What's your workflow?

ChrisD.

ChrisD.

ChrisD.

Man of Honour
Joined
20 Sep 2006
Posts
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I know everyone has different ways of managing photo's, I'm just interested as to how many ways people go from taking the photo to uploading it or storing or whatever.

- For me, take card out of my camera, plug it into my PC.
- Open in Canon's Digital Photo Professional.
- Select all and use quick check tool, then reject pictures that are out of focus, poorly composed, duplicates or just crap.
- Rate pictures that are good, 3 or 4 star. These are the pictures I'll work on first if there are too many to process in one go or if I don't need all the pictures.
- Select all the pictures I want to work on, then open the edit window
- If needed, adjust exposure, white balance, levels, sharpness, etc. Also Open in Photoshop if I'm feeling brave.
- Export to JPG format in My Pictures\Album Name\
- Copy RAW files to My Pictures\Album Name\RAW\
- Use Faststone to add watermark, border and resize if needed, output to My Pictures\Album Name\Web\

I'm still not sure if I should name my folders differently, as my photo collection increases, I'm finding it harder to come up with a good way of indexing everything.
 
lightroom import

Quick blast through deleting any 'throw aways' and 1 star for any that i want to process. use a colour flag for pics i need to take to PS.
Process the 1 stars and if good give them 3, if ok give them a 2.
Process the flags.
export to zenfolio account.
Backup on homeserver.

I dont bother with JPEG converstion.
 
Interesting.

I was never a fan of the way Lightroom handled pics so I've switched to DPP, and I personally prefer it.
 
Lightroom import

Give stars to the ones I like the most

Delete any unstarred ones (just remove from library not permanently deleted)

Process starred pics and then export and host wherever, I don't bother with JPEG conversion either.

Seriously need to get some sort of NAS to start backing up all my pics
 
LR3 Import > convert to DNG and rename, add Metadata Preset > Back up to NAS + Passport Drive

View files > mark rejects for removal from catalogue

View remainder > Rate & Flag any for further processing in CS5

Recheck rejected files > confirm remove from catalogue.



Regards Simon
 
CF card into RAW library via bridge
Keep, delete flag remove etc
open in Adobe Camera Raw. Make practically no changes and into photoshop
Address contrast, sharpness, colour depth and then begin any post production in adjustment layers combined with the use of layer masks and a wacom tablet to create my masks.
 
- Insert SD card and move all pictures to primary picture hard drive
- Go through and delete all the naff ones that are OOF or badly framed/nothing shots.
- Apply pre-sets to all remaining photos in Lightroom
- Delete any pictures that are just copies of the same subject (keep the best one)
- Tweak the settings on the remaining photos + export
- Run through Photoshop for automated batch sharpening
 
Im pretty new to Lightroom but it gets my vote for management, processing and uploading,

The fact you can save your own process styles as a preset is useful but also the fact you can upload directly to FB and Flickr with options to resize and watermark sold it for me

Its abit of a pain to get it to photoshop with lightroom adjustments (although do-able with the edit in option) but I rarely find I need to send them to photoshop anyway
 
Lightroom import from CF
Flick through import, quick collection for those I want to edit and rotation
Flick through quick collection, edit as I go along
Export finished images to main hard drive

Photoshop only gets used for portraiture and panoramas at the moment.
 
Johnny|lucidcomposure said:
CF card into RAW library via bridge
Keep, delete flag remove etc
open in Adobe Camera Raw. Make practically no changes and into photoshop
Address contrast, sharpness, colour depth and then begin any post production in adjustment layers combined with the use of layer masks and a wacom tablet to create my masks.
Click to expand...

I used to be the same but i have got too much work to give a lot of images that amount of treatment. I now rely on lightroom presets i have developed, they save me hours and hours. I pretty much only use ps for beauty retouch, or a real showpiece photo.I

The more pro i get, the less time i can put into each image.....
 
Import into Aperture

Auto backup onto external drives

backup overnight to NAS at external office location

Time machine backup separately overnight

Editing in Photoshop and Aperture as required, various plugins for each.
 
C1 session imported onto server from external HD. Pick selects in Capture 1, process out from there into 8bit Adobe RGB tiffs unless something else is required (16bit for tricky files). Files are balanced, processed generally flat and bland unless there is a prior colour reference to get closer too. However all major work is left to Photoshop where there is ultimate control. Everything can be masked, any elements can be removed or added, and it's all kept in one nice (albeit large) layered file. At the end 8bit aRGB tiffs will be made, cmyk ones if necessary.

The above is for everything, but generally it won't be to deal with too high a volume of imagery. Even for catalogue/lookbook work, each file will need something doing to it that you can't do in LR, so it's just easier to keep everything to PS.
 
I don't know if I'm meant to keep the original file that came from the camera after I've processed it and saved the changes to a new file. What do you guys do?
 
adamau5 said:
I used to be the same but i have got too much work to give a lot of images that amount of treatment. I now rely on lightroom presets i have developed, they save me hours and hours. I pretty much only use ps for beauty retouch, or a real showpiece photo.I

The more pro i get, the less time i can put into each image.....
Click to expand...

Yeah well I went from this to lightroom and back to this. I don't take anywhere near enough photos to justify a batch action. I work on single images.
 
jealous! last 5 weeks have had horrible (yet good) amounts of work. Shoot for williams f1, modelling shoot for an agency x2 , wedding x 3, couple of parties.....

I cant work on single images for too long.
 
adamau5 said:
I used to be the same but i have got too much work to give a lot of images that amount of treatment. I now rely on lightroom presets i have developed, they save me hours and hours.
Click to expand...
Can you give me an idea as to what these presets do? My images seem to need completely different settings on a per image basis, let alone a across different sessions - but then I am a hopeless n00b.
 
I have a BW preset, a preset for 'hot' images, underexposed, anything where highlight recovery is needed, a 'vintage tone' etc etc.

Essentially on a goodish exposure they get me 98% of the way there to the desired PP. Couldnt live without them now.

Does it stifle creativity.... yes, does it satisfy clients - yes. latter wins in events line of business (at my level).
 
Clown said:
I don't know if I'm meant to keep the original file that came from the camera after I've processed it and saved the changes to a new file. What do you guys do?
Click to expand...

always keep your original.

i use Lightroom so it always keeps the orginal and applies non-destructive edits.
 
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