Muki.Dorifuto.com Photography talk with random tangents into the unknown

The basics: Workflow

Only a few years ago there wasn't much involved in storing, editing, publishing (printing) and backing up your photos. These days, with huge file sizes and the ability to store everything digitally, it can be a little unwieldy.

So it's no surprise that one of the things newcomers to photography obsess over is workflow.

It doesn't have to be complicated, just consistent.

I'd recommend using Lightroom to manage all your files. Just be sure to only move files around within the program - be consistent.

I organise my physical files by date (year, then month/day) and let Lightroom take care of the actual content in the way of collections, flags and tags. This way you can daily dump your files while being able to add them to a larger collection that you may be building over several days or longer.

Publishing photos is possible either in Lightroom or by exporting to a separate folder. I export high resolution copies for client use or to send to the printers, otherwise built in publishing plugins for Lightroom allow you to publish straight to Facebook, Flickr or any of the other popular publishing platforms.

Backing up is simply a matter of making sure you have a copy of your physical files and your Lightroom catalog. This can be as simple as making a duplicate or as sophisticated as copying to multiple locations or to a cloud-based service.

Just be sure to back up regularly!

I use a little program called Syncback to periodically mirror my files on to a few drives and an online service.

Get into a system that you feel comfortable with and requires the least input from yourself. You'll be amazed how much you can automate everything, and the less impedance there is to getting your photos in an form for editing, the less likely you are to put it off.