This is the first post in a new series where I share my image processing workflow, which mostly revolves around Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Prior to the release of Lightroom I found organising image files a bit of a nightmare. Now it almost completely removes those difficulties and I highly recommend it.
But to get the most out of it it's important to understand how it works and some of the quirks that makes it different to most other software. The purpose of this series is to give you an insight into how I use Lightroom which will hopefully give you a starting point for your own workflow, or give you another perspective if you are already comfortable with Lightroom.
This short video focuses on importing images from the memory card onto the computer's hard drive and into the Lightroom catalog. I'm not trying to cover every option or possibility with this video for the sake of brevity and clarity. The intention is to show you the key aspects. Some of the main points/highlights:
- Import all images to a single location with a clear structure. This way you know where your images are when you need to find one, or more importanly back them up.
- Apply keywords and metadata, in particular copyright information, on import. As your Lightroom catalog grows it will become increasingly difficult to find images without keywords to search on. Adding several keywords during import helps to keep things organised.
- Use collections to organise your images in Lightroom. Collections are like virtual groups of images, and can include any number of images from any number of physical locations (on your hard drive). Collections help you group images in a way that makes sense to you. Before creating a collection, select the images you want and then check the "include selected images" checkbox when you create the collection.
If you find this video helpful, then please share it. I'd love to hear your feedback and suggestions and would be glad to answer any questions you may have so please leave them in the comments!
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/66601178]