This is continuation of

My Capture One, Lightroom, Photos, Photoshop and Aperture Workflow

Part 1 – Basic Rules

Part 2 – Organizing Convention

Step 0 – Create Backup

Create a backup of all images, library in an external hard disk , uplug it and don’t delete anything from it at least for a year.

Step 1 – Come up with a naming convention

I wanted it to be really simple just one level, so that I can type it in every time during import. The idea is to keep less than thousand photos for each event after clean up.

This will be used at the time of import, even if I don’t import immediately I give generic name like Fall India Chicago ’15 for the last six month of photos in SD Card.

For me it was simple

<Event name>  or <Location name> with optional year

London ’16 , Thanksgiving ’14,  Maui ’10,  Banff , Niagara Falls , Chicago Spring ’14

Or <season name> year for all home photos

So it is like

Spring ’08 ,Summer ’16, Winter ’14

This way it will be just four per year.. and even if I take 3-5 trips it will be less than ten folders per year.

Step 2 – Consolidate and Relocate

For me it was Aperture, I had it as reference files, managed files.. Consolidate all the original images into one location and then re-locate with simple naming convention. I used Project Name, and I put all the images under Master folder.

Step 3 – At the time of import

• Give one name
• Keep one  file location for all master. Keep the backup in external  drive.

Step 4 – Groups , Projects and Albums

Since it is confusing initially, I created a reference..

Though Capture One support multiple nesting of Groups and Projects.. I limited to only one level for easy refe
rence..

Highest Level – Group ( Travel, Local, Events, Friends)

Next Level Project – Banff , London ‘1 6, India , Seattle

Step 5 – Smart Albums

Inside Project I created One album where all the imported photos are collected. I split that into Personal/ Travel if the trip has both.

I use the tagging and rating to identify various category..

Red – Rejected in first pass.. selected with – key

Purple- Family/ Friends photos  , remove from catalog after sharing

Yellow – Photoshop needed.. Like removing persons, HDR merging.. Panorama stitching etc..

Green – Technically good for print and image worth printing. Decent ISO, not blurry, not out of focus. Unlike the monitor print will show all the flaws in the photo. 

Rating .. Limited to just 3

‘*’ – Don’t delete, just for first pass mostly will remove the rating  after final selection. Usually unrated ones get deleted, and * gets remove the cleanup.

‘***’ – For sharing, creating albums , books , use to to share with the Photos

‘*****’ – Best ones from the Album, Lucky if I get one or two in year

If I want to create a book for year.. I will just choose the Green with ‘***’ or above

If I want to share as online album, just choose ‘***’ or above

If I want to print a poster then I just look for Green with ‘*****’

Now to last part.. How I mange with multiple applications