Knappers

Hey guys - first post on here...yay! I've struggled in the past with finding a workflow which meets all of my needs, and have come to the conclusion over time that the simpler the better. Having said that you do have to make something of an investment in organising your pics in order to keep things simpler later on. I'm currently trying the following workflow, and it seems to be OK at the moment, certainly for my basic needs (I'm not a pro). Import from SD card Create meaningful named folder - by year - e.g. 2014 Italy Holiday Import photos to folder and store in date folders within that. e.g. >2014 >>>2014 Italy Holiday >>>>>>>2014-07-28 >>>>>>>2014-07-29 >>>2014 London Trip >>>>>>>2014-10-12 etc Review each photo X - reject - where it really is unusable - out of focus, missed subject etc. or sometimes where the poorest of many similar shots. P - Pick for those I want to work on, even if only general wb, exp, crop, sharp etc. leave as unflagged those I don't want to delete but which I'm probably not going to do any work on. This is typically family/holiday pics I want to keep as memories rather than for any photographic merit. I typically shoot in both Raw and JPEG Filter on Unflagged - review and delete (x) Raw equivalents where present (i.e. just keep the JPEGs) Filter on Picks - review and delete (x) JPEGs (I.e. just keep the RAWs for working on) unless merit in keeping JPEG conversion/film simulation Review and delete rejects (see below) Filter Unflagged - set rating to 1* Filter Picks - set rating to 2* I could just give them a star rating to begin with rather than flags, but I like to make a conscious decision about rejects - and if I were to assume that after first review anything unrated was a delete I might end up deleting something I haven't actually reviewed. Create Collection with meaningful name in appropriate collection set - include all photos remaining from import. Filter on 2* within collection and process - I do basic editing in lightroom and more advanced (esp B&W) in PS/Nik as necessary Change rating of each photo to 3* once processed. . Repeat until no 2* left in collection. Filter on 3* and add labels. Review 3* and change rating to 4* for best pictures within collection - add red label to pics which are good (e.g. 4*) but could probably be improved further with more processing when I have time. Assign 5* if photo worthy of overall best status in all photos (i.e my very best photos) Done. This then gives me simple filtering options where I can quickly find all the half decent pics (3*), good pics (4*), and best pics (5*) within a category, or label or across whole catalog. Can also filter on 2* to see what I have left to process at any time (across collections if necessary), and 4*+red to carry on doing more work on the better pics. I can also review the 1* to make sure I've not missed any opportunities. Only thing that I'm wondering is whether to delay the reject deletion just in case on further review I might see some new possibility in a pic. I also wonder whether, with hard/external storage becoming so cheap, it's even worth deleting Raws of 1* and Jpegs of 2*....? Possibly not but it keeps the catalog cleaner.