Photographers spend a large amount of their time editing and cataloging images, in some cases thousands per session. With so many images to sort through its extremely important to be organised and develop a solid image workflow. This is obviously a very personal thing but it’s incredibly important to find something that works for you. Not having a good workflow can leave you feeling a little overwhelmed, not to mention the amount of valuable time you waste in front of a computer screen trying to make sense of it all.
I experimented with quite a few different workflows before finding something that works for me. I got a lot of great tips reading about other photographers workflows and managed to incorporate the bits I liked into my own. After a recent email conversation with a fellow photographer about how I use Adobe Lightroom 2 I thought I’d post something similar here. Maybe someone will find it useful.
I use a combination of Adobe Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS4 for all my daily image duties but in this post I’ll go through my preferred way of dealing with files in Lightroom – Importing, File Structure, Rating, Renaming and Exporting. One of the key things for me is simplicity and this is about as simple as I can get my workflow at the moment. However, please feel free to point out something I can change to make it quicker/easier/better….
Importing & File Structure
I import my RAW files using a SansDisk Firewire 800 Card Reader and during import I have Lightroom convert them to DNG files. I prefer DNG files as they don’t have the annoying little XML sidecar files that Canon’s CR2 files need to store the image metadata. Images are imported into a shoot dated folder within a pre-created client folder. This enables me to differentiate between multiple shoots for the same client while keeping the Lightroom folder structure relatively neat and tidy. It also makes sessions easy to backup. The folder structure looks something like this:
Image HD / Client Name / 2009 / 21 July / *files*
I rename all the images during the import process, keeping the original camera filename intact whilst adding the client name in front (i.e. clientname_IMG_6678.dng). The images are also temporarily backed up to an external drive, just in case something goes wrong before I’ve had a chance to backup everything properly. As well as renaming the files I’ll usually add basic copyright info and keywords like client name, type of shoot and location.
Lightroom remembers your previous import settings so the only thing I really have to do is choose the correct client folder and add in some basic keywords. Everything else stays the same.
Rating
My first pass for any shoot is to get rid of all the unusable images – out of focus, badly composed, blinking subjects etc. I use the ‘Reject’ flag for this by pressing the ‘X’ key. Rejected images are then deleted to save on disk space – Photo > Delete Rejected Photos.
My second pass is to select the images I want to show the client. This is pretty much just a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ process using a star rating system, 1 Star for yes, 0 stars for no. I’ll usually have the caps-lock key on while doing this so Lightroom automatically jumps forward to the next image when I assign a rating. I also give any ‘favourites’ during this pass a 2 star rating.
With the second pass out of the way I filter to only show 1 star and above images. These ‘client’ files are then renamed sequentially with the clients name and shoot date (i.e clientname_DDMMYY_001.dng). Again, I have a ‘file naming’ preset setup to make this quick and easy. Renaming the files at this stage makes sure that any subsequent PSD versions have the same filename as the DNG.
Developing & Processing
This isn’t intended to be a Lightroom tutorial so I wont go into any great detail about this part of my process here – perhaps I will at some point in the future. My primary goal at this stage is just to create a well balanced image. In the Develop Module I filter for 1 Star and above images and make the usual white balance, crop, exposure, black point, brightness and basic curves adjustments. I do have a develop preset that’s added to all the files during import but it’s pretty subtle as I always end up tweaking each image individually one way or the other.
I generally like to get my favourites edited first so once I’ve made all my develop adjustments I filter for ’2 Star only’ images and open them in Photoshop by CTRL clicking (on a Mac) the image or thumbnail and choosing – Edit In > Edit in Photoshop CS4. Once I’ve finished in Photoshop I ‘Save’ the file (not ‘Save as’) and Lightroom automatically adds the newly created PSD back into the Lightroom catalogue. The beauty of using this method is that Lightroom stacks the PSD with the original DNG file and the star rating is retained. To be honest I usually end up running most of the 1 star images through Photoshop as well but I always start with 2 star images.
3,4 & 5 Star Ratings
While I’m sorting through images I’ll usually want to earmark images for my blog and website. I assign 3 stars for blog images and 4 stars for my website. The 5 star rating is reserved for my absolute best images – the ones I might enter into competitions etc. When I need to use these images they are exported with my ‘Blog’ or ‘Website’ presets. Both presets use Photoshop Droplets which run my web sharpening action on export. The PS action allows me to control the amount of sharpening before saving the image, closing and opening the next image.
Exporting Client Proofs
The images for client proofs are files with a 1 star rating and above. Obviously, I don’t want any of the unretouched versions to be exported into my client gallery so I collapse all the stacks leaving only the edited PSDs visible. If a particular 1 star image hasn’t been run through Photoshop (yet) it will also remain visible. With the stacks collapsed and all the images selected I export with my ‘Client Proofs’ preset. This preset creates a ‘Client Proofs’ folder within the main client folder and exports low-res Jpegs into it. The preset also uses a Photoshop Droplet which sharpens and adds a watermark to all the images.
Client Selects
Once my client has chosen their favorites the images get marked with a ‘Pick’ flag (the ‘P’ key). Images with a 1 star rating and Pick flag are opened in Photoshop and worked on further (the 2 star images have already been retouched). Once again, these PSD’s get stacked with the original DNG in the Lightroom catalogue.
High-Res For Print
To create the Hi-Res files I filter for any images with a ‘pick’ flag and export using my ‘Client Hi-Res’ preset. This preset creates a folder called ‘High-Res’ within the main client folder and exports 300ppi TIFF files into it. This preset uses another Photoshop Droplet which opens all the images in PS and runs my print sharpening action. The action allows me to control the amount of sharpening before saving, closing and opening the next image.
by Alan
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