Wesley. You are an amazing shooter and really strong process hawk. Always learning from your articles and how you work. I think I have changed my folder organization every year as I keep tweaking folders and sub-folder sorting. I like your approach and it can help even a hobbyist hack like me.
I have similar processes for my concert shoots but use Lightroom and it’s smart folders there. It leans heavily on properly named folders/keywords and then ratings for picks. I have a folder save smart searches for keywords (or folder name) x with rating 1*-5*, that I just clone for each new concert (or trip or project or whatever). For each new shoot/concert, I just have to go in and change the keywords/folder names of the saved searches I just cloned.
This was very insightful, thanks for sharing it Wesley! In my case, I managed to be extremely organized with all the client work I did over the years, but when it comes to my personal work, I was never able to implement a system and stick to it. It’s actually one of my projects for this year: coming up with a better workflow for personal work moving forward.
I definitely need a beter system to back-up my pictures. I also need a better system to see at a glance which pictures I shared with whom. I'll start with the back-up. I don't have any idea how to do the other in a simple and/or practical way.
For the second one, you could have a separate folder where you put what you shared with whom, per person. Or you could use tags in Adobe products like Bridge or lightroom, or their competitors. But good to start with backups!
It's just what I started with and I hate change haha. It has all the same features so I think whatever works best for you. I just didn't jive with the interface all those years ago
I agree with others, very useful. I toss all my RAW files on an external drive and then work with JPGs only with backup everything to a second drive and Backblaze. I’m in the process of looking for software that will allow me to quickly review and delete both JPG & RAW file versions at once and hoping PhotoMechanic might do this. I’ve been editing lately with Affinity because I don’t want to pay for a subscription and don’t need heavy RAW controls.
After long shoots my nap comes first lol! Really great organizational tips here, and in reality the less you have to edit, the more efficient the workflow. Time is the biggest investment; I used to want to edit everything (the perfectionist in me) but at a seminar years ago a successful photographer repeated the phrase "Good enough is best", not meaning to produce mediocre work but to get the work out, let the client pick and spend less time optimizing that narrowed down selection. I am going to try culling in Excire, that should save some time. I have to mention another service for proofing AND storage, called Playbook. You upload files in practically any format and you can easily publish a web page for your client from a selection of templates. Thanks for sharing your Process!
As I only do some casual shooting I just leave the raws on camera, edit then to jpgs into an HD and send then to my phone through telegram. It's almost as if I have a redundancy, but is just the send to my phone so I can post
Very useful, thanks. For a number of different reasons I’ve been shooting on a fairly impractical MF camera with 209mb RAW files. Though cumbersome, it very much enforces good post-prod organisation and hygiene practices :)
An interesting process. Mine is a bit different in the details. My folder structure is
Year / Date in YYMMDD format + brief descriptor (so 250701-Client-assignment)
Then subfolders:
Capture
DNG
TIFF (if needed)
Delivery
I download all the take using PhotoMechanic. (It's fast, you can preview and rate when downloading, with no need to render first)
First pass rate, 0 or 1 star, 1 stars are all “maybe”
Filter only 1 star
Second pass rate, 1 or 2 star, 2 stars are the better images
Third pass rate, 2 or 3 star, 3 star is top choice
Select all images with 3-star rating into Lightroom, copying as DNG files, add metadata: keywords, general caption
Clean up in LR, export JPEGs into Delivery
Backup to 2d and 3rd hard drives using Chronosync (which verifies the copies)
Deliver
Delete Capture folder with original RAW files
I've had problems with corrupt RAW files (from Canon, if it makes any difference), which I suspect may come from a mismatch between CR2 and XMP sidecar files. I dunno, hence converting the DNG.
It's a quick process, and if anything should happen to my Lightroom catalog, the file structure would let me access the images easily.
Wesley. You are an amazing shooter and really strong process hawk. Always learning from your articles and how you work. I think I have changed my folder organization every year as I keep tweaking folders and sub-folder sorting. I like your approach and it can help even a hobbyist hack like me.
Thanks so much for the kind words David! And you're no hack!
I have similar processes for my concert shoots but use Lightroom and it’s smart folders there. It leans heavily on properly named folders/keywords and then ratings for picks. I have a folder save smart searches for keywords (or folder name) x with rating 1*-5*, that I just clone for each new concert (or trip or project or whatever). For each new shoot/concert, I just have to go in and change the keywords/folder names of the saved searches I just cloned.
Sounds smart and tidy!
This was very insightful, thanks for sharing it Wesley! In my case, I managed to be extremely organized with all the client work I did over the years, but when it comes to my personal work, I was never able to implement a system and stick to it. It’s actually one of my projects for this year: coming up with a better workflow for personal work moving forward.
Ooh excellent goal :)
I definitely need a beter system to back-up my pictures. I also need a better system to see at a glance which pictures I shared with whom. I'll start with the back-up. I don't have any idea how to do the other in a simple and/or practical way.
For the second one, you could have a separate folder where you put what you shared with whom, per person. Or you could use tags in Adobe products like Bridge or lightroom, or their competitors. But good to start with backups!
Thank you very much for the idea of a separate folder. It gives me a jumping point to start of.
Interesting. I haven't used Bridge since Lightroom came out. Is there a reason you prefer it?
It's just what I started with and I hate change haha. It has all the same features so I think whatever works best for you. I just didn't jive with the interface all those years ago
I agree with others, very useful. I toss all my RAW files on an external drive and then work with JPGs only with backup everything to a second drive and Backblaze. I’m in the process of looking for software that will allow me to quickly review and delete both JPG & RAW file versions at once and hoping PhotoMechanic might do this. I’ve been editing lately with Affinity because I don’t want to pay for a subscription and don’t need heavy RAW controls.
Smart ideas Scott! And thank you for the kind words!
After long shoots my nap comes first lol! Really great organizational tips here, and in reality the less you have to edit, the more efficient the workflow. Time is the biggest investment; I used to want to edit everything (the perfectionist in me) but at a seminar years ago a successful photographer repeated the phrase "Good enough is best", not meaning to produce mediocre work but to get the work out, let the client pick and spend less time optimizing that narrowed down selection. I am going to try culling in Excire, that should save some time. I have to mention another service for proofing AND storage, called Playbook. You upload files in practically any format and you can easily publish a web page for your client from a selection of templates. Thanks for sharing your Process!
Thank you Paul! appreciate your words, always
As I only do some casual shooting I just leave the raws on camera, edit then to jpgs into an HD and send then to my phone through telegram. It's almost as if I have a redundancy, but is just the send to my phone so I can post
whatever works for you works for you :)
Very useful, thanks. For a number of different reasons I’ve been shooting on a fairly impractical MF camera with 209mb RAW files. Though cumbersome, it very much enforces good post-prod organisation and hygiene practices :)
Wowwww that’s some file size!!
Ridiculous really
oversized
And that's one of the big reasons why I DIDN'T stick with medium format when I tried out the GFX series last year. 😆
I hear ya
but such gorgeous images tho, I just shoot it on jpg haha
An interesting process. Mine is a bit different in the details. My folder structure is
Year / Date in YYMMDD format + brief descriptor (so 250701-Client-assignment)
Then subfolders:
Capture
DNG
TIFF (if needed)
Delivery
I download all the take using PhotoMechanic. (It's fast, you can preview and rate when downloading, with no need to render first)
First pass rate, 0 or 1 star, 1 stars are all “maybe”
Filter only 1 star
Second pass rate, 1 or 2 star, 2 stars are the better images
Third pass rate, 2 or 3 star, 3 star is top choice
Select all images with 3-star rating into Lightroom, copying as DNG files, add metadata: keywords, general caption
Clean up in LR, export JPEGs into Delivery
Backup to 2d and 3rd hard drives using Chronosync (which verifies the copies)
Deliver
Delete Capture folder with original RAW files
I've had problems with corrupt RAW files (from Canon, if it makes any difference), which I suspect may come from a mismatch between CR2 and XMP sidecar files. I dunno, hence converting the DNG.
It's a quick process, and if anything should happen to my Lightroom catalog, the file structure would let me access the images easily.