Too many copies of photos! Workflow issues

firelook2

Hi folks

As one who considers herself to still be a "newbie" to the digital age (but I'm working on catching up to you young pups), I am a little confused on the image storage issue.

I have a Macbook Pro (just switched to Mac) that is loaded with Aperture and Photoshop. (I'm not real crazy about Aperture and think I'm going to buy Lightroom instead.)

Anyway, the deal is - I currently load my photos from a card reader into Aperture where I do the first edits and get rid of images that just didn't work. Then if I need to resize or do any tweaking, I save as a TIFF and export the TIFF to Photoshop. If the image is something I am going to submit to my stock agency, I first need to resize to their specs as a low res jpeg then later if accepted, as a high res TIFF.

With all this exporting, downloading, etc - I have photos everywhere! There are RAW (NEF) files, TIFF and Jpegs - many of the same photos. I can't possibly need all of these and they take up so much room! Which ones do I need to keep where, and which ones can I delete? I am currently trying to keep the NEF in Aperture (and a copy on an external hard drive), and the JPEG and TIFF versions in the Photoshop folder. However, from all the moving images around, there are some NEF files in the photoshop folder and some TIFF and jpegs in the Aperture program, too.

Whew, sorry about the long post. Anyway, if anyone in the forum can offer some tips, suggestions, explanations, etc I would be very appreciative!!! I'm trying to get my digital workflow to work as efficiently as possible so I can spend more time out shooting!

Thanks,

Marcy

www.highcascadesphotography.com
www.HighCascadesPhotography.ifp3.com

Lovesong

Hi Marcy,
I'm using essentially the same setup as you in terms of software- Aperture to store and keep organized and CS3 to do some of the more advanced editing. One of the nice things about Aperture (which is why I ditched Lightroom) is that you don't have to keep any or all of your files outside of your library. What I mean by this is that when you import RAW files, they are copied into your library, and when you create a vault it backs up all the original RAWs, along with every "version" that I have made.

My basic workflow using Aperture is simple- I import the RAW files from my camera into a specific project, usually named with a date. I sort out the keepers from the trash, and do some minor tweaks to the images. For those that I feel the need to edit more, I simply select the image and press apple-shift-o, which I have setup to open the images in PS. Once my editing is done, I save the image (just apple-s), exit PS, and the edited copy is in my Aperture project right next to the "unedited" copy. From there, if I need to export for some reason, I simply right-click on an image and export the version. This gives me a slew of options, including formats and sizes (which I can customize), and then I either create a new folder wherever I want, or place the finished product in a default location. I find the workflow intuitive, and rarely do I end up with files all over the place.

firelook2

Thanks for the post! You make it sound so easy - guess I just need more practice.

I am still learning about Mac, Aperture, etc plus I've only been shooting digital for about a year. So, the learning curve has taken me a little longer than I'd like, but I"m getting there!

Thanks again and your info was a big help in understanding the process.

Marcy