Workflow V.Next: what should i use?
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
:\Photos\ \ - - 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][3] 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.