October 26, 2019

Workflow - out with the old...

workflow

Workflow diagrams

Below are my old and new workflow diagrams. At first glance they both look a bit convoluted and complex, but the new one is quite a bit cleaner and more efficient.

The front end for both is the same. I download photos to my computer and organize by year, then date. I then use Adobe Bridge to batch rename the files. The format I use for renaming is a 2 digit code designating camera body, date photos were taken, photoshoot name, and lastly the original file name. So for example the cover photo's name is "6D_20190407_Frederick Meijer_IMG_5868"

Old workflow

After being renamed, files were imported into Lightroom (LR) and edited, and from there I would export photos with logo to Adobe Creative Cloud (ACC). Now here is where things got messy. From ACC, I would sometimes open and edit photos in Photoshop (PS), sometimes send the gallery directly to clients, and sometimes import to Pixieset.

There are several problems with this:

  • I could end up with multiple copies of the same photo in ACC (some edits from Lightroom and some edits from PS and I didn't always rename them to signify that distinction).
  • Sending the ACC galleries directly to clients meant I had to isolate final photos from edits and photos that didn't make the cut.
  • If I wanted to make a change to a photo in LR, I had to make the change, export to ACC and then transfer to Pixieset.
  • Because the files in ACC might go directly to clients, I put the logo on while exporting out of LR, but this meant that files in Pixieset always had logos and didn't allow the option for clients to purchase photos without logos.


New Workflow

The major change with the new workflow is eliminating Adobe Creative Cloud (ACC), which has several advantages:

  • Pixieset has a plugin that integrates with Lightroom (LR), so that images can be published to Pixieset directly from LR. This is a huge advantage.
  • I am not stuck with the photo I exported from lightroom. I can export a full-size photo without logo to Pixieset, and Pixieset has the ability to provide hi-res, or web-size photos with logos to clients, but also still have the clean full-size photo to send to labs for prints.
  • I can edit photos in PS from LR, so that all my photos and edits are in one place.

Comments

I'd say, let me know what you think, but they don't have a comment module available yet apparently. Maybe some day.