My photography workflow is a disaster
I seem to have completely lost the thread when it comes to managing my photos. I blame Linux, but it's totally my fault, and has been happening in some form for years.
When living on macOS, I moved between Lightroom, Lightroom Classic, Capture One, and Bridge/Photoshop for editing and managing photos. That was bad enough, but now I've thrown Linux into the mix and all hell has broken loose.
None of my usual tooling is available for Linux, so I dove into Darktable, which seems to be the top contender for dealing with RAW files. (RawTheraPee doesn't attract me for some reason). Darktable is the oddest thing. It's super powerful and flexible, but the UI and workflow are inscrutable. I could learn to live with it if I had to.
So I have added digiKam and Darktable to the set of options. Not to mention a whole new OS. That's not confusing at all. 🙄
I typically keep the current month's photos on a local SSD. I've done that for January and February. Sometimes this was done on the Linux box, sometimes on the Mac. You see where this leads.
I have lost raw files. I have photos with multiple associated .xmp files because everything seems to name them differently. I have edits done in several apps. I've lost edits. Where do I edit metadata? What is the canonical location of my photos? Why does the rating sometimes come along and sometimes doesn't? What should I sync? What goes on the NAS and what stays local? I've even lost an entire sleeve of negatives. How's that even possible? It feels related.
My photography hobby is the main thing keeping me from moving full-time to Linux. It would be so nice to live on one OS, using one set of apps. I just don't know if I can commit to Darktable.
Anyway, I have work to do. This is unsustainable.