I have developed a process which is probably not the most efficient, but seems to work for me (I should probably write it down somewhere
).1. I always cature raw. My cameras have been Nikon and the native file is .nef. For those who don't already know this, every camera brand has its own proprietary raw file format. There has been a robust debate over the years over these proprietary formats and whether an "open" standard format should be adopted. Some years back, Adobe created one, which they say is open and standard (Adobe .dng, which I believe is an acronym for "digital negative group"). There is probably plenty of additional debate over even that fact. There are those who say the manufacturer's raw converters render "better" images than Adobe camera raw, or others.
In my case, since I use virtually all Adobe products (Lightroom for cataloging, Bridge, ACR and CS5 for conversion and post processing), I have found the .dng format to be convenient and work well for me).
2. So, I will generally convert to Adobe dng format.
3. In Bridge, I will do my initial "selects" deleting obviously "bad" images. Because it is easy and because I have learned (the hard way sometimes) that as technology advances, there are things I can go back and do, I save a lot more than I used to.
4. In Bridge, I then use the Batch Rename feature to name my files something meaningful. I put in the date and file number them consecutively (this is the one area I struggle a bit with, as I don't know a really good way to keep track of the last number used. My approach has been to find all the shots that have a similar name and rename them first). With the date and year in the filename, it is unlikely that there will be a duplicate file.
5. I used to have a complex structure for sorting by subject matter, but always found it hard to determine where images went, etc. A couple years back, I attended a John Shaw seminar and his method was so disarmingly simply that I almost smacked my forehead right in the seminar. I now use a variation on his method. I archive my images on two different 1T external drives. I organized folders very simply -- by year. I have my camera set to number the images consecutively and do not have it re-start each time I put a new card in.
6. I then import them into Lightroom. Once in Lightroom, I create "collections" by subject matter. This works well, because you can assign the same photo to as many different collections as you want. And, you can make subtopics within collections. You just highlight and block a series of images and drag them into the collection. Its pretty intuitive, and makes searching for an image really easy.
Normally, I try to do all these steps before I begin any post processing of any particular image (but sometimes, its kind of like Christmas, and you have to open some presents early
).7. Usually, after I have done all of the above, I will look for images I will post on my website gallery. Once I have processed them and saved them as jpgs for web, I will again, archive them into Lightroom.
I would be interested in others' "DAM" processes.
