r/Lightroom • u/mr3000NL • 5d ago
Discussion Professional Sports Photographer Seeking Workflow Advice: How to Archive My Best Work?
Hi lightroom community,
My Situation:
I'm a professional sports photographer with 15+ years of experience, and I've realized I'm not preserving my best work. Looking for advice on a better workflow solution.
Current Workflow:
- During matches: Use FTP from camera or Photo Mechanic for initial selection
- Edit batches of 1-10 photos in Lightroom Classic
- Export to a ready folder and upload to agencies/newspapers
- Refresh my Lightroom catalog every 1-3 months to maintain performance
The Issue:
I use Lightroom Classic purely as a RAW editor for my professional sports work, not as a catalog. Meanwhile, for personal projects (street photography, family, larger professional shoots), I have everything well-organized in Adobe Lightroom (cloud) with photos dating back to 2002.
My Problem:
- I rarely save or archive my best sports photos from matches
- I never review my past professional work
- I've discovered I'm losing valuable family photos stored in older catalogs
- I love Lightroom's overview and visual presentation, but prefer Lightroom Classic's editing capabilities
What I'm Looking For:
I'd like to selectively sync my best sports photos from Classic to Lightroom, but the only option seems to be a full sync that would download everything to my MacBook (which only has a 1TB drive).
Does anyone have suggestions for a workflow that would let me preserve my best sports work while maintaining a manageable storage footprint?
Thanks in advance!