Photography Workflow 2022
"Simplify, simplify." -Henry David Thoreau
My current process:
- Transfer images from camera
- JPGs to “/JPG/” on Desktop
- RAWs to dated folder, ex: “/2022-01-12/”
- Backup/Import
- JPGs –> Apple Photos (1 album per camera type)
- RAWs –> Lightroom CC & NAS (which automatically backs up to Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage)
- Cull
- Review all shots and remove/delete any that I don’t want to edit
- Edit
- Export
- I don’t really like IG that much anymore; I mainly post to my archive or up to Society6 & OpenSea (NFTs!!)
Catalog Maintenance
Flashback to 2020:
Not only does this bit of digital housekeeping feel great now that it's done, it will also save $180/yr with the downgraded storage plan - which, up until today, I had been paying to store raw files for photos I was ultimately never going to edit.
— Bill Anastas (@banastas) October 11, 2020
I’m really happy I’ve been able to keep this up for the last 2 years and culling is now kinda fun to me; almost like a game to pair down a day’s worth of images to just the essential shots.
Bi-yearly update! Keeping the culling going, I added just around 1 pic/day on average over the last 2 years. pic.twitter.com/DctgjO9gv3
— Bill Anastas (@banastas) January 12, 2022
Unfortunately, Adobe caught on last year and raised my plan’s price to $19.99/month; that said, as a direct result I am now keeping a close eye on Luminar, ON1 Photo RAW, Capture One Pro – these don’t have what I want just yet, but who knows what the future will bring.
Big Changes
Hardware
I love, love, love my iPad 12.9 (w/ M1); the screen is amazing and it is my preferred tool for reviewing batches of photos.
I’ve also used it quite a few times to transfer images directly from my camera to Lightroom. This gets a bit complicated as file management is not the best (although greatly improved in iPadOS); I splurged on 2TB of storage and have yet to come close to filling it.
Software
Probably the biggest change I’ve made is moving away from GSuite. This started first with a massive Google Photos to Apple Photos migration (“Hey Siri, how long does it take to sync 127,147 photos and 2,775 videos to iCloud?”) and was followed by me cancelling GSuite along with many, many TB’s of cloud storage. This led to a few other non-photo related updates as well, including shifting my email to iCloud (custom email domains!) and culling/moving old files to iCloud Drive while going through a massive digital housekeeping stint.
To maintain an offsite backup of my photos, and after exhaustive research, I ended up going with Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage - this automatically syncs with my NAS and with 3,217.6GB stored at present, it’s only costing me around $0.53/day ($16.12/month) which is well worth the peace of mind.