What is your workflow?

[elmars]

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vor 3 Stunden schrieb LocalHero1953:

While travelling (as now) I import to Lightroom CC on my laptop and create a collection. I cull and edit as I go, and post to social media if I choose to. When I get home, the collection is visible in Lightroom Classic on my PC desktop, and I drag it into my photo filing system. It's backed up automatically to an external drive and Backblaze.

If I'm not travelling, then I just import to Lightroom Classic on my PC Desktop.

I rename files if I remember to do so, but for finding images I just use a file structure I understand - file names aren't critical.

None of this seems a hassle to me - it just works. 

This is my workflow since I have the M11 and I am very satisfied with it. I can send some M-photos while I am on tour instead of photographing parallel with the iPhone. Only difference is that I import via WiFi (faster than cable) to my iPhone because it has more storage space than my MacBook Air. So I have a cloud backup and a local backup.

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[LocalHero1953]

2 hours ago, willeica said:

Paul, say that to a 25 year old and see what reaction you get. Not a hassle to you, but they are always in a hurry. Their phone to social media is their workflow, unless they are also shooting some film as some 25 year olds do these days. 

I have a workflow which I have used for many years, with some variations, mainly using Lightroom and occasionally some Photoshop. I save my photos in folders organised by year. 

However, with various aspects of photography admin that I am involved with now I find that I have less and less time for my own photography. So at 73, I might become a 25 year old as regards workflow.

William 
 

 

TBH I didn’t think my workflow was particularly slow or inefficient! I also use my phone for social media (like now), especially for photography - but not Leica photography because FOTOS is slow and inefficient. 

I’m not sure what you think 25 year olds do differently - can you elaborate? Most people, including 25 year olds, don’t do serious photography (ie with a camera!) so have no need or wish to be involved in uploading, editing, or filing other than in iCloud. 

Edited June 18, 2022 by LocalHero1953

[willeica]

2 hours ago, LocalHero1953 said:

TBH I didn’t think my workflow was particularly slow or inefficient! I also use my phone for social media (like now), especially for photography - but not Leica photography because FOTOS is slow and inefficient. 

I’m not sure what you think 25 year olds do differently - can you elaborate? Most people, including 25 year olds, don’t do serious photography (ie with a camera!) so have no need or wish to be involved in uploading, editing, or filing other than in iCloud. 

I was thinking of what my grandson, aged 25,  might say, that's all. He belongs to the generation that prides itself in doing the minimum necessary in order to achieve anything that they want to do. His generation fully understands anything digital, but they always seek to use it in the quickest and most efficient way to achieve their objectives. Companies in the digital imaging business need to to tune into that. At the same time there is another group of young people who want to do things more slowly by using film. It's an interesting world for the young these days. My grandson works in the software industry developing apps and so anything to do with digital processing of data is a challenge to be overcome in the most efficient way possible.

He thinks that his grandad is a bit of a nerd with lots of vintage cameras, but he was surprised when I told him that I had met Hollywood star Jason Momoa (I had never heard of him before) at the auction in Wetzlar last weekend and that Jason was also a collector of old Leicas and brass lenses. I might yet get some 'cred' from my grandson for my collecting activities!

William 

Edited June 18, 2022 by willeica

[Stephen_C]

This is a topic that interests me but I cannot see (but am sorry if I have overlooked it) anyone has referred to the single key thing I want to do with my photos when away from home. I don't want to edit them, I'm not terribly concerned about culling them (all of that could wait until I get home)—what I really want to do is to label them and complete the relevant IPTC metadata (for things like description, location, keywords, etc.) at the time I can easily recall all of that.

There were previously solutions that worked for that on an iPad (e.g., Photosmith) but I'm not aware of any currently that do so. (It's possible I've overlooked something that LR for the iPad can do because I've not used LR for many years. My previous recollection was that was something it would not do.)

Although I'd like to be able to travel with my iPad, transfer photos to it, label them (in terms described above) and then transfer them to (in my case) Capture One, with the updated metadata, on my return home I'm resigned now to travelling with my MacBook Pro and transferring photos to that directly. For me, it works well.

Stephen

[Camaro5]

I like to edit while travelling.  Gives me something to do at night or with morning coffee.  I carry a 14" laptop & 15.6" external monitor.  Both are light and fit in my camera backpack.  I copy the DNG's to an external drive where the edits are also kept.  Everything gets backed up to my main PC when I get home.  

For quick edits I can do most everything in Lightroom and Nik Collection plugins.  For more complex edits I'll use Bridge, ACR, PS & Nik.  Kind of depends on what an image needs or what I'm trying to accomplish.  

[ianforber]

Like some here, I don’t edit while travelling. Regardless of whether I’m travelling or not, when I get home I use my MBP and Capture One to transfer the files from the SD card to my file structure. All my photos are held on an external hard drive which is backed up on several other drives. SD card goes back into the camera and is reformatted.

I have a folder called “Work in progress”. All new files go in there and I don’t look at them for several weeks - I probably only open Capture One 3-4 times a year to do any actual processing unless I am enthusiastically playing with a new camera/lens, in which case I might use it more often. When I finally get around to processing them, I transfer the keepers to the folders I want to keep them in. These folders/sub-folders are not based on date, just named in a way that makes sense to me. 

A small number of pictures that I might want to show to someone else get exported to Apple Photos. 

This workflow works for me because I take relatively few pictures, delete most of them, don’t bother with key wording or any other IPTC data and don’t use social media. 

[strohscw]

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So here is my workflow:
After shooting, I import all photos from the SD card into a Lightroom folder that has the following structure: for example Photos/2022/2022-06-16_Venice
There the images are then evaluated and edited, partly only in Lightroom, partly in Lightroom and Photoshop.
The entire photo folder with all photos is regularly synchronized to a NAS and thus backed up again.
For on the road I have a Macbook Pro with the same programs and import the files there in Lightroom. At home I export the images as a catalog and import it on my iMac into the backed up main system.

Greetings

Wolfram

p.s. When I'm on the road for a longer time, I like to sort the photos right away, because then I can see if I did something wrong and I also have a backup copy on my Mac. And I format the SD card only after all files are synchronized on the iMac and with the NAS.

Edited June 27, 2022 by strohscw

[SrMi]

On 6/27/2022 at 2:48 AM, strohscw said:

So here is my workflow:
After shooting, I import all photos from the SD card into a Lightroom folder that has the following structure: for example Photos/2022/2022-06-16_Venice
There the images are then evaluated and edited, partly only in Lightroom, partly in Lightroom and Photoshop.
The entire photo folder with all photos is regularly synchronized to a NAS and thus backed up again.
For on the road I have a Macbook Pro with the same programs and import the files there in Lightroom. At home I export the images as a catalog and import it on my iMac into the backed up main system.

Greetings

Wolfram

p.s. When I'm on the road for a longer time, I like to sort the photos right away, because then I can see if I did something wrong and I also have a backup copy on my Mac. And I format the SD card only after all files are synchronized on the iMac and with the NAS.

I do pretty much the same, except I stopped formatting the card and delete photos instead (if the camera allows it).

[CPG]

Mine is quite simple:

1. Import into Lr Classic

2. Cull

3. Edit - in Lr, mostly with RNI film profiles + some minor tweaks to keep the look as natural as possible

4. Export to Ps for some simple finishing

4. When the session files are finalised, the whole folder for that date, with RAW files and XMP sidecars, goes to my Synology NAS which I use as an archive.

[jrp]

I use a fairly similar workflow, particularly as I like to edit while I am still on the go, on my laptop, and I never really got the Lightroom sync thing to work with just 20Gb. 

[evikne]

My somewhat lengthy workflow (sometimes I skip step 2 and 3):

1. Import from SD card to LR. My import preset adds some contrast, clarity and sharpening. Smart previews are built.
2. Import GPX file synced from my iPhone and geotag all photos
3. Copy white balance values from WhiBal or ExpoDisc reference shots over to the corresponding photos
4. Open LensTagger plugin and write the correct f-stop to all photos
5. Delete bad shots
6. Adjust exposure and crop
7. Assign a new profile after comparing some favorites (usually from RNI)
8. Maybe some more fine adjustments and retouching here and there
9. Assign star ratings and color labels, delete some more photos
10. Assign titles and keywords
11. Backup with Time Machine to external USB HD
12. From time to time I move originals from my Mac to another external HD to free up space. I only move entire folders containing year-month-day to keep the original folder structure. Then I take a backup of this HD too. The smart previews still make the photos editable when offline.

Edited October 16, 2022 by evikne

[Guest]

EDIT: Sorry about font size, I can’t reduce it.

My workflow:

• Take photographs
• Download photographs from camera using Fotos app - yes it works fine for what I use it for.
• Copy DNG files to my iCloud Photographs folder.

The above steps are happening throughout the day. And gives me 3 backup files (SD card, Fotos app on my iPhone and iCloud backup). This allows me to format the SD cards if I run out of them, doesn’t happen as much as it used to due to using 128gb cards.

When I get back to laptop:

• Use Photo Mechanic to:
  • Ingest from iCloud Photographs folder to ‘yyyymmdd_location/RAW’ folder.
  • Cull - get rid of the rubbish. 
  • Basic metadata, copyright, shoot info etc.
  • Rename files: ‘yyyymmdd_location_sequence_no’.
  • Copy remaining image files to ‘yyyymmdd-location/SELECTS’ folder.
  • Backup RAW and SELECTS folders to local HDD and cloud storage (currently iCloud)
  • Delete the RAW folder from laptop SSD.

Once that is done I can reformat the SD cards, clear the Fotos app and iCloud Photographs folder ready for reuse.

• Use Lightroom to:
  • ADD ‘yyyymmdd_location/SELECTS’ to catalog.
  • Edit
  • Metadata
  • Add gps data, if not already embedded.
  • Move finished image files to ‘yyyymmdd_location/MASTERS’.
  • Add to collections etc.
  • Export  JPEGs etc. if required.

 

• Use Photo Mechanic to:
  • Backup MASTERS folder and Lightroom catalog to local HDD and cloud storage.

There’s a film workflow to add in here but not finalised that as yet. It’ll involve creating RAW DNG scans using Silverfast 9 and positive tiff files using Negative Lab Pro. The folders and file names should remain the same.

 

Edited October 17, 2022 by OThomas

[Viv]

1. Compose.

2. Press shutter button.

3. Stick SD card into iMac.

4. Crop and minor adjustments to DNG file in Photoninja (about 1 minute per photo).

5. Save, put in appropriate folder.

6. Enter in photo competition, win prize.

[Guest]

@Viv simples 😊