[mysticcowboy]

I'm lazy so I have a very simple workflow

1) Import all my RAW/DNG's into an Aperture managed library.
2) Rate & adjust images as required within Aperture
3) Post "keepers" online from within Aperture

ummmm....

4) that's it folks

I do much the same thing with Lightroom. But there's one step that nobody has mentioned. That's tagging/key wording. Unless you put some sorting info with the image files or in a database, how the H*ll are you going to find that image next year or 5 years from now?

[SpecialK]

But there's one step that nobody has mentioned. That's tagging/key wording. Unless you put some sorting info with the image files or in a database, how the H*ll are you going to find that image next year or 5 years from now?

Dated folders with short description, and Photobucket albums for an additional clue. I also keep a chronological spreadsheet (thanks to the date format starting the file name) with exif data...

I never use tags as that would take longer than searching for a file.

[twitch]

That's the essence of what I was getting at, too, except for one important thing - what do you do with all those RAW files? I don't have enough space on my laptop to keep all mine there, so I archive my RAW files on an external (networked) drive, but do generate those reduced resolution JPEG's so I have something to enjoy on my laptop full time. These JPEG's are more than big enough to post online, and just big for a 4x6" print at 300dpi, so I basically only need to return to my archived RAW files when I wish to print bigger.

One strategy is just to buy bigger drives. I don't convert any files unless I'm printing or posting them online.

I vault my library to a NAS. Once my library does get too big I'll migrate it fully off my desktop to my NAS and start with a fresh library. I'm thinking of doing this every couple of years.

My NAS has a feature where it can do backups directly to an external drive on a scheudle, so I use that with a couple of external drives to make sure I have onsite and offsite backups. I also have multiple clone images on site and offsite of my desktop where my main photo library is. My backup strategy is actually much more involved than my photo workflow, LOL.

[tibbitts]

I copy the pef/dng files using a card reader into directories named using the date and subject. I browse them using Faststone, then edit the ones I want (for the moment) using gimp, and save the result as png files in a separate directory (with a file name corresponding to the original file.) I resize the ones I want to post on the web using a script that saves them as jpeg files.

Paul

[Marc Sabatella]

I never use tags as that would take longer than searching for a file.

??? Using my keywords tags, it takes me all of my 5 seconds to find every picture I've ever shot of any given subject. There's basically no way *not* using tags can possibly allow one to do the same faster - it's going to be tens or even hundreds of times slower, pretty much guaranteed. Even the time I send entering the info in the first place in comparison to the amount of time saved on subsequent searches.

[tenpointnine]

That's the essence of what I was getting at, too, except for one important thing - what do you do with all those RAW files? I don't have enough space on my laptop to keep all mine there, so I archive my RAW files on an external (networked) drive, but do generate those reduced resolution JPEG's so I have something to enjoy on my laptop full time. These JPEG's are more than big enough to post online, and just big for a 4x6" print at 300dpi, so I basically only need to return to my archived RAW files when I wish to print bigger.

I have two 1TB external drives drives attached to my iMac, one holds my referenced RAW files, the other is my Time Machine backup drive.
Although, because Aperture 3 can now switch between libraries on the fly, I'm considering moving away from the referenced master layout, to storing within the libraries, as this seems to be a simpler way of archiving.

I do much the same thing with Lightroom. But there's one step that nobody has mentioned. That's tagging/key wording. Unless you put some sorting info with the image files or in a database, how the H*ll are you going to find that image next year or 5 years from now?

I add some basic keywords at the importation stage, as well as appending copyright and contact info to the EXIF data.

[GlennG]

Interesting responses, and thanks for these. So as I'm reading the responses I'm wondering how you determined what your work flow would be - there seems to be about a million different options to do anything. How did you find "your" way? Did you take a class? Did you read a book? Did you have a friend that said "Do it this way"? Any guidance would be wonderful.

[SpecialK]

??? Using my keywords tags, it takes me all of my 5 seconds to find every picture I've ever shot of any given subject. There's basically no way *not* using tags can possibly allow one to do the same faster - it's going to be tens or even hundreds of times slower, pretty much guaranteed. Even the time I send entering the info in the first place in comparison to the amount of time saved on subsequent searches.

I meant entering, not searching. As I think I mentioned, I don't want to determine and add 5 or 10 keywords.

[RioRico]

I'm wondering how you determined what your work flow would be - there seems to be about a million different options to do anything. How did you find "your" way?

Evolution. I started using a webcam and frame-grabber (pulls frames from analog video signals and digitizes them) about 1995, and got an early free-shareware version of PaintShopPro to torture and abuse those images. No SD cards or USB cables -- the devices used parallel (printer) ports, so it was just connect, grab, edit, and save to stiffy discs, later to ZIP-discs.

In 2002 I got my first Sony digicam (1mpx DSC-P20) and a Vaio mini-laptop with a MemStick slot, same as the camera. I wrote a simple script to find and move image files from stick to working drive. At the first rollover of numbered filenames after 9999 shots, I rewrote the script to update naming, so the first 9999 were DSC0xxxx, the next were DSC1xxxx, etc. And I built a simple directory structure so folders were organized by time and place. Logical...

In 2004 we got two 5mpx Sony's. So I modded the script to name those from one DSCAxxxx, the other DSCBxxxx. At each rollover I just increment to the next unused letter. Then came another Sony, fitted into the same DSCnxxxx pattern. Then Minolta and Olympus P&S's, with their own name standards, but I worked those into a similar pattern, also images captured via webcam, scanner, frame-grabber. So I can look at any filename and know which device was the source, and the directory name tells me when, where, what.

In 2008 came the K20D. I'd accumulated more drives by then, had a disastrous failure, and now put pictures only on RAID-1 discs for instaneous backup. Id been using the browsing (XnView), stitching (Canon PhotoStitch, AutoStitch), and editing (PSP9, AnimationShop, Magix Video7) warez for some years, rewritten that script to handle intricacies of directories, etc. So the infrastructure was in place. Now that I shoot only RAW on the K20D, PentaxPhotoLab3 is part of the mix.

So, how did I design my workflow? 15 years of hard work, that's all.

[Marc Sabatella]

I meant entering, not searching. As I think I mentioned, I don't want to determine and add 5 or 10 keywords.

Understood. I'd just say I think you're mistaken about it taking more time than it takes to enter, if you are reasonably judicious about how you go abut entering them. I never enter enter as many as 10 keywords, and seldom as many as 5. 2-4 is more typical, and most can done in batches (eg, I can select a group of 50 adjacent pictures and tag them all as "landscapes", then maybe select 20 of them to tag with "lakes", etc.) Doesn't take but a few seconds to deal with a couple hundred shots, and assuming any of those images are ever part of a search later, that time will have laid itself several times over.

It takes longer to fully tag a concert shoot where I want to identify each musician individually, but the extra minute or two spent per concert is basically the only hope I have of ever finding pictures of a given musician later.

I suppose it does depend on what you shoot and what you think you'll want to search for. But I make pretty extensive use of the keywords I enter. No question there's a savings of at at least a factor of 10.

[Marc Sabatella]

So as I'm reading the responses I'm wondering how you determined what your work flow would be - there seems to be about a million different options to do anything. How did you find "your" way?

I was fortunate enough to followup on the recommendation I got to read "The DAM Book" by Peter Krogh. The definitive reference, and pretty much life-changing.

[SpecialK]

I'd just say I think you're mistaken about it taking more time than it takes to enter, if you are reasonably judicious about how you go abut entering them. I never enter enter as many as 10 keywords, and seldom as many as 5.

Vacation
California
Church
Amboy
Roy's
Train
Route 66
Abandoned Buildings

And that's one image. I have thousands.

Elements does not seem user friendly for tags. Not changing software for that :-)

[Marc Sabatella]

Vacation
California
Church
Amboy
Roy's
Train
Route 66
Abandoned Buildings

And that's one image. I have thousands.

Right. But this what I mean about entering in batches. Consider, you return from vacation with, say, hundreds of images. Select all, enter Vacation. Maybe half were form California, the other half from Arizona. So select the half from California (they will of course be contiguous unless you kept going back and forth between the two states), and enter that keyword. Then select the rest and enter Arizona. In about five seconds, you've got the first couple keywords done. If you're shooting along route 66 and wanting to tag all images that way, those images will be consecutive too. So select them all and enter that keyword. Probably you've got a bunch of images from amboy, and they'll be consecutive. So select them all and enter that, then do the same for each other town you visited. And so on. Really, it shouldn't take but a couple of minutes to tag a thousand pictures form a vacation in this way.

The question comes up, how many keywords is enough? well, does your current system allow you to quickly find every image you've ever shot of a church? Do you *need* a keyword system to provide this ability if it's not something you're already able to do? If not, then don't bother getting that finely detailed.

But does your current system allow you to at least search by city? Then whatever organizing you are doing to allow that, doing by keywords can't possibly take any longer. So it's not that time should be counted "against" keywording. The incremental cost to consider is the cost of going that extra mile, to add "church" et al.