I am a huge believer in Lightroom. If you’re not using it, you should be. Today, Tony Reynes shares his Lightroom workflow with you guys. Everyone’s workflow is different, but Tony is a master. So pay attention. Take it away, Tony!
I am regularly asked about my work flow. Being a hyper-organized guy, I like to find whatever I shoot with ease. Here is my process. You may find pieces of it that work for you. When I get home from a shoot, this is what I do.
- Take memory chip/s out of camera and camera bag.
- Start up the computer and attach the card reader.
- Start Lightroom.
- Insert card into reader and find the new images in the import window.
- Import images into computer; I put them into a file I call 000Bigload. It is called that because:
- It is easy to find in the Lightroom file stack; it is number 1
- I do not back that file up to the cloud; time is saved by not moving potential crud
- For redundancy, this file is mirrored on another internal drive
- Once all the cards are copied into the computer, I look at them to make sure I have all my shots.
- At this point, all used cards are formatted in camera and ready for next use.
- The new images are then reviewed in Lightroom and I try to cull out 20% before I start to play with the remaining best of them.
- I will star the images/image sets that I think are best and start to work on them.
- Each time I come back to the computer to do any work on these images, I try to cull another 5-10%.
- When I have finished processing these new images, I will tag them. This usually includes: year, location, subject, time of day, major color and any people in it.
- I then create a new home for the images in a new Lightroom file. My on-board hard drives, I have a Mac Pro, are broken into System, Scratch, Mirror and Archive.
- The new home file will reside on the Scratch Drive and will be named some thing like this:
- Year (2013)
- General Repeating Headings( People, Local, Miscellaneous)
- Or, a major trip
- Sub cells for specific trip days or specific people
- With this file system, file hierarchy could look like:
- 2009>Local>Chicago>Cultural Center
- 2001>People>Julie
- 2006>Arizona>Tuesday>Upper Antelope
This is my system. If you talk to 50 people, you will get 50 different ways of doing it. Listen a lot and then piece together what is right for you.
What you will also note, is that I am pretty brutal on keeping stuff. In 10+ years of shooting I have less than 30,000 images. I sort of think, the better eye I get, the better I am at spotting junk…including my own.
If you have comments on my posts, please say boo. I will respond. Let me know what you would like me to talk about.
