I'm a Linux and free software enthusiast. I'm a photographer. Therefore, I tried to get an efficient and professional workflow going under Linux from importing images from my camera, reviewing, organizing and retouching them to publishing. As of now, I don't think this is possible under Linux. The best I could get was digiKam. It's a fairly nice piece of software, but doesn't cover the needs of a (semi) professional photographer. And then there are the issues with running Photoshop CS3 under Linux (the WINE people are working on it though...).

My current solution relies on dual-booting Windows for Bridge and Photoshop (I don't use Lightroom). Here's a description of my current setup:

• aileen - Headless server
  
  • Gentoo Linux
  • Two 500GB external harddrives
• gentop - Laptop
  
  • dual-booting Gentoo Linux and Windows XP
  • running Adobe Bridge and Photoshop CS3

The two external drives are encrypted using TrueCrypt and mounted at aileen:/mnt/backup/{master,slave}. Whenever I'm done with processing a shooting, I sync the disks via rsync to get a redundant backup. I didn't use any kind of real software RAID.
aileen also runs samba, so I can easily access the master disk from gentop's Windows installation.

So, when I get home with my camera, I boot up Windows on gentop, fire up Bridge and have it import the images (converting them to the DNG format) and save them to Z:\photos\archive\YYYYMMDD\ (Z: is the network drive connected to samba on aileen). Next I set Bridge to Vertical Filmstrip mode and apply my labels and ratings in a "binary rating system" as described by Katrin Eismann in one of the video tutorials that come with Photoshop CS3.
When I'm done, I look at the highest rated images first and start the retouching. I have to admit that most of the times I just skip Camera Raw and take the image straight to Photoshop, because I don't like how the development settings are handled in Bridge/Camera Raw (no easy way of saving multiple sets of settings or to see a complete before and after).
After doing my Photoshop magic, I save the PSD file as YYYYMMDD_title.psd to

• released\ - if it's some artwork I'm going to post here at my web site
• client\doe_john\ - if it's work for some client
• private\ - if it's a private piece that is not going to be published anywhere (yet)

at Z:\photos\.

Now I can finally reboot to Linux again (my Windows environment has nothing but PS and Bridge - no IM or eMail - to keep me focussed). To upload the finished work I mount the external drives on gentop using sshfs.

Done! Thanks for reading, I hope this can help you to further develop your personal workflow to make it more efficient and fun. =)

Once again, all has changed. I'm officially engaged, had my first exams at university and hacked together this new site. The code is Open Source (as in GPLv3) and can be found at Google Code. As of now, it's probably useless to anyone else, but feel free to test it.

I recently watched some Photoshop training by Chris Orwig and Deke McClelland - quite insightful, you can sign up for a 7-day trial membership at Lynda.com to see some of their stuff.