How to best manage photos with Lightroom?

Question

I recently started taking RAW photos and purchased Lightroom 3 to manage them. So far I have not found the ideal way to manage them. Here's basically how my workflow goes: 1. Import the RAW files from the camera to a specific import folder. 2. Edit the RAW files. 3. Once the pictures look good, convert the files to JPEG and save them to my photo album folder. 4. Keyword the photos, possibly add comments etc. 4. Save the original RAW files to external hard drive.Currently Lightroom does not know my photo album folder exists and I've used it only to edit the pictures in the import folder. However, I'd like to use Lightroom also to manage my photo album. But what would be the best way to handle that? Is there a better way than to export the photos to my album and them import the album folder? I assume export does not include the ratings etc if I set them while editing the RAW files? Ideally I would of course keep the RAW files in my album, but my laptop has limited hard drive space, so I can't do that. Besides, I like to keep all the album files in JPEG so I can use them easily anywhere without additional exports.

Answer 1

Lightroom works best when you do everything with the application, including importing, moving files and folders, and exporting. If you do these things outside of Lightroom, then the app will not know where the files are, and that can cause confusion.

1. Import with Lightroom, and make sure you choose a destination folder that makes sense for your workflow.
2. Edit raw files: sounds good.
3. You don't necessarily need to save jpgs of your finished photos. Export to jpg as needed, when sharing photos, emailing, printing, etc. But you don't need to save jpg copies of all your photos; use Lightroom to view and organize your photos.
4. Again, import with Lightroom, and choose destination folder where you'd like your RAW files to live. And very important to have backups. You can use internal and/or external drives with Lightroom.