Photomechanic + Lightroom workflow

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Jon-Mark
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p.1 #1 · Photomechanic + Lightroom workflow

This year I changed up my workflow from almost exclusively lightroom ( with occasional photoshop ) to culling in Photomechanic and editing in LR + PS.

I'm often frustrated by the clunkiness of co-ordinating things between the two programs. Posting teasers is a pain, currently I just have to sort in PM, make a copy of those files to a new folder, and then import into LR and post online. Sometimes I find myself losing/forgetting about images that have been teased with one edit, and in the final batch look different etc...

For those of you out there that use this workflow ( PM + LR ) , any recommendations for file structure etc...?

Oct 19, 2012 at 11:53 PM

selece
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p.1 #2 · Photomechanic + Lightroom workflow

Here's mine:

1. Ingest using PM. Ingest goes into a /photos/2012/date-names/ AND a seperate backup drive identical copy using the secondary target.

2. Cull using PM. Tag the wanted ones, just a quick once over. No huge starting at flaws or anything - if it's usable, it stays. If there's nothing redeeming or there's 10 duplicates of it, it goes. Once selects are made, move using PM into a subfolder called "selects".

3. Import selects folder into LR, apply appropriate metadata so I can find the photos later. Generate 1:1 previews, let that start up and usually go grab a snack, take a quick break. :P

4. Work in LR doing edits. If something needs Photoshop, edit a virtual copy in PS.

5. Exports go into /photos/2012/date-names/export
... /proofs for web gallery proofs.
... /prints for 4x6 or larger prints.
... /album for album exports. (These are flagged in LR so I can find them later.)
... /blog for blog post images.

These exports all have export presets that I use for them to speed up the process.

Generally I'll keep all of the files from a wedding until the album is done and the prints are printed. Then I'll get rid of the non-selects at that point in time.

Oct 20, 2012 at 01:19 AM

awad
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p.1 #3 · Photomechanic + Lightroom workflow

i think photomechanic doesn't create a sidecar xmp file by default. i believe it's a setting in the menu to have PM create the sidecar files. At that point, any of your adjustments made in PM will be seen in LR after hitting "read from metadata"

...right? that way you could import the same folder into both programs and just hit read from metadata after you're done in PM.

Oct 20, 2012 at 01:25 AM

Scott Mosher
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p.1 #4 · Photomechanic + Lightroom workflow

My workfliow:

Setup PM to make the transition easier. Its been a while, but I believe there are all the settings I changed.
- Under Preferences, change the color class names to Green, Black, Red, Purple, Blue, Red, Yellow, Green. Order does not matter, though if you change #6 to Red #7 to Yellow, #8 to Green, it'll be the same keystroke as setting the color code in LR.

- Under the IPTC/XMP tab there an option that I believe says, "If XMP Sidecar files exist...", change it to "Always create and/or update XMP sidecar file with..." on the dropdown.

- Under the Preview tab check the 3 boxes under "Automatically advance to next photo when:"

- Cull through images marking them as green = keepers. I'll do my fine tuning in LR. As long as you use the red/green/yellow/blue colors (or star ratings) those will import into LR.

- View only green images, drag them over to LR to import. They go into a "To Edit" folder. Once they're edited I move them to their final folder, which is set up like

- Portraits
- Family A
- Family C
- Weddings
- Aimee & Jacob
- Me & You

etc.

Oct 20, 2012 at 02:00 AM

spink
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p.1 #5 · Photomechanic + Lightroom workflow

tag for later

Oct 21, 2012 at 09:57 PM

sboerup
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p.1 #6 · Photomechanic + Lightroom workflow

I think for posting teasers, I would try and keep my workflow as similar as it is to my main editing workflow.

Could you open PM, select your teasers, then import in LR and edit. Then when you are ready to do the full edit, could you finish the final cull, then "synchronize" that folder in LR and import the rest of them?

Oct 21, 2012 at 10:18 PM

Jon-Mark
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p.1 #7 · Photomechanic + Lightroom workflow

Interesting about the XMP sidecar things. For some reason some of my ratings from PM ( Stars ) show up in LR but not all of them.

Spencer that seems pretty sensible. You should do a workshop or DVD about this!

Oct 22, 2012 at 07:30 PM

spink
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p.1 #8 · Photomechanic + Lightroom workflow

sboerup wrote:
I think for posting teasers, I would try and keep my workflow as similar as it is to my main editing workflow.

Could you open PM, select your teasers, then import in LR and edit. Then when you are ready to do the full edit, could you finish the final cull, then "synchronize" that folder in LR and import the rest of them?

I do something similar.

Only difference is I don't use PM, I use FastStone Image Viewer as I don't care to do star ratings and such. FastStone is free and fast.

Oct 23, 2012 at 01:39 AM

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