Lightroom workflow question

[golfer]

Those of you who use Lightroom to download photos, how do you file you photos? Do you keep everything in one file and let Lightroom keep track of it, or do you organize it and then track it with Lightroom? I'm struggling to know how to deal with these files, but want to use Lightroom. I do have Bridge and could use it to organize my file folders, and then Lightroom to track them. Can I do it all in Lightroom?

[nyschulte]

Hi,

I directly import from CF card (shooting raw)

The resulting DNG files are stored in a structure

->camera

-> year

-> date

inside my lightroom directory.

As i do 99.9% of my sessions with a D200, i do not change the base path very often

After the session i copy the CF cards into one folder, duplicate it on 4 different places and burn 2 DVD's
Finally i reformat the CF cards in-camera.

i export photos in PSD format for retouching. At the end i re-import the retouched ones as JPEG into lightroom and group them.

Once a week i backup the whole lightroom directory onto a different disk.

Nicolas

[Worm324]

Yeah, I import them directly into Lightroom from the CF card. Lightroom converts them to .dng raw files and puts them in a folder with the date. I have a master folder for each year, 2007, 2006, 2005 ect.. So when I imported my old pictures they were somewhat organized by year. All the new pics go into the master 2007 folder. I then will right click to edit in photoshop and it will automatically stack the PS file with the raw file in the same folder.

If you save out the psd file as a jpeg you would have to re import it as said above. I have a separate folder for this purpose as well as a folder for prints. I have the keytags for all versions of the photo the same so i can track it down when needed.

Any organizing you do should be done in Lightroom only!! If you don't Lightroom will lose the files and you have to re-find them in lightroom which is a pain in the a$$!!

I hope that helps you out

Jay

[golfer]

Been out of town, and just reviewed your posts. Thank you for your help.
For some reason I am having difficulty leaving behind my old system of something like: animals>birds>cardinals>bluejays etc.
If I understand correctly, you have only one very large file for each year and use keywords to finde the photos you want.

[Worm324]

Golfer,
The files are all in individual folders based on date of import. I import them into my 2007 folder. So on my Hard drive there is a folder for 2007. In that folder are folders based on date of import.

Then in lightroom I review each folder based on import and keyword my pictures based on Birds, Landscapes, Stream, Bridges, ect..

Then I can do a search for any keyword and anly those pics come up. Lightroom can search the folders and find you shots for you based on keywords.

Thats how I'm using anyway I'm sure there are better ways to organizer your stuff and Lightroom is very flexible. The key is to organize within Lightroom so the database stays accurate.

You can even organize outside of lightroom and import a pre- organized folder system if you wanted to.

Jay

[brian.austin]

You can also set up collections for photos, which is what I do.

Lightroom is flexible enough that just about any physical structure to your storage is irrelevant to how you actually organize the photos.

[golfer]

Thanks so much for your help. I am hoping to only do this once and would like to set things up as well as can be done.
Brian, would you be so kind as to expand just a little on "collections"? do you mean collections as in Lightroom or you personal collections which might be something different?

[brian.austin]

Originally Posted by golfer

Thanks so much for your help. I am hoping to only do this once and would like to set things up as well as can be done.
Brian, would you be so kind as to expand just a little on "collections"? do you mean collections as in Lightroom or you personal collections which might be something different?

Collections in Lightroom, which are defined by you, personally. It's basically a bunch of photos that below to the same group, regardless of location or keyword in the system. Just another way to organize.

Elements' Organizer also had them. I don't remember if Bridge does or not. Never used it that much.