I hear that this is the most vital to store/manage/edit and other tasks. What is your ideal workflow?
1 Answer
First off, while I'll try to offer some helpful advice, I think that each individual should develop a workflow that fits their own personality. There is no one "correct" photo management workflow. That said, here are a few tips:
- Optimize for discoverability over structure
- Manually storing photos in a folder structure is a lot of work, and only provides one way to organize your work.
- Storing all of your work in a single (or very few) folders, and using tags/keywords & metadata to provide flexible and alternative ways of organizing your work tends to be more effective
- Most modern photo management tools allow you to tag or keyword your photos, offer metadata editing, and provide powerful searching tools
- Tag or Keyword early so you gain the benefits they offer
- This should be a primary organizational tool, allowing you to quickly find and organize your work in a variety of combinations
- Tagging/keywording on import is the most effective way to start, and is a quick way to add common keywords to bulk images
- After import, review the photos you have imported and add more specific tags/keywords to individual photos or smaller groups
- Add proper metadata early so you gain the benefits metadata offers
- Metadata describes your work in detail, and includes camera details (EXIF), geocoding, etc.
- IPTC Data:
- Title & Job Title
- Description/caption
- Copyright year/owner
- Location: Address, City, State/Province, Postal Code, etc.
- Much more
- EXIF data (usually set automatically): Camera & Lens Details
- Flag picks and rejects in work while adding keywords and metadata
- Look for rejects and either flag them as rejects or delete them:
- Blurry or Out-of-focus shots
- Unrecoverable exposures (radically blown highlights or severely blocked shadows)
- Interrupted shots that had to be retaken
- Look for top picks and flag them:
- These are the shots you will probably keep
- Shots with proper exposure, good composition & lighting, interesting story, strong vision
- Look for rejects and either flag them as rejects or delete them:
- Process your picks
- If you shoot in raw, you'll definitely need to process your picks
- Don't be afraid to adjust keywords or metadata as your processing if you think of something additional or more descriptive than what you chose originally
- Publish your work
- If you intend to publish online, export your images for screen viewing and upload
- Mild sharpening
- Moderate saturation
- Some tools allow you to create flash web sites that may be exported and published online
- Some tools allow you to generate CD's or DVD's of your work that may be burned and shared with friends, family, customers, etc.
- Best to create a clone or copy of your images that are intended to be published online, to avoid degrading the original
- If you intend to publish online, export your images for screen viewing and upload
- Print your work
- If you intend to print your work, adjust for optimal printing:
- Moderate sharpening
- Apply an appropriate color profile for the paper you intend to use
- If permanent changes are required to tune your image for print, best to create a clone or copy of your images to avoid degrading the original
- If you intend to print your work, adjust for optimal printing:
The tool or tools you choose to use will ultimately dictate which of the tips above you follow. Some tools offer a linear workflow that directly support the activities and order specified above. Other tools offer non-linear workflow that allows the activities above to be done in any order at any time. Some tools only offer a subset of all the activities above, or you may use a combination of tools that each support a part of the process. Learn what your tools support, and adjust your workflow for both those tools, and the way you use those tools.
(NOTE: The workflow above is particularly useful with Adobe Lightroom, which explicitly supports a linear workflow of import, organize, develop, publish/print. Apple Aperture supports a highly flexible non-linear workflow. Photoshop, in combination with Bridge or another photo organization tool, support the activities above without any specified workflow.)