Can I please have your opinion on my LR2 workflow and some questions?

bandgeekndb

Good morning all!

As I end up processing a ton of photos recently, I'm realizing I really need to work out a frame for my workflow, even if I'm not a professional. Like most, I'm trying to maximize my time at the computer, since I get so little of it, and minimize the amount of repetitive work I have to do.

Here is what I do (roughly) at this point:

1. Download all pics (JPEG) from camera using Lightroom 2.1 and its Import dialog. Right now, my folder structure is "\Pictures\2008\2008-10-31\" and I'm happy with that, although I might end up wanting a custom name in there for the event
2. Go through the photos, and rate them from 3-5 stars, and delete the cruft (reject them, then Ctrl+backspace to delete the rejects)
3. On second pass through the photos, crop, adjust light levels, mild sharpening, etc. Basically, just the bare bones post processing. Most times, it's a simple crop and I move on. After the image is done, I mark it with a green label to signify it is done.

At this point, I'm not sure what I want to do. I now realize I need to export the photos to get Lightroom to write the changes. Normally, I would write to Smugmug and be done, but now I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do about local file exports.

I already learned the hard way not to overwrite the originals, because somehow I mucked it up and lost a nice shoot I had done with my girlfriend. So for now, I'm just exporting to a subfolder. This way, I have the originals and the edits. I am NOT adding the new exports to the catalog at this point, since I wasn't sure what I wanted in the catalog.

SO, on to the questions! I've tried googling, but nothing seemed specific to my questions, just some general advice on LR2 workflows, which didn't seem to apply to what I wanted to do.

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Questions:

1. What do all you business pros (and those of you that are just masters of everything Adobe) think of this workflow in general? Stupid things I'm doing? Good, bad, ugly?
2. How do I edit this workflow to work with RAW? (DISCLAIMER: I'm quite happy with LR2, and I'd rather not move to something else unless necessary)
3. Since I'll be in RAW and shooting in tough light conditions, how do I get my photos into/out of Noise Ninja or an equivalent?
4. How does everyone handle keeping originals and exports? Keep everything, only for backups, ditch the originals? I'm so lost! My backup solution right now is once a week backup to external HD, and a LR catalog file backup once a week as well. Online is out of the question for now, as I have a VERY small upload limit here at the University.

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I think that's it, although I'm sure I'll think of stuff as people respond.

Thank you all in advance! I feel like such a "newb" some times, but I am LOVING the pictures I'm getting nowadays. I've never had anyone gasp at a photo I'd taken before the other day! Now, I've got a lot of my friends that LOVE the pictures I've gotten recently and it's been directly because of advice I've gotten on here, if nothing other than "Keep shooting!!!"

With sincere thanks,
Nick Blew

PS - To all that went out on the Moab shoot, it looks like you had a blast! I wish I had the chance to photograph Rock Genie! I can only hope I find models like this near me at the University!

jfriend

Here's how my workflow differs from yours:

• When I download to a folder, I use 2008/2008-10-31-Event-Name. I put and event name in the folder name so it's easy to know what each folder is.
• I make one pass through my images. In that one pass, I set my view to only show me unmarked and unrated images. I've saved a filter explictly for this that I can apply with two clicks. As you will see below, this only puts images in my view that have not been processed yet. It starts with all images in view. When I process and image, it drops out of view.
• Then, I go through each image. I either mark it for deletion or I edit it and then give it a rating. Marking it for deletion makes it disappear from the view and giving it a rating makes it disappear from the view. If I'm undecided and want to see the other images before deciding, I just skip an image and it stays in the view. I've found that I need to do the editing step (which often involves looking closer and more critically at the image or involves trying to fix it) before I know if it's a keeper or not so I don't want to separate that decision from the editing step. On ratings, I tend to only use 2-4 at this stage. I save 1 for images that I want to keep and thus have a rating, but might not be ones I'm going to use right away for whatever this gallery is used for. I save 5 for images that really, really stand out (some of my best ever). Usually those kinds of images have been tweaked individually in Photoshop too. At any point, if I stop and go do something else, the unrated images are the ones that I have left to process so it's always easy to pick up and continue where I left off.
• When I've gone through every image, my view is now empty. No more images in the view. I can now turn the filter off and do Ctrl-backspace to get rid of all the images marked for deletion.

For exports, I suspect everyone has a different thought process on that. I think of exports as disposable. I can always just do an export again if I want the images again. As such, I don't put them in the catalog and I put them in a directory location that is away from the rest of my photos. It's actually in \exports\event-name. Every once in awhile, I just delete the older exports as I see no reason to keep them and I don't want to permanently take the disk space or pollute my storage hierarchy with them. If shooting JPEG, you would also never get confused about which were originals and which were exported images if doing it this way.

The beauty of Lightroom is that your workflow can stay exactly the same with RAW files. No changes needed at all. I shoot RAW.

Once I've decided that an image is a keeper, I keep that original forever. It's like my negative. Lightroom keeps track of my edits on that original. As I said above, exported versions are disposable for me and I only keep them while using them or until I do some disk housekeeping.

bandgeekndb

Thank you, I like your twists on my workflow. I certainly think I'll be trying them next time I work on a shoot!

Also, I really like your view on exports, makes a lot of sense and what I believe Adobe is trying to come across with when they made Lightroom.

Thanks again!

digismile

Nick,

I am pretty much in line with John's workflow and I absolutely agree with with the concept of exports being "expendable". I have modified my workflow a number of times over the years, but have only recently become a user of Lightroom. And I should add that I shoot RAW.

As you know in LR, your RAW original stays intact, and all modifications are non-destructive, with the ability to step back and forth in the "development history". What I like about my workflow now, is that I don't need to create a jpeg export to upload to smugmug. I can go directly from my LR raw files to smugmug.

My only intermediate files at the moment are: Misc Photoshop versions of an original that required more adjustment than could be done in LR, and Noise Ninja'd files. These alternates can either automatically (or at least very easily) be grouped with the original RAW file. It would be really nice if the Noise Ninja plug-in could be a non-destructive step like everything else, but I don't know if this would even be possible. Not a big deal for me, as I don't need to use NN frequently.

You may want to take a look at ImageIngesterPro as an alternative to the LR import method. It has some very cool features that you may like.

jdryan3

I'm very similar to John & Brad. I do use keywords when importing, and depending upon the images, will add them to an existing or create a new collection.

My sorting is much like John's. I do use the color labels to tag images that are 'snapshots', selected to be exported, and other things to me.

One issue I have to work on is variations of images I bring into PS (multiple PSDs). I have a standard suffix I add system I use, but once I save them i do have to in LR and import them into my main LR Catalog. No move or copy, just add them to the catalog. I can then stack with the original PSD & RAW file(s).

Since I can download jpegs I post to SmugMug, no reason to keep those at all once uploaded.

MyLifeThruLenses

LR2 to SmugMug
Digismile,
I have a similar workflow and shoot RAW and already upgraded to LR2. What Plug-In and/or method do you use to directly go from LR to SmugMug?
Thnx

digismile wrote:

Nick,

I am pretty much in line with John's workflow and I absolutely agree with with the concept of exports being "expendable". I have modified my workflow a number of times over the years, but have only recently become a user of Lightroom. And I should add that I shoot RAW.

As you know in LR, your RAW original stays intact, and all modifications are non-destructive, with the ability to step back and forth in the "development history". What I like about my workflow now, is that I don't need to create a jpeg export to upload to smugmug. I can go directly from my LR raw files to smugmug.

My only intermediate files at the moment are: Misc Photoshop versions of an original that required more adjustment than could be done in LR, and Noise Ninja'd files. These alternates can either automatically (or at least very easily) be grouped with the original RAW file. It would be really nice if the Noise Ninja plug-in could be a non-destructive step like everything else, but I don't know if this would even be possible. Not a big deal for me, as I don't need to use NN frequently.

You may want to take a look at ImageIngesterPro as an alternative to the LR import method. It has some very cool features that you may like.

bandgeekndb

MyLifeThruLenses wrote:

Digismile,
I have a similar workflow and shoot RAW and already upgraded to LR2. What Plug-In and/or method do you use to directly go from LR to SmugMug?
Thnx

Now this one, I can help with.

Jeffrey Friedl's SmugMug Export Plugin for LR2

This is (what I believe to be) the standard and accepted way to get from LR2 to SmugMug. Jeff is right on top of updating the plugin, even including a halloween release for us! Just follow the instructions on Jeff's blog and you'll be all set in a jiffy!

Also, for any help using the plugin, I believe there is a thread or two around here (possibly in the SmugMug API/Hacks board) regarding this specific plugin. Hopefully, you'll never need it though and honestly, I haven't. Never had a problem with this plugin!

bandgeekndb

Thank you to everyone who has replied! I certainly appreciate everyone's advice, and I'm feeling a few general trends as to how I should try changing my workflow and decide if that works for me!

Pittspilot

I'm very similar to the workflows used here - especially naming etc. I'm putting a lot of effort into keywords, which will pay dividends!

As far as two issues Raw and exports:

Raw
I rarely shoot anything else. And I'm very happy with that, though if I upgrade to the new Canon that may cause me to question that - the files will be huge. The beauty of LR is that your workflow, procedures etc DO NOT need to change.

Your THINKING changes when you move to and use LR - and that brings me to the second point:

Exports:

The 'baking in' of the changes you have made seem to cause confusion. I find that with my students, it's the EARLIER part of the process that is the root of the confusion; people seem to struggle with the 'non-destructive' nature of LR (maybe we have been too long with tools that did not allow us any other option) and also that in, for example, PS you HAVE TO START with the end in mind. For example, in PS I needed to know what my final use would be to select image size, print resolution, output target (web, screen, offset print, etc) and with LR we forget all that till we 'bake'.

So exports are totally frangible. Partly because it is so trivial to reconstitute anything. This assumes that you save presets etc. :-)) AT LEAST TO MAKE IT EASY.

Cheers

MyLifeThruLenses

Thnx...
Appreciate the quick response.

bandgeekndb wrote:

Now this one, I can help with.

Jeffrey Friedl's SmugMug Export Plugin for LR2

This is (what I believe to be) the standard and accepted way to get from LR2 to SmugMug. Jeff is right on top of updating the plugin, even including a halloween release for us! Just follow the instructions on Jeff's blog and you'll be all set in a jiffy!

Also, for any help using the plugin, I believe there is a thread or two around here (possibly in the SmugMug API/Hacks board) regarding this specific plugin. Hopefully, you'll never need it though and honestly, I haven't. Never had a problem with this plugin!

jdryan3

Pittspilot wrote:

So exports are totally frangible. Partly because it is so trivial to reconstitute anything. This assumes that you save presets etc. :-)) AT LEAST TO MAKE IT EASY. Cheers

Mix in Virtual Copies and you never have to worry about it again.

Pittspilot

jdryan3 wrote:

Mix in Virtual Copies and you never have to worry about it again.

Que???

digismile

jdryan3 wrote:

Mix in Virtual Copies and you never have to worry about it again.

Good Point. Prior to LR, I would often create a copy of a Raw iamge in Bridge, particularly for cropping purposes. This allowed me to have better photos cropped to my liking for 5x7 and 8x10. In Bridge, the cropped aspect ratio became an automatic filter, making exports for the lab very easy. The downside, is that I would have multiple full size originals.

Now, with virtual copies, I can continue my cropping routine without worry of adding significant amounts of new data.

BTW, in LR, the "Aspect Ratio" filter doesn't work like it does in Bridge. In Bridge, Aspect Ratio correctly shows 2x3, 5x7, 4x5, etc. as well as another Filter field called Orientation (Portrait, Landscape). In LR, Aspect Ratio is really orientation. Bummer ...

digismile

One small change to my workflow (since I changed to LR) that I forgot to mention is geocoding. Periodically I geotag my photos so that the Map This! button can be used.

In my Bridge/PS workflow, I could pretty much add the GPS metadata at anytime. In LR, I geocode them either as I import them with ImageIngester, or immediately after import with GeoSetter. The issue, at least when I was first using the LR2 trial version, is that adding the GPS data later wouldn't be picked up by LR2 (but worked perfectly for Bridge). Re-reading the metadata would bring in the GPS data, but could lose any initial changes made with LR (which also kept in the XMP file for the image).

ivar

digismile wrote:

Re-reading the metadata would bring in the GPS data, but could lose any initial changes made with LR (which also kept in the XMP file for the image).

Write the metadata changes to the file first, and then read them from metadata in to LR again

Jzazzi

I second the idea of using filters to aid in selecting photos through a first pass. I don't use stars, but will flag "reject" frequently. I do one or more passes to narrow down the group to keepers making use of the keyboard shortcuts E, G, and N to view one or more similar photos at a time. F and CTRL+TAB is very useful for clearing the screen of anything but photos to give the most space to work with. The last pass is in Develop for crops and exposure tweaks. Delete all rejected photos at the end.

Exports are completely disposable. You only export the photos for one purpose right? Be it onto a CD for a client, or uploading to the web to share with others ... after you "use" those files there is no need to keep them because you have to originals and the catalog data to rebuild anything you wish. This idea has saved me tons of headache and disc space. All my exports go directly to the desktop to be used for their purpose, then trashed soon afterwards.

As for NoiseNinja or any other third party program ... I don't see how it can fit into a lightroom workflow without being overly complicated. Since noise reduction is something that can be done before anything else I would batch an entire shoot through your program of choice, THEN import into a LR catalog. Just make sure all your EXIF data stays intact.

One last thing. When importing photos to LR, I always have the metadata updated with my © copyright info, name, website and so forth. It's super easy to setup and worryfree.

-Justin