My Workflow: Which Programs I Use and How I Stay Organized

I’ve had quite a few people reach out to ask about my workflow and which programs I use so I wanted to answer these questions as well as give you a look into my process. If you’re interested in learning about how I edit photos, you can find that information HERE. Also, I want to mention that I’ve paid for all of these programs myself and have not been paid by any of these companies to talk about them. These programs have been incredibly helpful for my workflow/process and I want to help you understand more about creating an efficient photo editing workflow while also giving a little good karma to the creators of these products. Anyways, without further ado, let’s jump in!

Returning Home After an Adventure

The first thing I do when I get back from an adventure is dump my memory cards. I do this every time after I shoot and never leave photos “sitting in my camera” because it’s too easy to forget if I’ve dumped the photos or not. I recently changed how I name/organize folders on my hard drive and have had a lot of success with this naming/folder structure. Here’s what I do:

I like to name folders based upon date, location, and activity. I do this so that I can easily create backups on other hard drives and see which folders are safely backed up. It’s important to put the year first when you create these folders so that you can easily keep track of the year (and month) when you go to look back through your archives. Also, when I’m sharing files with other photographers or using more than one camera, I like to create separate folders for each camera/memory card. This is an extra step but it adds one more level of organization and neatness that is helpful whenever I need to go back and find a file.

Sample Folder Name: 2020.1.25_Norway_Lofoten_Day 1

Step 1: Photo Mechanic 6

Once I have my photos transferred from my memory card and on my hard drive, I start by using a program called Photo Mechanic. Photo Mechanic is helpful and speeds up my workflow significantly because it allows me to quickly flip through all of the images I shot during the day and flag my selects. Before Photo Mechanic, I use to cull (flag) my photos in Lightroom, but it was a very slow and laggy process. Photo Mechanic 6 is way more efficient and quick when it comes to looking at raw photos so it drastically speeds the whole work flow up. (Something to mention about Photo Mechanic 6 is that it cannot yet technically “flag” an image. Instead, it flags the image by using a color. I prefer to work with flags in Lightroom so I’ll change the color label to a “flagged image” in Lightroom…but I’ll explain how to do this below).

To use Photo Mechanic 6, start by opening the app and using the left side of the program to find the folder where your files are located. After you find your folder, double click it to open a contact sheet (the area where images are displayed) and start flagging. To flag, you use the number keys and the left and right arrow keys. Number keys 1-5 will apply a different color label to your images (I always only use number “1” to apply a red label), and the arrow keys let you flip back and forth between the images in that folder. I like to be generous in this initial round of sorting/culling because I know I’ll do a second round of it in Lightroom to narrow in on my favorite images or deliverables. Once you finish sorting/culling your images and get to the end of that folder, it’s time to open Lightroom and import your images (there’s nothing you need to save or do in Photo Mechanic since it’s saving the color labels to the each image’s metadata in the background of the software).

Step 2: Adobe Lightroom Classic

Once I have my images culled, I open Lightroom and import my photos. The best method I’ve found for importing photos and staying organized is this…

I like to organize all of the images in my Lightroom catalog by using “Collection Sets.” I do this because Collection Sets help create different folders that I can use to differentiate between various trips and locations. Collection Sets are easiest to set up when you first go to import images and you can do it by opening the “Import Photo and Video” window, selecting all of your images from the specific folder you want to import, then going to the right side of the windows and finding the window titled “File Handling.” Under File Handling, click the box that says “Add to Collection.” Next, you’ll want to click the “+” icon to create a new Collection Set. I’d name it something special that will help you remember that shoot and/or location (I use the same name that I used to name the folder in the beginning when dumping my images), and then push “Import” like normal.

Once all of the images are imported to Lightroom, I like to quickly go through and change the color label that Photo Mechanic applied, to “flagged”. You can do this easily by sorting the imported images by the color you used in Photo Mechanic (in my case, red), selecting everything by pushing “Command-A”, right clicking and choosing “Set Flag,” then “Flagged.” To keep things clean for this workflow, you’ll also want to select everything (by pushing “Command-A”) one more time and right-click, then select “Set Color Label,” and choose “red” (or whichever color you used in Photo Mechanic). This will get rid of the red color selection and make the selected images you want to work with turn into flagged images. I like to work with flags as my base selection option so that I can use color labels and stars independently to help sift through my content.

Here’s how I differentiate between using Color Labels and Stars/Ratings:

Color Labels:

I use color labels to keep track of different products, brands, locations, or types of images. For example, let’s say I’m on an all day adventure and am shooting three different products (a water bottle, watch, and a pair of shoes). Once I import my images into Lightroom I’ll quickly go through and add different colored labels to the shots that contain those specific products. When I do this I also like to make a note in my notes app so that I can come back and reference which color is related to which product (but this is an unnecessary step if you’d rather just keep track of it yourself mentally). This is what my reference note looks like:

Stars/Ratings:

Once I have my images grouped by color, I like to do a second culling stage where I get really specific and narrow down what it is I’ll be editing and/or delivering to the client. This allows me to be more generous in my initial culling process and guarantee I’m only delivering the best of the best. I start with a rating/star level of “1” and continue to work my way up to higher numbers by continuing to repeat this process (going from “1” to ‘2”, from “2” to “3”, and so on…). You can apply these different star/rating levels by using the numbers keys, 1-5, in Lightroom.

Editing Photos in Lightroom:

I wrote another blog post about how I edit images and what I look for. You can find that by clicking HERE.

Exporting photos in Lightroom:

Exporting photos seems to cause a bit of chaos among photographers…especially if you’re exporting for social media. Here are the settings I use 99% of the time and have found great success with (it’s important to note that some people don’t like doing this because you get larger file sizes and have deal with storing them, but my next step helps eliminate this concern):

Step 3: JPEGmini Pro

After I have my images edited and exported from Lightroom, the last program I use is called JPEGmini Pro. I’ve grown to be very attached to this program because it helps save a lot of space and makes images easier to transfer, store, and post. JPEGmini has a lot more information on their website about the specifics of what they do, but most simply put, they help shrink down the file size of an image while preserving all of the detail and resolution of the image. I’ve been using JPEGmini pro for almost a year now and as long as you’re not using these files for printing, you’ll be a-okay. In fact, the biggest perk is that it makes a drastic improvement in website loading speed when you need to have a lot of content on a webpage (like a portfolio or gallery, etc).

Step 4: Delivering to a Client or Sending to my Phone

After I’m done with these steps I use Airdrop to send the photos to my phone. This is the last thing I do and then the images are ready to be posted, uploaded, or sent off to clients. If I’m sending images to a client, I like to use a website called Shoot Proof. Shoot Proof allows photographers to create galleries and upload non-downloadable images so that clients can view, flag, and/or sort images without being able to save them or use them. The website also have a watermark feature that is extremely helpful. Once your client has flagged which images they’d like to purchase, Shoot Proof has a “send” button and they’ll take care of sending the client a downloadable link they can use to download the final high-res images they’ve selected. If you’re interested in using ShootProof or want to sign up, you can click the following link which will also help give me a month for free: http://shpr.ws/vNR. Here’s what the landing page and galleries look like:

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope it will help you with your workflow and/or speed up your process in some way. If you have any ideas on how I can improve this system I’d love to hear what you have in mind or what you do!

Cheers, Justin