Digital Photography School on creating an effective workflow and image organization

Example of Digital Photography School's editing workflow process

Digital Photography School is a long-running tutorial site for shooters of all levels. In this piece, wedding-lifestyle-travel photographer Karthika Gupta lays out her end-to-end workflow: from card prep before a job to culling, editing, delivery, and long-term archiving. It’s a nuts-and-bolts guide heavy on gear logistics and naming conventions—perfect if you like having every step spelled out.

Mainly aimed at working photographers (or very active hobbyists) who shoot large batches and need a repeatable system for safe storage, off-site backups, and quick client delivery.

Tools mentioned

• Canon 5D Mk III / Mk II – primary and backup bodies
• Transcend CF cards – swapped at logical breaks to avoid card failure losses
• Seagate external hard drives – master vault for all RAW files
• WD My Passport Ultra – portable drive for Lightroom catalog and travel backups
• Apple Photos (formerly iPhoto) – first-pass cull of keepers
• Adobe Lightroom – 80 % of editing; catalog kept on external drive
• Adobe Photoshop (via Creative Cloud) – only for heavy retouching
• Zenfolio – password-protected client galleries (live two weeks)
• Synology / Amazon S3 – optional long-term backup if you never want to delete client work

Steps to follow

1. Pre-shoot prep

   • Charge five batteries, format every CF card, pack bodies and lenses the night before.

2. During the shoot

   • Change to a fresh CF card before key moments (e.g. ceremony) to isolate risks.
   • Segregate used cards in a dedicated pouch.

3. After the shoot (home base)

   • Copy RAWs to a Seagate drive (permanent dump).
   • Import the same card set into Apple Photos, flag favourites.
   • Export selected originals to a dated folder YYYYMMDD_Client_ShootType.
   • Import that folder into Lightroom for editing; catalog lives on a WD Ultra drive.

4. After the shoot (on the road)

   • Carry two WD Ultra drives: one for RAWs, one for the LR catalog.
   • On return, migrate RAWs to the main Seagate vault and wipe the travel drive.

5. Editing & delivery

   • Finish 80 % of work in Lightroom, jump to Photoshop only for complex fixes.
   • Export finals back to the WD Ultra, using the same date-based naming.
   • Upload a password-protected Zenfolio gallery; keep it live for two weeks.

6. Archiving policy

   • Delete processed JPEGs yearly to free space.
   • Keep client RAWs for three years, then purge unless otherwise requested.
   • Personal photos are never deleted.

Advice (extras called out)

• Swap CF cards early—better a half-filled fresh card than a catastrophic failure.
• Remove batteries from cameras and flashes before storage to avoid leakage.
• Format cards in-camera, not on the computer.
• External drives on sale are cheaper than lost data; buy spares.
• Consistent folder and file names (YYYYMMDD_…) make searches painless.

Take a look at the full walkthrough (with gear photos and screenshots) here: https://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-create-an-effective-workflow-and-image-organization/. Article by Karthika Gupta, published on Digital Photography School (undated in copy).