This is the second post about my photo processes. The first one was about where I put my photos. This post is about the work flow from camera to computer.
There are many different methods of getting photos from the camera to the computer, and then to libraries and backup systems. I’m based on the Mac, so this will be slightly different to that on a Windows based computer.
When I finish a shoot, I import all the photos into Aperture. It provides a lot of powerful tools to organise, tag and edit photos. The editing is quite basic, compared to Photoshop. I don’t own Photoshop yet.
Now, before I continue, I’d like to outline my philosophies for choice of software. If the operating system has a functionality that I need to use, I adapt my work flow to the constraints of that program.
All my photos are sorted (filed to delete, keep, export etc.) in Aperture. If there are any photos I want to export to Flickr, I use a plugin to do so. If the photos are “personal”, then the final collection of photos is moved into iPhoto. If the photos are of a concert, or “non-personal” they are exported as JPEGs onto an external hard drive, and the full Aperture project exported onto a separate external hard drive.
My Aperture library is not backed up by Time Machine, my iPhoto library is backed up.
The memory cards are erased by Disk Utility, and used with the next project.
This work flow will change when I get new hardware, which includes a custom built Linux based file server. Currently it works quite well for me, and I haven’t had too many problems with lost data, because I know where everything is at any time.
