Episode Summary: Photo organization and workflow using Adobe Lightroom and Lightroom Mobile — what it costs, what it's for, and the exact folder system used to stay organized.
What You'll Learn
- What Adobe Lightroom is and why it was built for professional photographers
- The real cost breakdown, including the $9.99/month Photographer's Bundle
- Mike's exact photo folder structure and backup workflow
- How Lightroom Mobile syncs with the desktop app, and its Collections-only limitation
What Is Adobe Lightroom?
A photo editor and organizer/manager for Mac or PC, included in the Adobe Creative Cloud bundle. Officially launched in 2007, built mainly to help professional photographers organize and edit large batches of high-resolution and RAW photos quickly.
Tip 1: back up Lightroom catalogs regularly. Tip 2: shoot in RAW when possible.
The backup setup in practice: all photos live on an external hard drive, continuously backed up to Backblaze for $5/month.
How Much Does Lightroom Cost?
Included in the full Adobe CC bundle at $49/month, or via the Photographer's Bundle for just $9.99/month — includes Lightroom, Photoshop, Bridge, and all the mobile apps.
Workflow
All photos live on an external drive in a single "Photos" folder, broken down by year and month (e.g., 2016 > November). Travel photos get their own organization by location (e.g., Europe 2014).
Lightroom Mobile
Free. The Lightroom camera app is used for all iPhone photography, giving a fully functional version of Lightroom on iPhone and iPad with 2-way sync — a photo shot on the phone uploads to Lightroom automatically. One limitation: it only works with regular Collections, not Smart Collections.
Show Notes & Links
Read the complete show notes and resources on mikemurphy.ai.
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