Pete has guilt-tripped me into starting a thread. So what does your workflow look like for different situations? I thought it would be fun to find out how some of you keep pictures straight, decide on keepers, etc.
Here's my workflow for event photography. It is mostly Lightroom-based.
-Synchronize the time on both cameras to make file naming work later. (If you forget to do this, Lightroom will let you change the capture time of all the pictures from one of the cameras. To do it you open the metadata browser, filter by the camera serial number and edit the capture time.)
-Shoot the event. During downtime I chimp and delete obvious non-keepers while still in-camera.
-Convert to DNG on import to Lightroom. They are imported into a jobs folder and the naming scheme is YYYYMMDD HHMMSS, which means that they are sorted chronologically no matter the camera that took them.
-Mark pictures to remove and rate favorites. 'x' flags pictures for deletion in LR and you can always go back and make sure you meant to delete the ones you flag. I star favorites 3, 4, or 5 stars (by pressing the '3' '4' or '5' key). Normal ratios for me are about 1% 5-star, 5% 4-star, 10% 3-star, and 60% flagged for deletion (missed focus, weird expressions, duplicate of a keeper, and camera shake are the common reasons).
-CA corrections. I filter by metadata and know what the chromatic aberration sliders should be for my lenses at different focal lengths. I wish LR would let you filter further—by a range of focal length used for each lens instead of just lens used.
-Edit 5-star photos. Sync settings from 5-star photos to other photos captured under same circumstances.
-Edit 4-star photos. Sync settings to similar photos.
-Edit 3-star photos. Sync settings.
-Review photos flagged for deletion, unflag some, and delete the rest. This delay gives me a chance to sleep on my delete decisions.
-Edit the rest of the photos.
-Touch up select favorites in Photoshop.
-Select 5-star photos and rename to JOBNAME NNN or JOBNAME NNNN.
-Select 4-star photos and do the same, starting after the last 5-star number. For example, if there are 8 5-star images, the 4-stars pick up at JOBNAME 009.dng
-Ditto for 3-star
-Ditto for the rest. Renaming this way makes the deletion transparent to the client and makes it easy to find my favorites.
-Upload a web album of photos rated 3-stars and above for online proofing. (LR saves the day here! It's easier than Picasa, IMO, and you have a lot more control.)
-If the client has edit requests, edit based on those (typically, people just say they look great and I'm on to the next step).
-Export all photos to jpg in a folder called (creatively) jpg within the original folder.
-Burn all jpg and DNG to DVDs and mail to the client. Burn a copy for myself for backup.
-Format memory cards.
-Find creative ways to spend money.
-Repeat ad nauseum.
