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Photo Workflow advice

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AJ Huff:
This group is so large there are at least a handful of people who can give some advice on this subject  :)

I am somewhere between a serious hobbyist and pro just based on shear number of photos I take and because in shoot in RAW. I've been using Elements for years. I'm dedicating my year to upping my game process wise at least.

I added Bridge but it doesn't play well with Elements 11. I tried Lightroom 4 in the past and hated it. And now Adobe has both PhotoshopCC and Lightroom available for $10/month. What to do what to do? I could stick with Elements 11. I could add Lightroom 5 and tweak it for Elements. I could abandon Elements and switch to Lightroom 5 plus Photoshop CC. What kind of workflow do you use?

Last night  I started trialing Lightroom 5 and it does not have face recognition like Elements 11 does. I'm not sure I can live without face recognition.

Today I tried adding 275 photos to the map in Lightroom. I couldn't figure it out. After 20 minutes I gave up. This is another feature that I use heavily in Elements 11.

I thought Bridge or Lightroom would be the way to go but both seem to be coming up short. I go through about 500 pics a week so I need something to improve my workflow. So advise away!!

Thanks,

 

-AJ

Yukonica:
I'm an ardent amateur. As an Apple customer I got hooked into Aperture.... and I got shafted by way of two upgrades that did not allow backwards compatibility to my spare/old/guest MacBook. Full libraries that were only accessible on the tower. Then I bought a Macbook Pro and had to buy Aperture all over. Trust that I'm not an Apple Fan-boy. The plan is to wean myself off their gravy train.
I also used to be friends with a National Geo wildlife photographer who was from up here but now he's so big I think it is more accurate to say I know him. We debated the benefits of Aperture vs Lightroom (when I was still a fan of the software). The gist of the conversation was that, although he still used Aperture at the time, most of the people in his sphere had switched to Lightroom and that was his plan as well.
I rarely use photoshop anymore. If I can't clean up a file with simple tools I didn't take a good photograph. ... in the bin.
As far as 'cloud' goes: I'm a sceptic. Instead, I bought into a Western Digital "my cloud' experience. Same concept except the hardware is in my house.
The single most important thing you can do for your workflow is to create or copy a file naming protocol that makes sense to you; one that allows very little opportunity for duplication of names. And then follow it with tenacity.

guzziknight:
I use Lightroom 4 for 99% of my work. I use Elements 9 for panoramas, but that's about it. I too thought LR was very confusing at first. I ended up buying a book about it, I think from Scott Kelby, and it walked me through the important things. Great resource!

Aperture is being discontinued by Apple, so no new updates will be coming. I tried it before I went with LR and thought LR worked better for me.

Also, you can still get LR as a stand alone, which will cost you less over time, but won't get you the extras, like being able to use it on an iPad.

If I can dig up the Kelby book, you're welcome to borrow it if you want.

AJ Huff:
Thanks for the offer but I already have it on order!

-AJ

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