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Never Lose a File Again

Photoshop, Tools Feb 21

Bakster is back! Today we teach you how to set up a workflow and file organization system using Adobe Lightroom.

Make Your System Foolproof

A big part of taking photos is making sure you can find the photos after you take them! If you stay organized and follow a set workflow, finding files on your computer will be much easier. Sometimes you may need to find a photo taken months, even years ago, so it’s important to know where you have it stored.

Selects → Master → Output

Once you have your images imported, go through them and flag your favorites. By putting all of your picks together in the same “Selects” folder, you can pick and choose from your best photos to decide which ones to edit. PSD files and images currently being worked on go in your “Master” folder, while finished photos saved for web are stored in “Output”. This is the same system we use here at Phlearn, and it guarantees images will not be misplaced.

Gear Used in This Episode

Wacom Intuos 4 Small

Adobe Photoshop CS6

15" Macbook PRO

Canon T4i

Zoom H4n

Audio-Technica AT831b Microphone

Lightroom 4

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http://www.facebook.com/one.Invincible Sachin Jain

Why not Full Quality ?instead of 60?
Kalei Harmon

Great info! Do you ever use collections? Why or why not?
balint.alovits

why not using aperture?
http://www.facebook.com/glitterb Emma Brabrook

When it comes to making a preset to export for web, and you saved it to have a width of 1000px, is that always going to be applied to the longest edge or always along the x axis? I tried this with a Photoshop action once and had to create two – one for portrait and one for landscape.
http://www.wolfiesden.com/ Wolfie

Making these folders is a bit foolish. You can easily locate any of these in a master folder using keywords. You can also so simply send to CS using right click. By using keywords and color tags, you can find anything without doing all this micromanagement. I have a color tag “To Be Edited”, one for “Complete” one for “Published”, one for “Review”, etc. Its easy using the filters to find baxter head shot with to be edited color tag. Piece of cake. No need for micromanagement. What is the advantage to doing all this micromanagement of folders opposed to keyword/labels?
Phlearn. com

Keywords are definitely great, and make searching easy. The advantage to using this system over labels is that it doesn’t rely on any program to work. We have multiple people accessing these files from multiple computers with many programs. We can easily find images using Lightroom, Bridge, Photoshop, Final Cut, Finder, PCs, iPads, Facebook uploader etc.

Also in the commercial photography world these folders are natural separations. If we have 2000 images from a photoshoot, we move the “select” images to a folder that is given to the client for review and approval, use the “master” folder for working files, and “output” is then given to the client as the final product, sized and profiled for it’s intended use.

The most important thing is to have a system that works for you. Being organized is what’s important.
Carrie Tucci

Thank you Aaron. this was very helpful. One more question: you saved everything locally, but in a collaborative environment would you be on a network? If so, are there performance impacts when editing (LR and PS)? I’ve been meaning to put everything on my network, but haven’t tried.
DeathNTexas

When exporting images to the web, the quality difference between 60 and full is indiscernible to the naked eye (mainly because it is displayed on a monitor with its own limitations). However, the difference in file size, and therefore load times, is tremendous.

Similarly, commercial printers will tell you to set your jpg quality to 10 rather than 12 because the difference is unnoticeable, but the files are much smaller to transfer. There is also a debate over whether setting a printed image at 300ppi gives any benefit over 250ppi for the same reason.
http://www.briancarlsonphoto.com/ Brian Carlson

Another great resources for DAM (digital asset management) is “The DAM Book” by Peter Krogh. It’s the most comprehensive book on file management for photographers. I use it and I sleep soundly at night. It’s a ton of work to get going on the front end but easy to maintain.

On a side not, I personally use Media Pro by Capture One. It’s a cataloging software that works amazingly.
laurel

Why so complicated structure? I use this structure for every project: RAW (original files), PSD (working files), JPEG (output). Duplicating selected files will overfill HDD.
http://www.facebook.com/morten.josephson Morten Josephson

Very nice workflow. One question, i am working on a macbook pro with ssd. If i import everything to an external hard drive (usb connection), do i loose speed when i work/edit in photoshop and lightroom.
http://www.facebook.com/fulton.marc Marcus Fulton

FInally my continued education regarding photo file organization. I have techno fear at times in regards to the nightmare that soon becomes my hard drive. Sometime I even get discouraged when shooting subconsciously knowing I’m going to be pulling my hair out later due to my inability to organize. THanks for the tips and tricks as always!
Grant Young

Thank you very much for this! Very easy to use, get comfy with, and find files when you need them. Excellent flow!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Macxs-Oppici/100001165439043 Macxs Oppici

To save disk space, you can use virtual copy for the selected images folder. Useful for those of you that use only Lightroom, not useful for you in Phlearn because like the flagged images, a virtual copy can be managed only inside Lightroom.
http://www.facebook.com/imagesbyjk Jeff Kennedy

Is this method used instead of creating collections? I organize using collections. Trying to figure out which way is best or if there’s a place for both.