.
- Select all finished photos and rename as sequential.
- Copy folder of remaining raw files and up-to-date Lightroom catalogue to backup drives.
- Format cards in cameras.
- Export finished files to a new folder on the desktop for upload, or burning to disc, whatever delivery is required.
- Delete exported JPEGs after delivery.
- Delete raws from internal working drive as space requirements dictate.
 
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This is the way we do it:
— Transfer manually the new pictures folder to the ImageBank
there are 4 drives in the MacPro. A 5TB HD is the image bank
— reformat the card
— Culling and processing photos in the ImageBank through a session,
not a library, and backup to photo archive (15TB TImeMachine backup).
 
Jayst84 said:
You need to leave your raw files and catalogue where they are (in relation to each other) for your edits to remain. Once raws are archived and no longer on your working drive, you can relocate the folder in Lightroom (right click - find missing folder) that will sync up all your edits again.

My workflow for what it's worth:

- Take photos
- Open Lightroom and plug card into card reader. Use Lightroom import dialogue to copy and import photos to internal SSD.
- Edit and process.
- Mark unused photos as rejected. Use Lightroom to remove them from Lightroom and delete from disk.
- Select all finished photos and rename as sequential.
- Copy folder of remaining raw files and up-to-date Lightroom catalogue to backup drives.
- Format cards in cameras.
- Export finished files to a new folder on the desktop for upload, or burning to disc, whatever delivery is required.
- Delete exported JPEGs after delivery.
- Delete raws from internal working drive as space requirements dictate.
Click to expand...


Thanks for this James, really helpful!

Just wondering though, when you copy the remaining RAW files to backup drives, does it save the edits you've made?

Graham W said:
When you say "Edit / Export into a new folder where RAW files are" what do you export them as? (jpeg, tiff etc.)
It could be as simple as Right click on the folder in the folders panel and then "Synchronise Folder".
Click to expand...

Usually export .jpeg into a new folder alongside the RAW files and just transfer the lot onto an external hard drive. Although I've never synchronised the folder which may be the issue! Thanks!
 
Bazza said:
Just wondering though, when you copy the remaining RAW files to backup drives, does it save the edits you've made?
Click to expand...

The edits made would be in the catalog, not with the RAW file, so yes they'd be saved. To avoid the issues with moving files around I import to the final location (on my external storage) but create smart previews as part of the import. I can then chose tho edit using the smart preview without any speed penalties
 
Bazza said:
Thanks for this James, really helpful!

Just wondering though, when you copy the remaining RAW files to backup drives, does it save the edits you've made?
Click to expand...

As Hugh says, the edits are stored in the catalogue. As I'm always working off the catalogue on my internal SSD, I have to tell it where to find the raw files again, once I delete them from the SSD.

Remember the raw files are just that, the raw data. They aren't actually affected by anything you do in Lightroom. Lightroom stores everything you do in its catalogue file, and then applies it when exporting. You don't even need the raw files to do a lot of work now, again as Hugh mentions, smart previews will let you work offline.

There's no real need to be exporting JPEGs and saving them, they only take up space. You can just export as and when you need for specific purposes, then get rid of them.
 
when you export files and want to "use" them again in LR - either by "reimporting" them or working on them on an external drive always export as a Catalogue

leave them on your main computer and back up your main computer constantly

If your LR Library gets too big ....... Export sections to an external drive as a Catalogue and change Catalogues when you want to work on them ........ always have at least one backup of each of your catalogues, i.e. so if your catalogues are on an external HD, back that external HD up

do all you work on files, folders etc., in LR and not outside of LR
 
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It's interesting to hear everyone's method, especially the pros amongst you. As a hobbyist my method is quite simple, shoot backup to 2 cards, import one card to Lightroom, rate images (keep, bin), edit images, delete images selected for bin and format cards before next trip out. I use quick collections to highlight the final edited images so its easy to highlight and drag these to my website storage folder shortcuts in Lightroom, click publish and high red jpegs are uploaded to my websites hidden storage folders. I find this is much easier than uploading them myself (no need to export high res images to the hard drive and then delete them). I find it also works well as a type of free cloud storage. I also export the images as low resolution jpegs to a folder on my hard drive for later upload to Flickr etc. Backups are completed automatically, daily by time machine and weekly by carbon copy cloner, both to external hard drives. I also have an off site hard drive that's backed up automatically by carbon copy cloner when it's connected to the computer (only weak point is I have to bring it back to do this). If I want to print images then I export them with the relevant settings as required rather than have a folder of high res print images, a folder of high res website images and a folder of low res social media images. The only images I keep on the hard drive are the original RAW's and they are never touched as I do everything in Lightroom.
 
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If you use lightroom, always always ALWAYS ALWAYS save out your changes to XMP files. Highlight the files and hit "Ctrl+S", or navigate to wherever the menu option is (I forget).
That way, if your catalog goes splat for any reason, all your edits are preserved alongside each file. Also makes it easy to send changes to someone else if they have the same RAW (Colleague, art director, retoucher etc).
 
I have 3 fast drive, one for os, one for Lightroom cache and catalogue and one for this years raw files. 3 other disks have the other years raws scattered amongst them, and some exported jpegs.
The whole lot is regularly backed up to local nas, external USB drives and cloud.

I take the card from the camera, put it into a card reader and import using Lightroom. Lightroom controls all folder storage and they get imported into (for this year) a 2015 folder with a sub folder of when the image was taken. Lightroom does. This automatically for me. I always use keywords, it's not often I need to search on them, but it's added metadata to search on.

I also run a full render during import to speed up processing, as with the import you can kick it off and walk away.

After import the images are put into subcategory folders under my main categories, so for instance I have a family main folder, sub folders of years underneath, the occasion folders under that, such as a holiday, event, so family, 2015, Anglesey.

I've then usually work off category, but I can also find images by date, metadata, keywords, all sorts of ways to make the most use of my images.

At the end of 2015, I'll use Lightroom to move all the 2015 folder to a slower drive. I currently have around 160,000 images under Lightroom and using this method don't have any issues for speed.
 
Denyerec said:
If you use lightroom, always always ALWAYS ALWAYS save out your changes to XMP files. Highlight the files and hit "Ctrl+S", or navigate to wherever the menu option is (I forget).
That way, if your catalog goes splat for any reason, all your edits are preserved alongside each file. Also makes it easy to send changes to someone else if they have the same RAW (Colleague, art director, retoucher etc).
Click to expand...


That slows your workflow and LR right down. If so worried just backup your catalog.

If you need to send raws just export the relevant bits of the catalog
 
Haha, it was my impression that the XMP writes were an issue in LR1 (There's no date on that Adobe help post, but I suspect it's legacy) and most user reports indicate the same - that XMP writes haven't been an issue since V2. Watching my system disk monitor I don't see any activity until I issue the write command, so I don't imagine it's having much of an impact.

I'll disable it and run an import & do some grid applies of pasted settings to see, though, just to dispel any anecdotal accounts of performance impingement. That said, I'm moving to C1 in the near future so maybe it'll be better for me to just cut the cord and not worry about it anymore :D
 
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