Peter Krogh and John Beardsworth last workflow

[vbuzzi]

To Peter Krogh and John Beardsworth,
Dear Peter and dear John Beardsworth
I hope you will forgive me if I ask you always the same question: "What is your actual workflow?"
I actually use some big Media Pro Catalog with one year of shooting (9 years of DAM).
It's seems to me that with Lightroom I can do a very big catalog, I prefer Media Pro but it's seems that LG (that I use to process wedding) can handle a great amount of pictures.
From next  year I will try to use both LG and MP and I will see.
I read all Peter books and also bought his videos and I will like to know what is your workflow now.
Thanks. 
Vittore

[johnbeardy]

Essentially now I'm all Lightroom, with everything in one big catalogue (my numbers aren't that big but with the right hardware LR can have hundreds of thousands in a catalogue). I'm using Media Pro as a secondary cataloguing system that also includes files that LR can't/won't register - PDF, Excel, Word etc.

The only reason for having other LR catalogues is when I'm away from home and working on the laptop. As soon as I am back, the small catalogues are imported into the master one and eventually destroyed. Occasionally I'll export catalogues for temporary purposes - again trashing them once the reason for their existence is over. I also maintain a separate catalogue for a charity's picture archive.

Images are imported as NEF. I add metadata in LR and make adjustments up to them until I decide which are the keepers and which not. At that point, I delete the junk, rename the keepers - "YYMMDD_{4 digit seq for day} {IPTC title}.nef" and then create DNGs. I have a bucket system, still, so at this point I burn my DVDs of both sets of files and move the folders over to my archive drives. NEFs are then removed from LR and probably never seen again. Other details
- Automatic writing of XMP is on.
- Lightroom is set to ask on every exit if I want a backup - I try to say yes once a day.
- Any TIFs contain the YYMMDD_1234 element of the original's filename but are stored in their own buckets.
- There might be
- Any panorama, HDR, or time lapse frames are given a green label and stacked - otherwise I don't use stacks
- I still don't use hierarchical keywords

So not much change, just all in Lightroom. Hope that's helpful.

John

[vbuzzi]

Thanks. really useful and interesting.
I believe that I will arrive to something similar.

[R. Neil Haugen]

Images are imported as NEF. I add metadata in LR and make adjustments up to them until I decide which are the keepers and which not. At that point, I delete the junk, rename the keepers - "YYMMDD_{4 digit seq for day} {IPTC title}.nef" and then create DNGs. I have a bucket system, still, so at this point I burn my DVDs of both sets of files and move the folders over to my archive drives. NEFs are then removed from LR and probably never seen again. Other details

Am I correct that by "both sets" you mean "original" dng's and derivatives, or do you mean original NEF's and DNG's? With derivative tiff's in their own buckets?

Neil

[johnbeardy]

I mean the NEFs and the DNGs, and any derivatives go into the current derivative bucket which can be a mix of all sorts of pictures. The element YYMMDD_0123 will be in every file name and allows me to find all the versions of any file.

John

[R. Neil Haugen]

Thanks, John. Are you manually "loading" your buckets or have you found something to do it by wondrous computer logic?

(I always have questions available, you know ...   )

Neil

[johnbeardy]

Manually, Neil, though I use my FolderSize plug-in to establish hitch folders fit in the buckets.

John

[R. Neil Haugen]

Thank you, John ... you are always so politely willing to answer questions!

I've only got one right now ... you note that {IPTC title} is part of your naming regimen, do you actually put an individual title in there, or did you populate that from the original camera-title like some people do?

Neil

[johnbeardy]

It's not a great effort, Neil. Because of the order in which I work, adding initial metadata to the files before doing the permanent renaming and having the title field in my renaming preset. I wouldn't say I individually assign titles but do it in batches, and often my title is just the general location or overall subject like "flower" - rarely more than 2 or 3 words.

I've never cared for the idea of putting the filename in the title field. Practically speaking, I'd end up with the filename/title appearing in all sorts of places where I don't want it - on my web space or in InDesign layouts. Putting the filename in the title field strikes me as a triumph of pedantry over practicality!

John