Digital Photography Workflow: This is My Process - What's Yours?

[Jason Dunn]

If you've been doing digital photography for more than a few weeks, you probably have a certain way of doing things, commonly called a workflow process. Let's say you're out shooting pictures for an event, and you come back with 100 or so photos. What do you do next? Here's what I do...<br /><!><br /><span><b>Step 1: Move Photos Over</b></span><br />Put memory card into the PC/laptop memory card slot, then copy all the photos over to the desktop. I do this because I've found that it takes too long to view/rotate images when they're on the memory card, even with a USB 2.0 reader. My computer desktop is an "active zone" - I put things there that I'm actively working on, and because the folders are in front of me every day, it's more effective for me than a task list.<br /><br /><span><b>Step 2: Delete The Junk, Rotate</b></span><br />Now that the images are copied over, I'll start to go over them using <a href="http://www.acdsystems.com/english/Products/ACDSee/index?CMP=ILC-HomeLeftProdCentric1&CRA=ENmoreinfo">ACDSEE 6.0</a> (configured for full-screen viewing) and delete the images I don't want to keep. I tend to be fairly harsh with my deletions, really trying to keep only one photo of each scene, and I delete any images that are blurry or over/underexposed (unless it's a great image that I think I can rescue). I'll leave photos that I think can be rescued with a good crop. I will also loslessly rotate images at this point using CONTROL+J in ACDSEE (this means the images are rotated without re-compressing them as JPEGs, which means no loss in quality).<br /><br /><span><b>Step 3: Re-naming The Files</b></span><br />Once I've finished trimming down the collection and they're all rotated to the correct orientation, right-click on the folder and select Browse With ACDSEE in order to fire up ACDSEE and have that folder displayed. I'll then use the batch file re-naming program to name my images, typically using the following taxonomy: Event - ##.jpg, where ## represents the image number, starting with 01. I'll start with 001 if I have over 99 images - that's one of the things people often forget with Windows: if you want to see things in filename order, you'll want to make sure you start at 01 and work your way up from there.<br /><br /><span><b>Step 3: Delete The Junk, Rotate</b></span><br />Once my files are named correctly, I'll move that folder into My Pictures/XYZ/, where XYZ represents the first level of categorization that I use. I have folders such as Vacation, Family Events, Nature, Photo Art, Christmas, etc. My folder full of photos will go inside one of those sub-folders. In most cases, there's only two levels maximum, so inside each of these folders I'll have dozens of folders, each with photos from a particular event.<br /><br /><span><b>Step 4: Fire Up Picasa</b></span><br />Now that my photos are inside the right folder, <a href="http://www.picasa.net">Picasa</a> can deal with them nicely. I'll go through my photos now, one at a time, and do custom crops to clean up any framing issues, using the red-eye reduction to fix any red-eye issues, and use the enhance button to see if the "one click fix" will make the image better or worse. I'd say 40% of the time Picasa's Enhance button makes the image better, but if I don't like the automated fix, I'll make a mental note to go back and open up that image later in <a href="http://www.ulead.com">PhotoImpact</a> and do a manual level adjustment. If I want to make prints, I'll use Picasa to crop to whatever size I want, which is usually 4x6 in size. I like the fact that Picasa keeps the original version of the photo in a hidden folder, because it means I can always go back and crop for an 8x10 print if I wanted to.<br /><br />And that's it - that's my workflow process. I'm sure there are ways I can improve the process - if Picasa's media detector worked better, and if it allowed file renaming, folder creation, full-screen image viewing, and all the other cool stuff ACDSEE 6.0 does, I'd only use one program. ;-) ACDSEE 6.0 has a media detection tool that might speed up my importing process, but I haven't experimented with it enough to know if it will do things the way they need to be done.<br /><br />What about you? What's your workflow process for digital photography?

[`helios]

Just as a little aside, you know when you transfer pics from a camera, they're all named according the the camera's naming convention...

Is there a way to do a mass-rename of files? For example, if i go on a trip and come back with 300 pics, i don't want to rename each one individually, is there a way to name them something like

Trip001.jpg to Trip.300.jpg??

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

`helios, there are many renaming utilities out there, and in my case, I use IrfanView for jobs like these.

[Jason Dunn]

Is there a way to do a mass-rename of files? For example, if i go on a trip and come back with 300 pics, i don't want to rename each one individually, is there a way to name them something like

Yes, I mustn't have been clear enough in my text - I use ACDSEE 6.0 for that. I select all the images, then right click on one and I can name them exactly as I wish. Here's a screen capture: http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/assets/common/FileObject/gif.gif batchrenaming.gif (http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/media/users/2/batchrenaming.gif) (Size: 43.9 KB)

Yet another reason why I love ACDSEE so much! :-)

[Neil Enns]

Here's my workflow:

Step 1: Get the pictures to the PC

This is a straight stick-the-CF-into-the-reader-and-copy operation. nothing fancy. I stick the images into a folder named for the event on a drive I have dedicated to images.

Step 2: Scan through the pictures and process to JPEGs

Since I shoot in RAW exclusively I need to convert images to JPEG before manipulation. I currently use C1LE for this task. I fire up C1LE, scan through the images, and then process to JPEG only those images that I think are worth touching up and posting/printing. This is where I adjust exposure as well.

Step 3: Touch up in Photoshop

The vast majority of the time I do a simple resize and LAB sharpen. If I need to do any other editing I'll do it here too.

Step 4: Post to the web

Images that make the cut get posted to my own website so my family can see them.

That's about it. Occasionally I'll fire up my CD burner and back up images from the last month or so.

Neil

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Mine's totally different, and in fact, I don't think it's even relevant! But here goes anyway.

Step 1.
View all photos and go through my editing process

Since I still shoot film, and majority of it on chromes, I'll view them under a loupe on a light panel, and pick out the ones I want to scan. If I'm unsure, I'll scan those which I think have a high probability of making the final cut.

Step 2.
Scan the friggin' things

*yawn* Fire up the scanner, acquire it, and start scanning. Slow process.

Step 3.
Minor tweaks and saving them

Rotate the files, crop away the edges, save them as LZW TIFFs, in a folder with the nomenclature of &lt;YY/MM/DD> - emulsion, event name. Files are named with labroll#-sprocket#.tiff

Step 4.
Edit again

See what photos make the cut.

After this, if I'm still awake:

Step 5.
Touchup

If I'm putting it up on the web, I'll assign the sRGB colour profile, then work in that colourspace. Resize appropriately, adjust levels/curves, adjust for colour balance, unsharp mask, and resave in another directory

If it's for printing, it's similar to to above, except that I'll assign the RGB profile instead.

If not, it's:

Step 5
Go to bed.

[Andy Manea]

Step 1-3 exactly like Jason's, but I still use ACDSee 5. The batch renaming, and batch rotating is why I have been faithful to ACDSee since v. 3.
If I need the pcitures for anything other than archival purposes, I edit the pictures with Photoshop or Fireworks.

[Jason Dunn]

Step 1-3 exactly like Jason's, but I still use ACDSee 5. The batch renaming, and batch rotating is why I have been faithful to ACDSee since v. 3.

Version 6.0 adds batch re-sizing, which I'm quite fond of. :-)

[marlof]

Step 1: move files to folder "New Pictures" on my desktop
Step 2: delete the garbish
Step 3: take a break
Step 4: decide on the keepers (RAW images judged on in camera JPEGs)
Step 5: losless rotation if necessary (ACDSee)
Step 6: batch rename (ACDSee)
Step 7: view pics to decide if they're the kind that would need post (meaning: are more than just snapshots); move those to subdirectory New Pictures/Post (ACDsee)
Step 8: "develop" RAW pics in JPEG using Photoshop CS
Step 9: do post (using Photoshop CS) on those needing that
Step 10: move pics to other directory with a meaningful name
Step 11: import directory into Photoshop Album
Step 12: tag images (Photoshop Album)
Step 13: decide if I want to share through Smugmug, and upload if necessary

After uploading and browsing them for the first time, there's always a break of at least a day. I only delete at first sight those of which I'm sure they will never be looked at. Undecided means staying until I make the second round.

[James Fee]

Mine is pretty close to Jasons, except my first step is procrastinate for about a week. :oops:

[Jason Dunn]

Mine is pretty close to Jasons, except my first step is procrastinate for about a week. :oops:

Hey, I just didn't add that step! :lol: I try to stay on top of these things most of the time - when I'm on vacation I try to spend a few minutes at the end of the day going over the photos from that day, deleting the ones that are junk, etc. It helps reduce the burden of tackling them all at once when I get back.

[Gordo]

Mine is very close to that of Jason’s except that I use some different products. I use good old XP preview to review the photos in a large window once they have been moved, deleting as required. I am not quite a brutal as Jason, I figure disk space is cheap. Once I am ready to start editing I move to Adobe Photo Elements 2.0. This software came with the Digital Rebel, and I am now converted from all of the other products that Jason mentioned. It has a file viewer within the application that I use to identify final photos. It has the batch rename process that I also use to categorize my final shots. I also generally use the “Quick Fix” function to correct and clean shots. I create a final directory for the shots and save the "modified" photos there. I am surprised that there is no mention of burn to CD in the workflow.

Jason: have you looked at Adobe Photo Elements 2.0 that came with your camera? Once I installed it I fell in love with it.

[Jason Dunn]

I am not quite a brutal as Jason, I figure disk space is cheap...I am surprised that there is no mention of burn to CD in the workflow...Jason: have you looked at Adobe Photo Elements 2.0 that came with your camera? Once I installed it I fell in love with it.

1) For me, it's not a matter of disc space, it's a matter of distilling down the photos to the essence of my memories, and getting rid of the junk that. Think of it like this: in ten years when you want to go back and look at the photos of a certain event, do you want to be looking at the best ones, the ones that will really evoke good memories, or do you want to be thinking "Ugg - that's a bad picture, why did I keep that?" Pretend you're a friend looking at your photos - which pictures would you be interested in looking at? That's my philosophy about it at any rate. ;-)

2) I don't trust optical media. I back up my photos every night to a secondary computer, and all the data on that computer is backed up to an external hard drive. And I'm in the process of creating an FTP mirror of all my data, so in the case of a house file or theft, my data would be secure. I take my data backup very seriously, and I've read too many reports about people coming back a burned CD after several years and finding it to be unreadable.

3) I'm going to give Elements another try - thanks for the reminder. :-) I'm also interested in Album, but I haven't really tried it yet.

[Gordo]

One tip for Elements if you are using the file browser within the product.

1) Click the menu item "Window" and click "File Browser"
This will give you an integrated browser that will allow you to drag photos into the application.

2) The second step in this tip is to click on the "more" button in the top right side. This brings up a pop-up menu.
3) Select "Dock to Palette well"
This will move the window into the tabbed interface in the top right side of the application. It will allow you to click on the "File Browser" tab to navigate to files.

This window is also where the Batch rename function is supported.

[Crocuta]

If they're digital then they're casual snapshots, so my workflow is:

1. Insert the memory stick (yes, they're Sony) into the computer and move the images into the directory for that camera. I keep the cameras separate because the Sony cameras all use the same naming scheme and I don't really mind leaving them that way. That also makes it easy later to know which ones I took and which ones my wife took.

2. Delete the ones I don't want.

3. I use Photoshop Album to tag them so I can find them easily. With all of the file details stored in EXIF and the tags telling me what each one is, I don't really care what the filename is.

My better work is still done with negative film, so my workflow is:

1. Have the film developed, look through them, then set them on the desk until summer.

2. When summer arrives, hook up the slide scanner and scan them in. (As yslee says, it's very slow.)

3. While the scanner runs, I spend a few minutes regretting that I don't have the cash for a top end DSLR.

4. I rename each file to reflect the date, location and negative number of the image.

5. I tend to keep all images even if they're not good because I can sometimes go back and learn from my mistakes, so I convert all of the bad ones to .jpg.

6. Then I open each of the good ones in Photoshop and polish them up, saving them as LZW TIFFs.

7. I put them all (bad and good) in a directory waiting to burn them to CD or DVD and let Photoshop Album catalog them.

8. I pick my favorites from the good ones and put them on my web site.

[Jason Dunn]

Discussion on shooting chrome and the Minolta Dynax 7 moved to this thread. (http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4966)

[Andy Manea]

I use PS Elements for panoramas. It's not great at that, but it works.

[JR]

Mine's a little less involved:

1. Transfer to PC using XP's wizard. I name all files XXXX-YYY where XXXX is descriptive and YYY is the date. That naming convention is also teh folder name within My Pictures.

2. Load Picasa - cropping, red eye removal, enhance, etc.

3. Burn some to CD for developing as required.

4. Develop (Yay Wal-Mart -- $0.25 per).

[chrisspera]

My process is similar; but a little different...

1. Move the Images
My Olympus E-10 stores photos on a CF Card. File format is a 2.5MB JPG. I transfer all of the files via PC Card adapter to my laptop for processing.

2. Rename Files as Necessary
Depending on how things go, and the amount of procrastination/ time having passed between camera uses, I may need to rename some files. I keep all of my pictures in date folders using the following schema:

Year (2004)
....L--> Month (01 January)
...................L--> Date (15-Jan-04)

All pictures taken on a given date get their own folder.

3. Convert the Images
I tend to play with my shots a lot. To prevent loss of detail, I convert the 1st generation JPG's to LZW Compressed TIFF's. File sizes rise from 2.5 MB to about 6.7-7.0 MB per file, depending on the shot.

4. Run Photoshop and Clean Photos
I use 1 of 2 self made macros in Photoshop to clean up my images: Sharpen and Lighten (sharpen and raise gamma by 0.10), and Touch Picture (Gaussian Blur, Sharpen Edges, Auto Level, Sharpen) This last macro has really made a difference, and well, it IS Photoshop after all...

5. Create e-Mail Sized Prints
I resize all photos for purposes of e-mail, and then transfer them to a subfolder named e-mail, under the root folder for that date.


6. Move All Touched Photos to Big_Data
I have a 200GB hard drive that I use to store digital media. After processing, all photos get moved there 6 Months to a Year after processing. After another year, I transfer them to CD/DVD.



Kind Regards,


Christopher Spera

[Perry Reed]

I'm not an expert digital photographer, and my process is not especially sophisticated.

I plug my Nikon CoolPix 4300 directly into my laptop via a USB cable and use the built-in Windows "Copy the photographs to my PC" wizard to bring over the pictures. It let's me select a title for the batch of photos which is applied to all of the filenames.

Then I use the built-in Image Preview program to view them, selecting the ones that need correcting. For the correction I use Microsoft Digital Image Pro 9, which does a nice job as fixing colors, lighting, red-eye, etc. It also lets me resize the ones I plan to put up on my website.

For those that I don't edit, but still want to resize, I use the Windows PowerToy, which lets me resize them right from Explorer by right-clicking the image file(s).

Then I use a Java program called Gallery Remote to upload them into Image Gallery, a PHP-based open-source package that I use to manage my online images.

Actually, I used to use that. I've recently switched web hosts and gone from a Unix-based provider to a Windows Server 2003-based one, and the PHP software no longer works. But a programmer buddy and I are building our own .Net and SQL Server-based software to manage our images. Once it's done I'll be moving all of my online images to it.

[Bob12]

The Windows XP photo transfer wizard will also do a global rename of the pictures.

My workflow is similar to others except that I don't put them on the desktop but rather, directly into a new folder in My Pictures. I have a folder for each year then subfolders within that for each event. What little tweaking I do is done with Corel Photo Paint.

[pradike]

My process is less cumbersome:

1) Press one button on Kodak Easy Dock (transfers images to PC)
2) Start up and load Photosuite III with images
3) Edit if and when needed and/or delete
4) Save under new file names

That's it.

On a recent trip to Las Vegas, I took 195 digital images (I took dupes of many of the shots), and saved the 98 "keepers" in edited form in my local PC folder in less than 30 minutes - including edit time!

Life is good with a Kodak 6490 Digital Camera!

[WinDrftr]

Another step in the process...

For those disinclined to tweak their own photos I'd like to suggest a visit to FixMyPhotos.com for complete retouching & optimization of digital photos at surprisingly affordable prices ($1.50+).

I admit this advice is a wee bit biased (I'm CEO of the parent corporation) :D

On the other hand, I have 32 years of professional photography experience and would be happy to help others where I can.