What is your Digital Photography WORKFLOW?

[Ambrosia7177]

Gee, I just came here a few weeks ago for advice on Photoshop alternatives, and now I've gone down the rabbit-hole?!

In this thread, I would like advice on what is a good WORKFLOW for digital photography. In other words, the entire END-TO-END PROCESS from capture all the way to photo-editing and publishing to archiving.

This new thread was inspired (again) by @cSalmon who said...

The simple fact we photographers deal with a lot of data. We photograph variations, we bracket, file sizes become larger and larger. What is the number 1 rule of all things computer - Backup on multiple devices

Photos is not designed for "easy" external drive backup it's not even easy to know where your files are if you let your guard down one sleepy morning and let Photos do it's thing

There's a lot more to a proper workflow than just picking software. IMO a photographer's first step after capture is ingesting the images onto an external drive. When you have multiple folders containing 400 camera files internal hard drives and Cloud storage is just too quickly exhausted.

IMO Photo's design works against external hard drive storage even if it allows it - like a soft tire it wants to steer you back to it's preferred internal library gooblygook

Know your workflow, not just how to use a piece of software, but how you are going to ingest files from the camera into the computer, how you are going name, how you are going to back up. In four years how much data will your archives contain? How easy will it be to work on a file four years later?

IMO choose a software that is optimized for accessing files from external hard drive storage.

I still haven't made my mind up on which software I want to use for photo-editing - and am drowning on a whole bunch of choices between Photoshop-esque alternatives and Lightroom-esque alternatives.

(Based on @cSalmon's earlier advice, a Lightroom-esque application will probably better suit my photo-journalistic needs.)


And to @cSalmon's latest point, it makes sense that I consider how various photo-editing applications handle the "workflow" of managing and storing photos.


Truth be told, pretty much everything I do on my computer is centered around macOS Finder. In the "olden days", the only way you had to navigate things was via file-navigation utilities (e.g. Windows Explorer, Finder).

I prefer working from macOS Finder and working with PHYSICAL FILES and filenames that are SELF-DOCUMENTING - because I'll never lose things like when other people's Photos or Music databases get corrupted!!


(This is also why I ADHOR mobile apps 0 I don't trust app that take my data and make it an internal part of the application.)


My current workflow for video-editing is this...

- Shoot
- Download to a "STAGING" folder
- Rename the original files, and add meta-data to the filenames (e.g. "2025-03-10_153200_Robert in Chicago.mov")
- Store them in a permanent location on my laptop
- Back then up to an external drive - stored offsite
- Use Finder to find the ones I like
- Then open up one video at a time and edit it
- Save it as a new name.
- Backup again.
- Repeat.

(I would use a similar workflow for PHOTOGRAPHS, except that I would have many many times more photos than videos because of their nature and due to bracketing.)

Applications like Photos, Music, etc that create their own databases and take away control from me make me nervous...

Working manually with files has served me well for decades - even if 99% of people don't do it.

My workflow for DaVinci Resolve involves working manually with files, and it seemed to work for me. And I have had no issues with creating multiple copies of VIDEO FILES so that I had backups and could always roll things back - even though DaVinci Resolve is a "non-destructive editor (NDE).

Working with photos will be trivial to working with 50GB video files.

At any rate, I am always open to learning new (and better) approaches to doing things.

And since I will be launching my mobile news website here in a couple of months - and will have hundreds of thousands of photos to manage - I suppose I should consider how "professional" photographers work!!

Look forward to hearing your thoughts...


P.S. I have decided to NOT use any Adobe products, so advice catered towards software I might use would be more helpful.

 

[cupcakes2000]

I ingest using adobes photo importer which is in Bridge, onto an ingest ssd.

Cull using fastrawviewer and move the keepers onto my scratch disk.

Send from there to either; ACR in bridge, Photoshop or DPP4. However normally I send to PureRaw to convert.

PureRaw uploads to Lightroom (not classic).

Edit normally on iPad, sometimes in classic on the Mac (after next step)

LRC automatically downloads - then (once edited) move the files into my structure, and off the scratch disk into my NAS.

After an amount of time I delete from LR to clear space.

I use Adobe stuff to edit mainly, but one could replace any of that.

I put it into LR first so they’re back up to the cloud and I can use them in any device. This is only until the client has accepted them.

 

[Apple fanboy]

A third thread asking the same thing? Basically I’ll say what I said in the other thread.

Download a trial and try them. You’ve ruled out Adobe. So your choices are easy enough. Just download and see which works for you.

Personally I believe Adobe to be the best. So that’s what I use. Have for years.

 

[Ambrosia7177]

A third thread asking the same thing? Basically I’ll say what I said in the other thread.

What sounds remotely close to my first thread? (Did you not read what I typed in my OP??)

Download a trial and try them. You’ve ruled out Adobe. So your choices are easy enough. Just download and see which works for you.

Personally I believe Adobe to be the best. So that’s what I use. Have for years.

Your response has NOTHING to do with the topic of this thread...

 

[Apple fanboy]

What sounds remotely close to my first thread? (Did you not read what I typed in my OP??)




Your response has NOTHING to do with the topic of this thread...

In your opinion. You want people to answer what software you need to use. No one can answer that for you.

As I said most software has free downloads. Just pick one and see which is for you.

 

[Ambrosia7177]

In your opinion. You want people to answer what software you need to use. No one can answer that for you.

As I said most software has free downloads. Just pick one and see which is for you.

No, that is NOT what this thread is about...

 

[Apple fanboy]

No, that is NOT what this thread is about...

Sounds like it is from what YOU wrote.

P.S. I have decided to NOT use any Adobe products, so advice catered towards software I might use would be more helpful.

 

[r.harris1]

You do need to decide for yourself what software you want to use. No one here—or anywhere else—can tell you that. There's lots of great software out there.

That said, to answer this question:

(1) I use raw to get the most out of my camera's image sensor (from iPhones to digital backs).

(2) Understand my camera's limitations (from iPhones to digital backs) and set the camera accordingly. Literally every camera has limitations of some sort. My goal is the highest-quality raw file I can get.

(3) (Try to) compose and focus well. A lot of what I do is manual focus, but even when using autofocus, composition is important and knowing what your camera is doing with AF is important too. AF isn't magic, and it may not be what you intended in every case. Your camera shouldn't think for you, if at all possible. Fast-moving subjects may need camera brain power, but you'll still need to decide "keepers" in the culling process (step 4).

(4) Review my images and decide which are "less rubbish," aka culling appropriately. Most raw converters have some capability, so rating with stars, color tags, etc. There are also third-party culling tools such as Photo Mechanic or even AI-based ones, such as Narrative Select, which help you get those images where the eyes are in focus, and so forth. Ideally, you're still engaging your brain to do this.

(5) Use a high-quality raw converter such as Capture One, Lightroom (or ACR), or DxO. Even something like Fast Raw Viewer. [EDIT #1: I use Capture One as it's my personal preference. I know and have tried the other ones I've mentioned, and honestly, they're all exceptional. Try them (except Adobe, which you've talked yourself out of). Or others.]

(6) Decide what needs adjusting—if anything—such as raising shadows to see detail, lowering highlights if they're too exposed for the scene's goal, and adjusting color, white balance, sharpness if needed, noise, etc. If I need to remove power lines or other clutter, I use Photoshop because I find it to be the best at AI removal. You'd need something else since you're not an Adobe fan, or not do it, whatever your preference. Personally, it's about outcomes and how I can get there. Plenty of other tools can do that, though. You'd need to try them and decide for yourself.

As an aside (and it's a cottage industry), things like third-party styles and presets will help you achieve a consistent look in "your style" pretty quickly (they apply the same sorts of changes you would do most of the time in one click).

(7) Decide on the output, if any, such as a print (I do my own printing) or dumping it on the Internet on a website, YouTube, etc.

(8) Repeat.

Everyone is going to have some variation on this theme. There's no rocket science and no magic here.

[EDIT #2: Think in terms of your goals. What do you want? What's the outcome? The goal should be a compelling image which no software can create, despite AI. I take very, very few of those. I take plenty I like OK, but compelling? Not a ton . Like most of us, I'm not going down as "one of the greats" and that's OK.]

 

[bousozoku]

I could swear that you've already asked this multiple times in different ways. You have to try the software to see what is comfortable for you.

Since 2006, I've been using raw files from the camera and processing them through Capture One Pro. As an alternative, I could use Silkypix or Affinity Photo. I used to keep a 13x19 inch printer for output when I was selling sports photos.

I've made skate park videos using iMovie, though I'd rather use something more powerful like HitFilm.

Using a drive to store your images and video is important.

You'll have to get software trial versions and try them.

 

[Ambrosia7177]

Am I in an alternate universe?

What does anything the last three people posted have to do with how you manage files?

 

[r.harris1]

Am I in an alternate universe?

What does anything the last three people posted have to do with how you manage files?

No, you should just reword your question. Your originally posted question - "What is your Digital Photography WORKFLOW?"
- is a much, much broader topic than "managing files." It includes setup, capture, storage, and processing. At least to me. If you were, don't assume the worst of your fellow humans. We're generally pretty intelligent .

I store my files on my desktop in a fashion that makes sense to me (and it depends on what types of images you shoot, and "how you think."). For me, it's usually Year/Date/Location and then I have a variety of metadata tags if I'm searching around (but usually I don't). Most major tools like the ones I mentioned will help you do that.

If you're shooting tons of images, one of the things you should consider doing is called "tagging." This is a metadata function that most of the tools I mentioned help you with, You can give each image a description, subject and so forth, so that you can then go back and search on similar things.

 

[r.harris1]

Your challenge is also to distill "hundreds of thousands" of photos, videos, etc., into compelling content. There are gazillions of news-style sites, and most are of inferior quality, just for clickbait. So you're right; if you're going to stand out, you need a way to manage those files. And I'd suggest that it's the opposite of your supposition: 99% of people do manage their files on a file system, but what they do well is keyword/tag those images so they can be found and aggregated. Many news agencies, if that's what you're attempting to emulate, use tools like Photo Mechanic, which excels at file management and keywording. So add that to your list. At present, it does have a subscription and a single-purchase license offering.

Keywording is a big deal if you want your site to be found by search engines. It's just a consideration.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

Gee, I just came here a few weeks ago for advice on Photoshop alternatives, and now I've gone down the rabbit-hole?!

In this thread, I would like advice on what is a good WORKFLOW for digital photography. In other words, the entire END-TO-END PROCESS from capture all the way to photo-editing and publishing to archiving.

This new thread was inspired (again) by @cSalmon who said...




I still haven't made my mind up on which software I want to use for photo-editing - and am drowning on a whole bunch of choices between Photoshop-esque alternatives and Lightroom-esque alternatives.

(Based on @cSalmon's earlier advice, a Lightroom-esque application will probably better suit my photo-journalistic needs.)


And to @cSalmon's latest point, it makes sense that I consider how various photo-editing ap




I still haven't made my mind up on which software I want to use for photo-editing - and am drowning on a whole bunch of choices between Photoshop-esque alternatives and Lightroom-esque alternatives.

(Based on @cSalmon's earlier advice, a Lightroom-esque application will probably better suit my photo-journalistic needs.)


And to @cSalmon's latest point, it makes sense that I consider how various photo-editing applications handle the "workflow" of managing and storing photos.


Truth be told, pretty much everything I do on my computer is centered around macOS Finder. In the "olden days", the only way you had to navigate things was via file-navigation utilities (e.g. Windows Explorer, Finder).

I prefer working from macOS Finder and working with PHYSICAL FILES and filenames that are SELF-DOCUMENTING - because I'll never lose things like when other people's Photos or Music databases get corrupted!!


(This is also why I ADHOR mobile apps 0 I don't trust app that take my data and make it an internal part of the application.)


My current workflow for video-editing is this...

- Shoot
- Download to a "STAGING" folder
- Rename the original files, and add meta-data to the filenames (e.g. "2025-03-10_153200_Robert in Chicago.mov")
- Store them in a permanent location on my laptop
- Back then up to an external drive - stored offsite
- Use Finder to find the ones I like
- Then open up one video at a time and edit it
- Save it as a new name.
- Backup again.
- Repeat.

(I would use a similar workflow for PHOTOGRAPHS, except that I would have many many times more photos than videos because of their nature and due to bracketing.)

Applications like Photos, Music, etc that create their own databases and take away control from me make me nervous...

Working manually with files has served me well for decades - even if 99% of people don't do it.

My workflow for DaVinci Resolve involves working manually with files, and it seemed to work for me. And I have had no issues with creating multiple copies of VIDEO FILES so that I had backups and could always roll things back - even though DaVinci Resolve is a "non-destructive editor (NDE).

Working with photos will be trivial to working with 50GB video files.

At any rate, I am always open to learning new (and better) approaches to doing things.

And since I will be launching my mobile news website here in a couple of months - and will have hundreds of thousands of photos to manage - I suppose I should consider how "professional" photographers work!!

Look forward to hearing your thoughts...


P.S. I have decided to NOT use any Adobe products, so advice catered towards software I might use would be more helpful.

Congrats on deciding against Adobe.

IMO what others do is unhelpful, because your work is what matters. E.g. a photog shooting sports needing real-time turnaround to a client will require a totally different workflow from a photog shooting sports for publishing in a website the following day, and a photog shooting sports for weekly high-rez image summaries would be different still. Just three examples without even varying the subject matter.

Two apps that come to mind after your description are FastRawViewer and Photo Mechanic, definitely two to look at. But you could run your search engine by "Digital Asset Management" to check them all. I liked Aperture but Apple killed it; also Canto and Extensis Portfolio.

IMO you need to first define exactly what you intend to do, including file sizes, file formats, how you will cull pix, who will do it when and how much time will be involved. The volume and timing that you seem to reference does not jive with statements like "bracketing" photos, a technique best suited to very low numbers of captures. Bracketing, very common in the film days, means 3x or 5x as many images to manually choose among; personally I found more than a decade ago that shooting RAW on modern pro digital Nikons made bracketing unnecessarily time consuming in post for most (not all) types of end use.

Note that file types are a huge issue A) for software and B) for managing hundreds of thousands of images. What file types and file sizes will be involved is essential prerequisite info to developing a workflow.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

Am I in an alternate universe?

What does anything the last three people posted have to do with how you manage files?

Everything else you do affects file management. RAW captures versus JPEG for instance is pretty basic, simplistic even. Personally I would never just capture JPEG - - except that some near-real-time upload usages (e.g. sports) or file size handling might necessitate it. Even something like cameras allowed into the workflow matter, because some apps are faster than others at accepting RAW files from new pro bodies.

 

[arkitect]

Hallo @Ambrosia7177

The folk above have given you excellent advice and ideas.

1. Please, please, download a trial of some software — the contributors to your threads have given you great suggestions.

2. Test them — the bare basics are more or less the same and are easily carried over from one editing app to another.
Curves will curve… no matter what! Noise reduction will do noise reduction… Saturation/Vibrancy will do Saturation/Vibrancy…
Export will… well… Export.
The shapes and layout of these things will be different, but heck, no more different than getting used to one car model to another.
The different software apps may have their own strengths and some are better (subjectively) than others. Only you can make that decision.

******************

As to this particular thread's question:

iPhone workflow?
iPhone —> Photos —> Snapseed —> Export back to Photos and to my Google Drive.

Mirrorless Camera workflow?
Mirrorless camera —> RAW —> Export from SD card to a folder that identifies the date etc. —> DXO PhotoLab (Mac) —> Export to Photos and Backup the Original with the DXO sidecar file should I need to export later to a larger size or adjust my results.

For showing on the web, I export from Photos at 1600pix for the longest edge.

That's it.

Anyway, I hope that helps, but that is just what works for me — and I am not a Pro. Nor do I have any Pro or Journalistic aspirations. I just like taking photos that I enjoy.

PS!
Just to add: please get started on software. Just asking questions will end up with you chasing your own tail as you go round and round and round…

 

[Ctrlos]

- Take pictures (iPhone or DSLR)
- Import into Photos.
- Delete the chaff
- Edit a few if they need it
- Admire my images for a day. Maybe use one as a wallpaper
- Forget they exist for 3 years until they pop up in the ‘Featured’ widget

 

[Unami]

As you're talking about "photojournalistic" needs - at the agency where I work we do use Photoshop and Lightroom. That's $20 a month for both apps together, including mobile apps and 1TB of storage. If you do anything remotely professional, that's nothing, and will pay for it self if you sell 2 photos a year. And I'd argue it's not a lot for a hobby either.

Personally I mostly use lightroom on my iPad because of Apple Pencil support. Import wirelessly, do a quick color correction, probably AI-masking of the subject and make the background a bit darker and some manual touch-up, if necessary. I recently switched to 10-bit heif when I shoot a lot of photos. Doesn't really make a difference unless I work a lot on a photo. All professional press-photographers I know just use .jpg because of the quick turnaround. Don't need to fiddle around with a press photography more than necessary, if it's photographed in a professional way.

I am retiring my self employed work next year, so I'm internally debating if I'll keep the Adobe subscription or switch to something like affinity photo. I'll probably keep Adobe, even if it's €60 a month - but I'd feel naked without After Effects. Might as well buy Lightroom, Photoshop, Acrobat, Premiere and Illustrator when I'm at it.

 

[Jumpthesnark]

It sounds like you are already in a good place as far as wanting to use the Finder with other tools for your workflow & production. I don't like using anything like Photos, which takes too much control over naming and metadata.

A note before I describe my workflow. I do use Adobe products. You asked, and I'm answering, so don't be triggered. Many other people in these and other threads you've started have already given you many software suggestions, so please take their advice and try some of the software they've mentioned, see what's a good fit for you. That said...

My digital photography workflow is as follows:

• Capture in RAW. Make sure your camera(s) date and time are set correctly, down to the minute (very important as you'll see later) and your name/copyright/website are correct in your camera(s) menu.
• Create a folder on my desktop with the date and name of the shoot (for example a folder for a rodeo that I shoot today would be 250323_Rodeo). I sometimes use Photo Mechanic with a caption template so when I insert a memory card the images are automatically added to the folder, and metadata from the template is added at that time. But I can also simply insert memory cards and drag-and-drop the RAW files into the folder. That's the process I describe as follows.
• Open Photo Mechanic and open the folder of RAW files. Sort by capture time. You'll be looking at a page of thumbnails that you can scale to different sizes. Since I use multiple cameras, this is when having the correct date and time set in my cameras is important. When sorting by time, the Photo Mechanic window shows me all photos in sequence from different cameras so I can see my take all in one window, from the first photo taken to the last, in order.
• Batch apply metadata to all images (captions, keywords, etc). This is done in Photo Mechanic and from this point forward all images have metadata that is searchable in the Finder. I do not need any app to search for photos from now on. For example, a finder search five years from now for the word "rodeo," if I have added that in my caption or keywords, will show these files in the search.
• Also using Photo Mechanic, I batch rename the files based on the same name as the folder, followed by a sequence number starting with the number 200. So my first file would be 250323_Rodeo_200 , the second would be 250323_Rodeo_201, etc. Stick with me and I'll tell you why I start with 200.
• In Photo Mechanic, I do my edit. Generally I already know what my best images are, because I shot them! So I will go right to them in the thumbnails and check on things like sharpness and exposure. Photo Mechanic lets me see images in thumbnail view, or compare images side by side, or pixel peep at a solo image. As I make my selections of "keepers," I tag them in PM with a 2 (this applies a color to the frame, easy to spot in thumbnails) and add two stars to these images. This is my first edit. If there are images I want to get rid of (something completely useless like a shot that's way out of focus, etc.) I can delete them now. I start by going to the photos I think are the best, but I go through the entire take in this first edit, and make my selections.
• Then I re-rename those files, starting at 100. So now every image that I liked enough to make the first edit has a color tag, two stars and a file name that ends with 100, 101, 102, etc.
• Then I do my final edit. Really narrowing things down to the best of the best here. How many photos will I publish? Do I just need a couple? Will I send 20 or more to a client? Whatever it is, I want to make sure that I'm telling the entire story, with a variety of images in the mix. Using PM, I tag the final edit images with a 1 (this applies a different color than tagging them with a 2 does), and I add 1 star to all of them.
• Now I select just the images in the final edit. PM allows you to only see selected images, so I'm not looking at dozens or hundreds of thumbnails now. It's just those in the final edit. I change from "sort by capture time" to "arrangement." this allows me to move thumbnails around. I move images so the best of the best is first, the second favorite image is second, etc.
• I re-re-rename the images in the final edit, starting with 001. So now my favorite photo is 250323_Rodeo_001, the second best photo is 250323_Rodeo_002, etc. Now any time I open that folder in the Finder at any time in the future, I can tell which are my best photos, just from looking at the filenames. I don't need to open an image to see.
• I add specific captions to these photos in PM. Not all photos have the same caption, different people and situations need to be identified in one photo but not another, etc.

Now my edit is complete. I can either ftp as JPEGS to a client directly from PM without doing any post processing (I rarely do this), or I can work the images in Lightroom Classic:

• Close PM. Open Lightroom Classic. Create new catalog. Name it 250323_Rodeo and put it in the same folder. Import all the images in the folder into the catalog.
• The star tags that I applied in my first and second edit transfer to Lightroom, so now I view only those images with one star, do whatever post-processing I need to and export, generally as JPEGS, to a new folder. Something like 250323_Rodeo_EXPORTS. Then I send to my client in whatever way they choose - everyone wants their photos in a different way it seems.
• When complete, I take my original 250323_Rodeo folder plus my 250323_Rodeo_EXPORTS folder and copy them to three redundant hard drives. I have subfolders in each drive for complete edited RAW takes and exported JPEGs so I put them in different places, but each folder is copied several times. Two folders are kept at home and a third folder is constantly swapped out with a friend in case of fire or flood at my home.

Note: I used the term "edit" above for what I'm doing in Photo Mechanic. I'm using the word as journalists do, which means selecting images for publication. A lot of people use "edit" these days when they mean "post-processing." With journalists, post-processing is minimal, and only used to make sure the published image accurately reflects what the photographer saw. No heavy handed techniques, no adding or deleting of things from images, etc.

I know that was a lot ^ 🤣 but I hope it helps. Let me know if you have questions about my workflow, I'm happy to answer them.

 

[shadowboi]

As I become older and older I become much more lazy and stick to KISS principle: “keep it simple, stupid!”.

Usually my photos from all cameras land on my iPhone, from there I mostly use built-in photo editor in photos app, if I want to experiment with layers I use Pixelmator. Unfortunately had not found perfect editor yet, back in the days I mostly used Tadaa SLR for photo editing and nice retro filters but app has a huge flaw on new iOS versions – it doesn’t export full-res images and sticks to 2mp resolution. While probably it will be enough for Instagram, this is not the best resolution for keeping pictures in long run.

Yeah I shoot in JPEG on every camera I use and mostly do apply crucial settings before shooting (like WB and proper exposure). Also I prefer to disable noise reduction or keep it as low as possible to avoid artefacts associated

 

[jay-A]

Hi,

My workflow has changed quite a bit since I got a macbook pro with HDR display - now I am developing for onscreen HDR viewing exclusively. So I shoot raw, develop in Dxo Photolab, export to Lightroom where I finish development especially for HDR. I then export as an HDR tif and finally compress to HEIC and archive in Apple photos. I know I shouldn't do that but I usually don't keep the raws, because the HEIC and their 10+ bits of dynamic range usually contain more than enough useful data.

If I later need to print then I softproof the HEIC in lightroom and tonemap to fit the large DR of the file down to the paper tonal range.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

I am going to add one thing to what others have said about shooting lots of images. Cull, Cull, Cull.

Sometimes I am not at all certain about exposure, especially high contrast scenes (which I can't resist). Given that situation I will shoot a 5 shot bracket: -1.66, -1, -.33, +.33 and +1. As soon as I down load and back up a batch of images, I go through the brackets. If the image is worth keeping at all I will pare it down to 1, 2 or at most 3 of the frames. I do occasionally blend the highlites from 1 image with the shadows from a second, but there is never a solid reason to keep all five.

NOTE: Shooting RAW can somewhat but not entirely alleviate the need to bracket as can using the live histogram to help judge exposure. I like an uncluttered viewfinder so I don't bother working with the Histogram. Typically I prefer working with JPEGs as it saves me a step or 2 and 99+% of the time I can get where I want to go and quite quickly.

Other times I may shoot a dozen or more shots of the same subject, think deer or birds. Again I pare it down to the best images and toss the rest. The more you cull at the beginning the easier it is to manage down the road.

I consider myself reasonably adept at getting solid composition before I snap the shutter. Even so at least 30% if not more of the images I shoot can go directly to Trash, do not pass Go and do not collect $200. Again easiest to cull sooner rather than later.

Even so I continue to cull at the end of every month and then at the end of fall and the end of the year. And truth be known should probably even more brutal than I am.

 

[doctorwho1130]

Look into Peakto as a digital asset manager (it's centralizes your photos no matter where they are, and makes it easy to search).

For photo editing I also would prefer to not use Adobe; looking into Photomator, DXO, Capture One X Fuji Raw converter, or just the Fujifilm X RAW Studio.

 

[cSalmon]

Ingest using Image Capture into a new detailed named folder on an external SSD
(no files are ever saved on internal drive) I really wish Image Capture had some type of check/Sum assurance that everything got moved properly I know DTs use software too rich for my blood

Rename files using Graphic Converter, IMO naming is important I give detailed names that I can visually scan later. Cull the obvious mistakes, but not based on aesthetics. With GC I can browse and make obvious selections then I can color tag files so I can see my selects via the Finder window.
(Software stars are worthless because they don’t go between programs, color tags sometimes do but if they’re tagged so the Finder sees the tag then I always know my selects)

I will normally throw a pre-saved metadata template on the images but I don’t keyword, the File name is the important search tool

Backup the working folder onto second external SSD ( now I can format my camera cards I can also cull using my working folder)

I will work on images in a selected software

Once I’m done and some time has past I save two backups on corresponding spinning drives I use Comments to write notes where the redundant folder is located at so I know a folder has been backed up

After this I will free up space on the SSDrives

 

[ForkHandles]

So here’s something that’ll make you think.

In the old days Finder was playing around with stuff in your hard drive, a direct 1 to 1 relationship. What you saw was all there was.

These days Finder is database driven, absolutely no different under the cover than Photos or Music. When you click the search bar in Finder it does not scan your hard drive for compatible files, that would take forever with a terabyte drive. Instead it searches the database of your files!

When you tag, rename, delete, compress any file, you’re talking to a database and an app, not the hard drive.

If you can trust Finder there’s absolutely no difference in trusting other database driven apps. This would massively improve any workflow.

Except, that if the Finder database fails you can still go to Terminal and find the file tree there. Finder can rebuild itself from this list.

 

[walnuts]

Am I in an alternate universe?

What does anything the last three people posted have to do with how you manage files?

Maybe there is a miscommunication. What many here are trying to say is that the "workflow" boils down to taking a bunch of photos, downloading them somewhere, culling them, then editing the good ones and doing what you want with those good ones.

Most of us are answering this question with "I use this software" because the softwares cover the "workflow" you are looking for. Folks are urging you to try one (or many) because they are a great solution to the workflow question. And I guess in the opposite, not using any of these software tools is not recommended- just using Finder or Windows explorer to do the culling step is a lot harder.

(And I use Lightroom Classic (LRC). You can use classic to save the originals into folders that are human-recognizable, but still use LRC to rate/cull them, edit the best, and export them elsewhere. From there I export, save to Apple Photos (where they are more accessible) and possibly post to social media/share with friends/family or maybe make a photo book or something.)