need suggestions on workflow

[mikeci]

hi all,
I'm about to buy my first laptop to use to d/l pics off flash cards when my wife and I go on vacation. I have an Ipad but its not doing the job I thought it would do. I'm going to install lightroom and use that to input, store and sort everything. I will buy an outboard hd as a backup just in case something happens to the laptop's hd. the question that I have is should I leave the files in there natural raw state or convert them to dng in the laptop or wait till I transfer the files when I get home to convert them? the other question I have is if I add metadata to the files is the metadata also added to the backup copy that lightroom makes?
if anybody has a different idea of how they store and transfer their pics I would sure like to hear it

thanks
Mike

[Snarkbyte]

Just a suggestion, but this is what works for me...

Create your LR catalog on the external HD, and when you download the images from the card, import directly into that catalog. You can convert to DNG while you're importing and save backups on the laptop drive. When you get home, you can plug the external drive directly into your desktop, and use the "Import from catalog" command to import the images into your desktop catalog (I'm assuming you also use LR on your desktop). This way, you don't lose anything in the transfer, including metadata, keywords, image adjustments, collections, etc...

Be sure to use the "Copy new photos to new location and import" option (from the pulldown in the center of the popup) when you're importing to your desktop.

[mikeci]

Hey snark,
Thanx for the comeback. Your workflow strategy sounds like a good idea. Do you use " make a second copy" on the internal hd? Or do you just copy the dng to the internal?
Mike

[Snarkbyte]

I import the images into a Photos directory on the external HD (with the catalog), and make a second copy on the laptop HD (using the "Make a second copy" option for import). The second copy on the laptop is the backup. This means that when you do the transfer to your desktop, everything you need, both the catalog and the images in the catalog, will be on the external drive, so everything can be transferred from there; no need to transfer anything from the laptop itself. Of course, you may want to transfer your backup copies from the laptop to someplace more permanent (and free up some laptop disk space), but that can be done completely outside LR... Lightroom doesn't need to know where these backup image files are (you could even burn the backups onto DVDs, for that matter).

I hope this is clear... I'm about to leave town for a few days myself, so I'm making the same preparations.

[mikeci]

Thanx for the explanation. Joy your trip
Mike