Update (September 2009): After much consideration and much writing, I’ve developed a new workflow that I’m quite happy with. Thomas’ workflow and some of the thoughts below were very influential. Please see my new article, “How I Organize My Catalog and Why (2009 Edition).”

A few days ago, a friend sent me a copy of Thomas Hawk’s article, “My Photography Workflow 2009.” A few minutes ago, I tweeted saying that I thought this article would cause me to radically shift my personal workflow. Another friend asked what I meant by that, so I thought I’d try to address that here.

Disclaimer: This is all still a bit murky in my mind. If you’re looking for definitive answers, don’t read this. This post is more about exploring new ideas. What changes, if any, come to my personal workflow may or may not resemble what I’m discussing here. I’ll confess to being a bit nervous about posting this, since my article from last fall on how I organize my Lightroom catalog is by far the most popular thing I’ve written on this blog, and I’m now considering changing much of what I’ve written there.

So first … why am I open to even considering a radical shift in my personal workflow? Well, there’s a part of the workflow that I haven’t discussed publicly, because I haven’t been happy with it: That is, how should I segregate the best of my work (i.e. that which I wish to show) from the rest of my work (i.e. what sits locked away on a hard drive somewhere “just in case” I might need it someday)? Right now, I have two catalogs: One holds the “main” files and another is my “archive” catalog. Every so often, I physically move files from the main catalog to the archive catalog. It’s a lot of work to do this, and I haven’t been particularly happy about the way it works.

That’s why Thomas’ Step 5 (Export JPG file) caught my eye. It solves several problems that I have in my current workflow:

• The raw files wouldn’t have to move at all from one catalog to another. In my hypothetical new workflow, I’d have a catalog of all of the “source” images which would be rarely consulted, and a separate catalog of exported JPGs that contain final-form photos that I’m happy to show and share.
• As it stands now, the raw files don’t fit on my laptop. Even when I edit down to the selects, they still don’t fit comfortably. Having a JPG-only catalog of selects solves the disk-space problem.
• The act of choosing what’s in and what’s out becomes an affirmative process rather than a process that’s about rejecting photos. Why not make the selection process a happy one?
• This means the “selects” catalog is always in tip-top shape whenever I need to show someone my current work. Right now, the “main” catalog always contains some number of rough photos that haven’t been filtered out to the archive catalog.

That said, I think there are some points where I’ll differ from Thomas. As I said in my article last fall, I don’t think there are right or wrong answers; there are answers that do or don’t work for each of us individually.

The main differences that I see:

• I’ll import my photos directly into Lightroom instead of using Canon or other proprietary software.
• Unlike Thomas, I do like the DNG image format, primarily because it eliminates the need for XMP sidecars, so I’ll continue to make those conversions fairly early in my workflow.
• I’ll continue to place basic location metadata into my photos early in the workflow. This means geotagging (workflow unchanged from my November 2007 article on geotaggging) and adding basic location metadata into the appropriate IPTC fields. (FWIW, I almost always carry a handheld GPS unit with me when shooting and transfer that data to the computer whenever I import photos.)

I’m still working out many of the details. I’d love to hear your comments and suggestions.