workflow gods, please check-in

[darkblue-x]

I'm trying to organize things properly for once and I am having some difficulty.
If any experienced enthusiasts or pros could lend me some tips. I'm trying to find the more efficient way of doing things.
I have 2x 64GB memory cards, when I upload to my PC it goes directly to LR.
I'm thinking of creating collection folders to separate the photos I wont use versus the ones I will within Lightroom.
Thereafter I export them to folders:
-Portraits
-Landscapes
-Art (misc)
Which also contain sub-folders.
Many of the photos I wont use aka wont post on Instagram, arent necessarily bad, just not the "wow" type photos but I may want to keep them.
One things for sure, I don't want to keep photos in LR long term, my little laptop (Acer Swift 3) doesn't have the power to handle more than 500 photos in LR without starting to have RAM and CPU performance issues.
I bought one external harddrive, a 1TB disk that I'm going to use to keep files on.
Is one external harddrive enough or should I buy another considering I'm trying not to keep too many files on my computer/lightroom...?

Any advice or go-to articles would be much appreciated.

 

[Designer]

Change your upload preferences to upload to a folder. That way, you get to keep all our photos how you prefer. For instance; you can upload them by date, and then sort them (copies of them) into folders. Import only the ones that you intend to work on into LR, and those can then be sorted into groups that make sense you to, such as; subject matter, for instance.

When you back up, back up both the un-edited, and the edited photos in separate folders.

 

[ClickAddict]

I dont have my PC do anything automatic when I insert a card. I will go into LR and select "Import", when I want to bring them in. There is an setting/option which allows you to set it so that it will copy the files to specific folders when importing to Lightroom. I use that to get all the files in folders (Automatically done by date on import) and I pretty much never have to go to the folders.

As for LR, I have one Catalog for each year. Depending on how often you shoot and limitations of your computer you may want to have a catalog for each month or season. That way all your photos are all available in Lightroom and tagged.

Within each Catalog, I create a "Collection Set" for each shoot. (Example " 2017_04_03_Jane_Doe"), within each "Collection Set" I create multiple collections (170403JD_ALL, 170403JD_GOOD, 170403JD_PICKED, 170403JD_EDITED, 170403JD_INST (Instagram), 170403JD_FB, 170403JD_MM, 170403JD_PRIVATE, , 170403JD_ALBUM) (Might have missed 1-2 but you get the idea)

Upon import I put everything in the "ALL" and the "GOOD" I then go in "GOOD" and remove the bad ones (Lighting adjustments, eyes closed...) I then leave all the good ones in "GOOD" and add them to the "PICKED" collection. (I like having the "GOOD ones still available if ever I need to "borrow" a background, some eyes or a smile to fix a shot I like which may have one flaw. I then go through PICKED and of the various similar shots, remove the ones I chose not to edit. (I find it's easier to see the 3-4 similar ones in the picked and remove the less desirable ones, than go through the "GOOD" and select the best adding them to "picked" as I can see what I have currently selected if viewing the "picked" collection. Once I've selected the ones picked I then edit (Photoshop) and put the edited version in Edited.

Since having a photo in multiple collections does not create duplicates of the photo, I find having various collections for Album, Instagram, Facebook.. and Private (I shoot boudoir clients), is an easy way to keep track of where the client/models want their photos possibly posted/printed after they have reviewed them. Some clients are ok with showing photos on Instagram but don't want them on FB for instance)

 

[ClickAddict]

Oh and I had someone ask me once before "Why do you bother putting the year in the collection name when you have a catalog for each year...seems redundant" Well I'm planning ahead. I figure my next computer I buy (3-4 years) or at least the next one after that, will have the speed performance capable of loading all my catalogs at once in one large catalog. At which point I will import all catalogs together to have them all handy without having to switch. (Naming by year now (While I'm already naming them) will save me going into each one later and adding the year)

 

[darkblue-x]

Change your upload preferences to upload to a folder. That way, you get to keep all our photos how you prefer. For instance; you can upload them by date, and then sort them (copies of them) into folders. Import only the ones that you intend to work on into LR, and those can then be sorted into groups that make sense you to, such as; subject matter, for instance.

When you back up, back up both the un-edited, and the edited photos in separate folders.

Yeah this is going to take me a while I think...
I almost feel like I need a "For Dummies" guide on this--though my issues are created with trying to get it perfect the first time.
Atm I realize that LR brings the photos to "my photos" and arranges them by date. That's the default.
Now as far as how to do so without also uploading the ones I dont need in LR? Thats another thing.
I broke all my folders down and slapped them to just desktop.
Im going to load them onto Harddrive now and gain familiarity with all of the above so this isnt so confusing to me.

 

[KmH]

Get the DAM Book. (Digital Asset Management for photographers)

 

[darkblue-x]

Get the DAM Book. (Digital Asset Management for photographers)

That actually looks like exactly what I need. Pricey though maybe theres a library that will have it.

 

[darkblue-x]

I'm looking through all of the terminology in the book and it is causing my brain to feel inflamed. Not.even.joking.either.

 

[photo1x1.com]

I have a catalog for every single project/shooting. It is called YYYY-MM-nameOfTheProject
When I first import the files, I put the catalog into a specific folder of my internal harddrive and import the images into the same folder.
Then I do all the editing, corrections, etc.
Once I'm finished, I first save the metadata into the files (in library mode select all files and the Cmd+S) . That will write all your edits directly into dng files, or add a sidecar xmp file to other raw file formats for every image in the same folder the image sits. The advantage is: you can always directly import these files (with all the edits) into another lightroom catalog (just don't use any import settings), or open it in photoshop again, with all your edits. You could even send it to somebody and if he opens it, all your edits will be there.
Then I drag the complete folder (with catalog and image files) to TWO seperate harddrives. I had harddrives fail or even get lost. I sleep better knowing that there is a backup. People underestimate how often harddrives fail. And losing all your memories/or even paid work is not a great option.
One of the harddrives is in my home, the other one in my father-in-laws home. Sounds paranoid, but harddrives don't cost that much and this procedure is easy to handle.