So, a couple of days ago on my other blog, i posted that my Mac Pro, my main workstation, had died… It was a sad day… But it is a new beginning in a way… now i get to start from scratch on most things. So, at the moment (or when my Mac Pro was working i should say) this was my workflow (roughly): download photos to a particular directory using Downloader Pro (had some copyright settings in here as standard). the filename structure was <drive>:\Photos\<YYYYMMDD>\<YYMMDD>-<HHMMSS>-<ImportSerial> where ImportSerial was the number of the file (so, first file of the download was 1, and so on). the directory was on a RAID 1 array, and a copy process was set to copy to my Windows Home Server at the same time Open LightRoom and import the photos. I had one massive LightRoom Catalogue which was set to export metadata as it was written to XMP side cars. Keywords would usually get added on import… but sometimes they didn't. i should do the keywords more often go through each photo and set ratings do some work on photos that needed work export the top photos backup job to the cloud (either Amazon S3 or RackSpace CloudFiles) Now that i have to start from scratch, does anyone have any recommendations? how should i setup my LightRoom Catalogues? is Downloader Pro enough or should i have something else? is my naming structure for files and folders up to scratch? And while we are on the subject, anyone have recommendations for Mobile Workflows? If i take my laptop with me, copy photos to it and work on them, how should i get them on to the main machine? just copy the LightRoom Catalogue? Is there a better way? and when should i clean my cards? do i do it after import, after backup to the Home Server or after backup to the Cloud? Leave comments below if you have ideas.
So, a couple of days ago on my other blog, i posted that my Mac Pro, my main workstation, had died… It was a sad day… But it is a new beginning in a way… now i get to start from scratch on most things.
So, at the moment (or when my Mac Pro was working i should say) this was my workflow (roughly):
- download photos to a particular directory using Downloader Pro (had some copyright settings in here as standard). the filename structure was <drive>:\Photos\<YYYYMMDD>\<YYMMDD>-<HHMMSS>-<ImportSerial> where ImportSerial was the number of the file (so, first file of the download was 1, and so on). the directory was on a RAID 1 array, and a copy process was set to copy to my Windows Home Server at the same time
- Open LightRoom and import the photos. I had one massive LightRoom Catalogue which was set to export metadata as it was written to XMP side cars. Keywords would usually get added on import… but sometimes they didn’t. i should do the keywords more often
- go through each photo and set ratings
- do some work on photos that needed work
- export the top photos
- backup job to the cloud (either Amazon S3 or RackSpace CloudFiles)
Now that i have to start from scratch, does anyone have any recommendations? how should i setup my LightRoom Catalogues? is Downloader Pro enough or should i have something else? is my naming structure for files and folders up to scratch? And while we are on the subject, anyone have recommendations for Mobile Workflows? If i take my laptop with me, copy photos to it and work on them, how should i get them on to the main machine? just copy the LightRoom Catalogue? Is there a better way? and when should i clean my cards? do i do it after import, after backup to the Home Server or after backup to the Cloud?
Leave comments below if you have ideas.