My workflow, I think it needs improving...

CraigDouglas

CraigDouglas

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Right, first of all I own a reasonably powerful PC, running CS2 and Lightroom and I own a 400D which I shoot exclusively in RAW mode only.

In my pictures area, I have 3 folders.

A "Record Shots" which is possibly poorly named but it basically keeps all photos in from every shoot I do, but divided into various sub-categories such as landscapes etc then further divided if necessary. This folder contains JPGs ONLY.

A "Portfolio" folder into which I place finished, bordered, signed jpgs that are to go into my portfolio.

A "Portfolio Backup" folder into which I have all the RAW files of the shots in my Portfolio, as well as the processed shots without borders, signiture etc incase I want to crop them for printing later.

Here is my workflow:

  • Move all my RAWs from my camera to a folder called "New" on my desktop
  • Open CS2 and using the script feature, convert all RAWs to JPGs
  • Import the JPGs as the new folder into lightroom but keeping them located in their "New" folder
  • Review the photos and flag them as "picked" if I think they have potential to be portfolio potential, maybe trying out crops with it's preview function
  • Filter so that "picked" shots are displayed
  • Go through one by one moving (in windows) the RAW file from "New" to another desktop folder called "In Progress"
  • Delete all other RAW files from "New" and file all the JPGs from "New" in "Record Shots"
  • Delete all files imported into Lightroom from "New" from Lightroom

Then for each RAW file in "In Progress" i'll do the following:
  • Open the RAW in CS2, straighten and crop
  • Save as JPG in "Portfolio Backup" with a relevent name (until now they had the cemera numbering scheme)
  • Open the JPG in CS2 and process with curves and occasionally sharpening and noise reduction then save over itself
  • Save As into "Portfolio" then add signiture and border then save over itself again in "Portfolio"
  • Close CS2 (or just minimize if i'm doing several photos) then edit the EXIF data of the JPG in "Portfolio" to add Title, Author, Copyright
  • Import new files from "Portfolio" into Lightroom, then update my "Portfolio" web gallery


At no point do I ever save the .PSD files.

I know it's a convoluted way I do things at the moment and that lightroom can make my life a lot easier but I don't know how. I'm very computer literate (i'm a programmer), but i'm not familiar with lightroom.

What should I look at changing?
 
Personally I hate things cluttering up the PC and I do minimal processing. I don't use light room, RSE, etc only CS2.

At the end of a shoot everything gets saved into that days folder. I open them all, usually about 40 at a time, delete the crap, resize to 600 pixels on the longest side, no sharpen, batch rename and save as jpg in a folder which will be processed for the webbies.

And that's it. No tiffs, no PSD's, nothing. If I'm showing something here I'll save it at 800 on the longest side and sharpen and save it in a temp folder for uploading, once that's done the temp folder is deleted.

that's about as efficient as I can get it
 
dod said:
Personally I hate things cluttering up the PC and I do minimal processing. I don't use light room, RSE, etc only CS2.

At the end of a shoot everything gets saved into that days folder. I open them all, usually about 40 at a time, delete the crap, resize to 600 pixels on the longest side, no sharpen, batch rename and save as jpg in a folder which will be processed for the webbies.

And that's it. No tiffs, no PSD's, nothing. If I'm showing something here I'll save it at 800 on the longest side and sharpen and save it in a temp folder for uploading, once that's done the temp folder is deleted.

that's about as efficient as I can get it
Click to expand...

Don't you save any shots for printing etc.?
 
Ewan said:
Don't you save any shots for printing etc.?
Click to expand...
Not initially, only once I get an order in. That then gets uploaded to the printer and the "printing" file gets deleted again.
 
Craig, I think you're missing the point of lightroom. I no longer keep any JPEGs, I import RAW files directly into lightroom and do most of the adjustments there creating several virtual copies if I need to. If I want to work on CS3 I let Lightroom create a TIFF file which I stack with the original. I export JPEGs for printing by photobox or uploading to the web into a temporary directory which I delete when I am done.

By the way there is avery good e-book by Martin Evening which has a free update for version 1.1. The update is well worth having even if you haven't got the original and can be downloaded here
 
Start by using LR as it was intended. Import your files directly from the card and get it to copy them to a new location - I have a dedicated drive and order folders by year, month, day.

Then you can review the shots in the libray and use the reject tool to weed out the duff ones and then delete them.

Next I'll add keywords, metadata, etc and might use the colour flags to sort the photos into subgroups depending on the type of shoot.

At this point I use the rating tool to refine my selection further until I have reduced them down to the ones I want to work on further in the dev. module.

Then I work on the actual raw conversions, creating virtual copies if I want to try different effects, etc.

Finally I can go back to the library and export full size jpgs of just the shots I want for further editing, printing, reducing for web, etc.

I also back up the raw files, etc. regularly and with the new catalogue system in LR I export out folders that are 3 months old to a seperate backup for archiving - this keeps the LR database a reasonable size but means I don't lose any of my settings.

On occasion I'll also create a new catalogue for a specific shoot/client, esp. if I'm doing it on site with the laptop.
 
CraigDouglas said:
Here is my workflow:

  • Move all my RAWs from my camera to a folder called "New" on my desktop
  • Open CS2 and using the script feature, convert all RAWs to JPGs
  • Import the JPGs as the new folder into lightroom but keeping them located in their "New" folder
  • Review the photos and flag them as "picked" if I think they have potential to be portfolio potential, maybe trying out crops with it's preview function
  • Filter so that "picked" shots are displayed
  • Go through one by one moving (in windows) the RAW file from "New" to another desktop folder called "In Progress"
  • Delete all other RAW files from "New" and file all the JPGs from "New" in "Record Shots"
  • Delete all files imported into Lightroom from "New" from Lightroom
Click to expand...

You should just skip this whole step. This is what lightroom is for. Just skip this whole step and let lightroom import your card into a directory you choose. Don't forget to add some keywords to make them easier to find later. Lightroom will keep a track of your folder structure and any new files added as well.

CraigDouglas said:
Then for each RAW file in "In Progress" i'll do the following:
  • Open the RAW in CS2, straighten and crop
  • Save as JPG in "Portfolio Backup" with a relevent name (until now they had the cemera numbering scheme)
  • Open the JPG in CS2 and process with curves and occasionally sharpening and noise reduction then save over itself
  • Save As into "Portfolio" then add signiture and border then save over itself again in "Portfolio"
  • Close CS2 (or just minimize if i'm doing several photos) then edit the EXIF data of the JPG in "Portfolio" to add Title, Author, Copyright
  • Import new files from "Portfolio" into Lightroom, then update my "Portfolio" web gallery
Click to expand...

Start with these steps, but get rid of anything involving Jpeg. Keep RAW files in lightroom, use the flag or colour tagging feature to choose files to process, then do your straightening and cropping in lightroom develop feature (hold down control when the crop feature is selected to draw a line to straighten). You can press control+e at anytime to take your file into photoshop for processing. When you have finished, put your portfolio files into a collection you create called portfolio or what ever. This will save space on your harddrive. Also for printing or web, you can do all that in lightroom too.

This should save you some time. Also remember, that working this way means that you don't actually have any quality loss due to jpeg compression at all, as you are working completely in RAW non-destructively.
 
Thanks for your advice everyone :)

I suspected lightroom would be able to do most of the stuff i do manually.

Going to upgrade to v1.1 then have a good look at it. I was taking the approach of keeping all photos I take, but in JPG and only keeping the RAWs of my very best ones, but on reflection, getting rid of the crap and just keeping RAWs of all reasonable shots will be a better way round.

The reason I hadn't fully adopted LR for RAW is because it wouldn't import RAWs from my camera, it said no photos to import. I guess I need to install a RAW plugin? Or will 1.1 support my 400D RAWs?

Cheers :)
 
CraigDouglas said:
Or will 1.1 support my 400D RAWs?
Click to expand...

Yes. 1.1 supports the 400D RAW files.

I would highly recommend you purchase and download the tutorials from http://www.luminous-landscape.com/videos/LR-V1.shtml. There is just about everything you need to know to become an expert on lightroom in there, and total cost is less then £20. bargain. I always like watching a video to reading a book when it comes to tutorials.
 
CraigDouglas said:
Right, first of all I own a reasonably powerful PC, running CS2 and Lightroom and I own a 400D which I shoot exclusively in RAW mode only.

In my pictures area, I have 3 folders.

A "Record Shots" which is possibly poorly named but it basically keeps all photos in from every shoot I do, but divided into various sub-categories such as landscapes etc then further divided if necessary. This folder contains JPGs ONLY.

A "Portfolio" folder into which I place finished, bordered, signed jpgs that are to go into my portfolio.

A "Portfolio Backup" folder into which I have all the RAW files of the shots in my Portfolio, as well as the processed shots without borders, signiture etc incase I want to crop them for printing later.

Here is my workflow:

  • Move all my RAWs from my camera to a folder called "New" on my desktop
  • Open CS2 and using the script feature, convert all RAWs to JPGs
  • Import the JPGs as the new folder into lightroom but keeping them located in their "New" folder
  • Review the photos and flag them as "picked" if I think they have potential to be portfolio potential, maybe trying out crops with it's preview function
  • Filter so that "picked" shots are displayed
  • Go through one by one moving (in windows) the RAW file from "New" to another desktop folder called "In Progress"
  • Delete all other RAW files from "New" and file all the JPGs from "New" in "Record Shots"
  • Delete all files imported into Lightroom from "New" from Lightroom

Then for each RAW file in "In Progress" i'll do the following:
  • Open the RAW in CS2, straighten and crop
  • Save as JPG in "Portfolio Backup" with a relevent name (until now they had the cemera numbering scheme)
  • Open the JPG in CS2 and process with curves and occasionally sharpening and noise reduction then save over itself
  • Save As into "Portfolio" then add signiture and border then save over itself again in "Portfolio"
  • Close CS2 (or just minimize if i'm doing several photos) then edit the EXIF data of the JPG in "Portfolio" to add Title, Author, Copyright
  • Import new files from "Portfolio" into Lightroom, then update my "Portfolio" web gallery


At no point do I ever save the .PSD files.

I know it's a convoluted way I do things at the moment and that lightroom can make my life a lot easier but I don't know how. I'm very computer literate (i'm a programmer), but i'm not familiar with lightroom.

What should I look at changing?
Click to expand...

Wow this is a long process......

Mine is

Import the RAWs using Lightroom into the 2007 folder on my disk and edit the name of the folder to the job/task. Back up onto an external drive.

I review quickly each image and discard those that I know I'll not use.

I then go through the RAWs editing each (still in lightroom) as I go to get the image I want and at the end I export to jpg in a new subdirectory called Edits.

that's it!

Then I open selected files in CS2 for further edits like B&W convertion, soft focus etc.
 
FranchiseJuan said:
Also remember, that working this way means that you don't actually have any quality loss due to jpeg compression at all, as you are working completely in RAW non-destructively.
Click to expand...

When printing the file needs to be converted by your printer software to an 8 bit file. I'd probably still convert to jpg or possibly tif (if you have the space) for printing.
 
FranchiseJuan said:
Yes. 1.1 supports the 400D RAW files.

I would highly recommend you purchase and download the tutorials from http://www.luminous-landscape.com/videos/LR-V1.shtml. There is just about everything you need to know to become an expert on lightroom in there, and total cost is less then £20. bargain. I always like watching a video to reading a book when it comes to tutorials.
Click to expand...

Just tried to buy it but they don't accept switch cards and i've cut up all my credit cards :(
 
Excellent, cheers shorn! Learning lots about it now, wish i'd done this a little while ago!
 
Lightroom rules! As expected it takes care of everything that i was doing manually with a much better system :D

Very happy chappy :D
 
I tend to copy all RAW files from memory card onto PC into a folder titled with the Shoots name i.e Duxford and only format memory card once happy all files are there.

Then using CS3 Bridge i run through and delete anything OOF, that i don't like or obviously missed shots etc.

Everything I want to keep then gets batch metadata tagged in Bridge.

Then anything i want to work with i open in PS CS3 and do levels, crop, sharpen etc then save that as a TIFF (no loss of detail then) into the same folder so i have the original RAW and TIFF together, to compare or rework as necessary.

Then if i am uploading here or to photobox or wherever i then save the TIFF as a 800pix longest resized jpeg into an "Upload" folder, once uploaded these are normally deleted.

This way there is minimal work, no loss of detail/info from the pictures and it is easy to find the pictures and the edits at a later date.
 
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