Advice on workflow / folder structure

[Olaf_ZG]

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As I am changing OS from Windows to Mac I am rethinking my software (C1 vs LR) but also my workflow and file structure as I am not happy with my current flow.

This is what I have in mind for my new flow:

with photo mechanic

1. Ingest cards to folder \ingest\camera (no backup)

2. Select keepers, rename and move to folder \original\yyyy, name is ‘os_yymm_xxxx (this folder is backed up)

3. Delete all non-keepers, format cards in camera

4. from the keepers, select those images related to projects I am doing, and copy them to folder \projects\raw_project (no renaming of files)

By now I have basically two times folders on my computer: original per year, and projects. Idea of this is that the projects will remain always on the computer and original per year will be removed to external when year is finished.

For all my regular photography (non projects) I want to spends as less time possible processing them:

with C1/LR (tbd):

add \original\yyyy to catalogue, process and export as jpg. Processing solely to be done with C1/LR, no edit with other programs as I don’t like the fact I get multiple files of the same image.

For my projects:

use C1/LR for raw processing: profile, crop, curves, colour and save as tiff. Those tiff’s are base for further editing in PS.

For both regular and projects I will use the rating to track the progress of images:

no star: new, 1 star: dismissed, 2 stars: wip C1/LR, 3 stars: finished C1/LR, 4 stars: wip PS and 5 stars: finished PS.

Any advice how to optimize? Thanks.

 

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[Cobram]

Maybe stupid answer but regarding non-project stuff you mentioned:

I recently went from C1 to Lightroom just because AUTO adjustments function works way better in LR comparing to C1. Yes, C1 is more capable regarding precise color adjustments but for fast (quite good) results I prefer Lightroom. It saves a LOT of time. IMHO

[budjames]

That's interesting. I switched from LR to C1P about 8 years ago due to frustrations working with Fuji X RAW files. Since late 2017, I have shot exclusively with Leica M and SL (now SL2) and I keep using C1P because it is so powerful. 

I do miss LR's capability of handling large catalogs that allow you to search everything. With C1P, I found that the app gets sluggish with more than about 45-50k images, so I break my image filing system into smaller catalogs. C1P catalog speed and capabilities have improved with each release, but LR was great back when I used it. An advantage of C1P is that you can have multiple catalogs open at the same time, unlike LR. Also C1P Sessions are a neat feature when I'm on the road.

The other feature about LR that I missed was the Print module. C1P printing capabilities are clunky. However, since I started using Image Print Black a year ago for all of my printing, I'm very happy not to use C1P to print. Image Print's custom paper profiles are endless and the print results from my Epson P900 are the best that I have ever experienced.

Regards,
Bud James

Please check out my fine art and travel photography at www.budjames.photography.

Edited January 6, 2023 by budjames

[Olaf_ZG]

@Cobram and @budjames: thanks, but my question is not about C1 vs LR, this is a totally separate topic for me. I am on C1 from start, but envy the quick masking options in LR. I need to test LR to make a decision. However, I guess that either program will have no impact as such on my workflow as described in my first post (except may be for integration with PS).

[LocalHero1953]

FWIW, I do not have a rigorous folder structure, nor do I duplicate originals (which I think you do if I understand you correctly).

I have several top-level folders:

• Family: these are the only images that are structured by year. Within each year images are in folders by occasion.
• Places: structured by continent, country, region, city - detail depends on quantity of images. Includes holiday travel shots.
• People: portrait sessions, structured by name
• Three top level folders specific to my interests: music, drama, dance
• Photo assignments: when I'm asked to take photos that don't fit in elsewhere
• Projects: personal projects
• Photography: camera, lens, film tests etc
• Miscellaneous: subjects that don't fit in elsewhere: flowers, trees, wildlife, abstracts......

This structure doesn't make sense, but it seems to work!

I don't use Bridge - I import directly to LR. How I process them depends on why I have taken the photos. Photos for others, are all treated the same: delete the unusable ones and apparent duplicates, process the rest to as good a standard as I can, but leave further triage and selection to my (amateur) clients. I am more ruthless with photos I take for myself/family, deleting many more and keeping those I think I will want in the long term - but I tend to take fewer photos when shooting for myself than for others. 

The LR catalogue file and the image files are all stored on an internal 10Tb HDD. This is backed up daily to an external Lacie HDD (using Lacie's back up s/w). From there it is backed up continuously to the cloud with Backblaze, which also backs up important files from elsewhere on my PC (edited videos, accounts, emails). 'Documents' are not included, as they are backed up using Onedrive.

Edited January 6, 2023 by LocalHero1953

[budjames]

9 hours ago, Olaf_ZG said:

@Cobram and @budjames: thanks, but my question is not about C1 vs LR, this is a totally separate topic for me. I am on C1 from start, but envy the quick masking options in LR. I need to test LR to make a decision. However, I guess that either program will have no impact as such on my workflow as described in my first post (except may be for integration with PS).

@LOlaf_ZG: I used only C1P for the past 6-7 years. I gave up my Adobe Creative Cloud subscription about 5 years ago because I don't do a lot of pixel crunching that C1P can handle. When I do have a heavier pixel level editing need, Affinity Photo gives me more than I need.

C1P can export a variety of formats to 3rd party apps like Photoshop, Affinity Photo, Topaz, etc.

Regards,
Bud James

Please check out my fine art and travel photography at www.budjames.photography.

[robsonj]

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I keep a top level folder for each year, then a sub folder for each month. I have smart collections based on image tags for yearly family stuff and non smart collections for other projects. I usually keep a couple of years in my current or catalog, then have a master catalog with everything in it, sat on a spinning disk, that I routinely merge my current catalog into that. That master catalog then gets synced to my truenas nas and synced to backblaze. My current catalog gets backed up using the macOS Time Machine feature.

[250swb]

My file structure is simple in that it follows on and integrates with my negative file sheets.

1/ Arrive home after a day photographing, download all photographs to a sequentially numbered, named, and dated folder, so as an example 1050(folder #), location/event name, and date 01/01/2023

(I do not delete any photographs. You should learn as much about what didn't work and why from you rejects as much as you learn from your successes, they are valuable)

2/ I want to edit and improve a photograph from the main folder, so I create a sub-folder called 'Edit' to work on and save the chosen images.

3/After editing and saving a photograph I may want to publish it, so I create another sub-folder within 'Edit' called 'Forum', or 'Flickr' and make copies of the edited photo at the appropriate sizes for each outlet.

So all of a days photos are kept in one master folder with potentially three tiers, 1/out of camera, 2/ edits (I number my edits with the file number plus an additional 'v1, or v2' on the end for version one, version 2 etc), and 3/resized edits.

If it's a roll of scanned film I'm putting into my filing system I simply add an 'F' for film to the end of the main folder number, so folder 1050 would become '1050F', plus location and date. You could use a similar code to denote camera etc.

For backup I copy folders onto a clone hard drive. I use Bridge for downloading and organising my files and Photoshop for editing.

 

[Ouroboros]

2 hours ago, 250swb said:

My file structure is simple in that it follows on and integrates with my negative file sheets.

1/ Arrive home after a day photographing, download all photographs to a sequentially numbered, named, and dated folder, so as an example 1050(folder #), location/event name, and date 01/01/2023

(I do not delete any photographs. You should learn as much about what didn't work and why from you rejects as much as you learn from your successes, they are valuable)

2/ I want to edit and improve a photograph from the main folder, so I create a sub-folder called 'Edit' to work on and save the chosen images.

3/After editing and saving a photograph I may want to publish it, so I create another sub-folder within 'Edit' called 'Forum', or 'Flickr' and make copies of the edited photo at the appropriate sizes for each outlet.

So all of a days photos are kept in one master folder with potentially three tiers, 1/out of camera, 2/ edits (I number my edits with the file number plus an additional 'v1, or v2' on the end for version one, version 2 etc), and 3/resized edits.

If it's a roll of scanned film I'm putting into my filing system I simply add an 'F' for film to the end of the main folder number, so folder 1050 would become '1050F', plus location and date. You could use a similar code to denote camera etc.

For backup I copy folders onto a clone hard drive. I use Bridge for downloading and organising my files and Photoshop for editing.

 

Pretty much the same method for me with slight differences.  From Bridge and ACR:

I create master folders by date rather than sequential numbering (eg  December 2022, January 2023 etc).  Within that monthly master folder are subfolders relating to which of my cameras I’ve used: eg Fuji GX617, Leica M10-R, Hasselblad, Nikon, Fuji 6x9 etc and within each of  those camera subfolders are two folders: RAW or SCANS and EDITED. I never delete any RAW files or scans.

I will deviate slightly from this routine if I need to keep a project or a set of images separate such as multiple returns to a location on different dates when I archive files in the same way but by location or subject rather than date.

I back up the archive with a bank of three external drives.

My paid work is archived in the same way but on a separate set of external drives to my personal work.  
 

The only time I work with copies of edited files (JPEGs) from the computer internal hard drive is for speed and convenience when I’m designing a photo book, framed print order or wedding album etc.  When the project has been completed, all copy files are deleted from the computer hard drive.  I like to keep my main editing machine as clean and uncluttered as possible.

Edited January 7, 2023 by Ouroboros

[ianforber]

On 1/6/2023 at 1:06 PM, LocalHero1953 said:

FWIW, I do not have a rigorous folder structure, nor do I duplicate originals (which I think you do if I understand you correctly).

I have several top-level folders:

• Family: these are the only images that are structured by year. Within each year images are in folders by occasion.
• Places: structured by continent, country, region, city - detail depends on quantity of images. Includes holiday travel shots.
• People: portrait sessions, structured by name
• Three top level folders specific to my interests: music, drama, dance
• Photo assignments: when I'm asked to take photos that don't fit in elsewhere
• Projects: personal projects
• Photography: camera, lens, film tests etc
• Miscellaneous: subjects that don't fit in elsewhere: flowers, trees, wildlife, abstracts......

This structure doesn't make sense, but it seems to work!

I don't use Bridge - I import directly to LR. How I process them depends on why I have taken the photos. Photos for others, are all treated the same: delete the unusable ones and apparent duplicates, process the rest to as good a standard as I can, but leave further triage and selection to my (amateur) clients. I am more ruthless with photos I take for myself/family, deleting many more and keeping those I think I will want in the long term - but I tend to take fewer photos when shooting for myself than for others. 

The LR catalogue file and the image files are all stored on an internal 10Tb HDD. This is backed up daily to an external Lacie HDD (using Lacie's back up s/w). From there it is backed up continuously to the cloud with Backblaze, which also backs up important files from elsewhere on my PC (edited videos, accounts, emails). 'Documents' are not included, as they are backed up using Onedrive.

Similar process for me. All my photos are on an external hard drive, with the C1 catalogue on my Mac internal drive.  I import new images (using C1) into a Work in Progress folder. Copy the hard disk to another couple of external hard drives as backup. Leave the images for at least 2 weeks before going back to look at them. Delete/process as necessary and  move the final version to themed folders/ sub-folders such as Family, Travel (with sub-folders), Landscape etc. Backup hard drives again. Export ones I really like as jpegs to Apple Photos. Every so often export the ones I really really like to my SlickPic website. 

[M11 for me]

And why no TimeMachine. You can have 2 TimeMachines if 1 is not enough 😇

[robsonj]

1 hour ago, M11 for me said:

And why no TimeMachine. You can have 2 TimeMachines if 1 is not enough 😇

I like Time Machine. I use it as an immediate automated backup for my recent images, before they go to the secondary store and tertiary NAS (and Backblaze)

[M11 for me]

vor 42 Minuten schrieb robsonj:

I like Time Machine. I use it as an immediate automated backup for my recent images, before they go to the secondary store and tertiary NAS (and Backblaze)

OMG, OMG 😍

But you have wonderful images on your website. I love your mono section.

Edited January 13, 2023 by M11 for me

[robsonj]

1 hour ago, M11 for me said:

OMG, OMG 😍

But you have wonderful images on your website. I love your mono section.

Thank you! Have been tending towards mono lately, no white balance to get wrong 🙂

[Alberti]

My structure is:

Cities,

- and for each city, a set of years. (When looking back for something I know the city or venue, often not the year)

(Mountain) hikes

- again then place, and years, I have some old mountain trips that tend to be unsorted)

Family

- on relative and year, often also with name of come-together, 

and that is complemented with some topics like

- Hobby, flowers/macro etc.

I have some 60K-100K files.
I dump all my processed files (books , prints …) on a separate drive. Again sorted of course.

With C1 I started with sessions like this, later converted to LR.

CCC is used for BU, nothing related to LR  in TM.