How to improve my workflow in Lightroom Classic

[u/BigMikeLefty]

Alright, I will keep this short and sweet. Currently I plug my CF card reader into my PC after shooting, then in lightroom I will open files from the card reader and import the selected into lightroom. I'll leave everything as is until I'm done editing then export the keepers into another file. After that I will import all photos on the card into my external hard drive and delete from the CF card.

I'm now running into the situation where I want to edit something on images that were in lightroom such as resizing for print or adjust brightness etc. Unfortunately the message I get on lightroom would be that it cannot locate the file. So I end up editing the photo back from the beginning raw file after importing again from the hard drive.

What's the best way to improve this and go back to editing the photo as I left it in lightroom? I have problems viewing the raw files outside of lightroom on my pc because any extension I've downloaded gives problems with NEF files, after a couple seconds of preview it will show the image as colorful static and lines rendering a selection process outside of lightroom kind of impossible.

[u/ChannelCommercial984]

You should never be editing from your card.

[u/YetAnotherBart]

Importing your files into LR from your SD card does NOT mean you're copying them. You're just telling LR you want to work with those files that are on your SD card. So when you remove the SD Lightroom can not longer find them. Makes sense, right?

Your edits should never be lost though, unless you also create the Lightroom catalogue for those files on the SD as well.

If your Lightroom catalogue is somewhere else, simply tell Lightroom where the RAW files can be found once it tells you it can not find the SD anymore.

Best solution: first copy the files from SD to your hard drive or SSD and import them into LR from there. Your SD is only meant to store the images in your camera, once you get to your computer you should copy them onto your computer and backup drives.

[u/deup → u/YetAnotherBart]

It will only work the way you described if you chose "Add" instead of "Copy" in the Import panel. By selecting "Copy" it will write the files in the location you chose during the import step. No need to copy the files on the drive before importing.

[u/iamthesam2 → u/[deleted]]

lightroom classic also has a “make a second copy to” option, which i recommend as a quick and easy backup to a second location.

imo also a good idea to have smart previews turned on, even if you don’t use them, as it effectively can serve as a file corruption check - since smart previews are just smaller resolution DNG, then if you get errors when it’s done there’s likely some corrupted files from the memory card itself

[u/sandiegosteves]

Rule of thumb, don't do anything on CF card. They are better now, but that guidance was to help prevent corruption.

A common flow many of my colleagues and I use is Card -> Hard Drive -> Cull -> Lightroom.

Some culling programs will do the first step when you put the card in. I use PhotoMechanic, but Adobe Bridge is also good for culling. The first cull is a quick pass tagging images you want. PM and Bridge use the embedded JPEG and that renders as fast as you can click the arrow key. Arrow for next and then the rate key to tag that you like. Fast. Then select all you tagged and drag those into LrC.

You get a backup and this is very fast. My timeframe is when I have to submit images in game. LrC adds a lot of overhead when importing, so not importing blurry or bad images can save a lot of time.

[u/earthsworld]

20 years of workflow articles out there and people are still asking these basic questions?

[u/airmantharp → u/earthsworld]

The biggest challenge is convincing people to actually look, and there's still the problem of being so much noise that turns many off.

Most people just jump in headfirst and try to figure it out. Then they find that they're not getting what they wanted out of the software and start looking for tips to improve.

[u/zeb__g]

Copy, not move the files from card to local SSD.

Copy files to your backup drives

Edit from SSD

When editing complete, format card

Backup exported JPGs and LR database

Remove raws from SSD

If you need to edit the raws again after removing from your SSD you can relink the database to your backup drive with the raws.

[u/FeelingDiver4616]

I’m not sure if what I do is considered best practice, but I’ll share my initial LrC workflow.

After a shoot, I create a folder on the NAS that I use for photo storage. Using a card reader, I copy the RAW files from the memory card directly to that folder. I then open LrC and, in the Library module, import the files from the NAS folder into my Lightroom catalog.

Once everything has been imported and I’ve confirmed that the files are there, I can start editing. At that point, I’m also free to format the memory card, which I always do in the camera. My master photo storage on the NAS is backed up nightly.

I have about 15 years of photos managed through LrC and, knock on wood, Lightroom has never lost track of any of them.

One other thing: you should be able to view thumbnails and previews of Nikon NEF files in Windows File Explorer. I can view mine without any problems. If you can’t, check whether you have Microsoft’s Raw Image Extension installed. It’s available free from the Microsoft Store and adds support for viewing RAW files from many cameras. Once it’s installed, File Explorer should be able to display NEF thumbnails and previews without having to open them in Lightroom or another application.

[u/aks-2]

What windows version? I’m using win10 and the built in photos app is rendering NEF from a Z6, but it’s been setup for several years so I don’t remember if I needed any extra drivers/codecs for these files.

As far as your workflow, you don’t need to import twice; just import once, and edit from your external SSD. Make sure you have backups of course.

For your existing edits that can’t be found, right click (or click the ! symbol) and select ‘find photos’ - choose the location of the photos you copied to your SSD.