Workflow examples

[james_h]

Please post your workflow procedures to help show best practise to others.

cheers
Jim

edit
Thanks to all in advance. - questions and remarks please post on seperate thread.

[wparsonsgisnet]

Here goes: Everybody take aim; I'll take notes.

Workflow – Post-Shoot (windoze user)

Overhead Process—

1. Copy images from SD card(s) to new folder with appropriate name, verify.
2. Delete unwanted images (hah!)
3. Copy remaining files to backup and off-site backup disks.
4. Calibrate the screen (I use the Pantone Huey, at $75)

5. Get beverage, music, take off shoes

Image Processing—

6. Scan the jpegs using ACDSee viewer, note the images to work on. (could be all remaining from a shoot)
7. Make note of images that contain WhiBal cards.
8. Load C1, check to see if appropriate profile is loaded, e.g., Edmund’s Linear Lo Sat. [In C1, I have a setting to append –LinLoSat to processed tiffs.]
9. Bring up the image with the WhiBal card that applies to next set of images to be processed. Do the WB and save this setting for use on subsequent images.
10. Bring up the set of images that match this WB setting, apply WB to all.
11. For each, crop, set exposure and/or curve, focus, and add to the process box (causes changes to be made and tiff to be filed).
12. I have C1 set to invoke ACDSee as the viewer for each image processed. Review the results of the image.
13. Bring up PSCS2 to process these images further – I might do some more curve manipulation, use iCorrect (color balancing), and always use Neat Image (these latter two are PS add-in’s.

Note: during the processing of an image, I save it at various stages, as follows:
1. C1 gives me a tiff as the final file. It is called L100…xxx-LinLoSat, in the case when Edmund’s LoSat profile has been used.
2. In PS, I save if I:
a. crop again
b. after applying image changes like curves
c. after applying noise reduction
and I add more suffixes to the file name to indicate what operation was applied. For example, “crop” or “crv” or “-ntpp” (reflects the version of Neat Image I am using, currently NeaTimage Plus Pro, or something like that)

Further Overhead Process—

1. Remove other files judged less than Nobel Prize quality or that Ansel wouldn’t have shown
2. Backup to secondary and tertiary (off-site) disks.

3. Refresh beverage, as necessary.

4. Review disk capacity, order new LaCie hard disk, as necessary.

[james_h]

When shooting I have started to try and set the WB manually to see if I can guess it.
Then I choose the one of the menu options , daylight etc
I shoot DNG
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I use C1 pro and/or CS2.

Phase one media reader transfers my files ( name unchanged) to a folder with the date in reverse order and small descriptive text, e.g. 2007 02 M8 misc

I look up the folder in C1 and maximise the screen ( F9 )
Scroll through the images for a good look.
Depending on the light I choose the WB picker or slide the WB temp bar until it looks right.
check the tint value & adjust

in the exposure tab I check the Film standard drop down box for any viable changes
I may adjust the slider bar on the levels, occasionally adjust the curve.

I leave sharpening & noise setting as zero
( not sure this if this is appropiate hence the thread ! )

I process the image as a 300 dpi 16bit tiff converting to destination ( set as RGB )

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I open the image in CS2

Here I would welcome some input
I convert to CMYK ( on advise of a relative )
Crop if necessary
Amend the size to the print size and then USM slightly.
Finally print the image.

I keep promising myself that collect that vast collection of 'holiday snaps' and send them off to my lab.

All input appreciated - please use Q & R thread.

Thanks
Jim

[iomatic]

For me, exposure is just as important as processing (or part of, depending on who you ask). I was taught the zone system, and what that entails, so I think that still applies. I'm nowhere near as wise (nor as old, hehe) as these folks here, but I still believe it's fundamentally important to include the exposure.

That said:

1) Incident metering of the scene, including shadow and high-key areas for the dynamic range (DR) you're attempting to capture, if necessary; if it's a flat scene, one reading should suffice. This shouldn't get in the way of shooting, however.

2) Capture. Whatever that moment is, landscape, or street. Based on your meter readings, increase or decrease exposure, depending on the DR of your camera/film/sensor.

3) White balance. Something new to digital. For me, the WhiBal is a nice starting point to get both your neutral color balance, and your approximate grey. I can get this so I don't have to touch anything except a quick dropper pick-up, and some EC in RAW processing, if necessary. Inevitably, I like to tweak to my preferences, and Aperture as my darkroom is great for coming back to 'negatives'. Because they're never right the first time.

Them's my $.02.

[eronald]

Copy all to folder on comp, launch C1, point it at the folder.
I process very few images.

Edmund

[hfehsenfeld]

Great idea to collect the different workflows - it will immediately show what the hell time most of us spend on workflow instead of shooting and finalizing.

I'm shooting DNG, using MacBook Pro, Aperture and (temporarily) Adobe DNG Converter until OS X will support the M8.

Here is my workflow:

(1) Put the SD card into the card reader and connet to computer
>> DNG Converter will automatically start and choose the folder of the mounted card.
DNG_converter.jpg

(2) Hit the button CONVERT
>> DNG Converter will convert and save the converted files to the predefined folder.

(3) Quit DNG Converter

(4) Open APERTURE

(5) Choose the destination (project, album) within APERTURE where the files should be importet to

(6) Hit the import-arrow and choose the folder the converted files are in
>> APERTURE will show all the images to let me choose which to import which to ignore.

(7) Select part or all of the images and hit import button
Aperture_import.jpg

(8) Make fundamental corrections to the images if necessary within APERTURE (WB, sharping, cropping etc.)

(9) If necessary creating several versions of the images within APERTURE without dublicating a file or the original DNG file

(10) If necessary sending a file to Photoshop and getting it back into APERTURE just by saving it within Photoshop

(11) Hit the vault-button in APERTURE to ensure a backup of my files

(12) Quit APERTURE

That's it. Step (1) to (3) will be obsolete when APERTURE will support the M8.

Best
Holger

[stnami]

.... take a photograph... mess with it on the computer and eventually, print, sell or impose it upon the public via a personal site or shove it on a forum for people to write oooo,,,, ahhhh mmmmn nice photo..... easy peasy



... in the dark ages we had those goddamn bloody slide nights with warm beer and cold coffee... and a shot of malt at the end because you endured

[adan]

On an Imac...Shooting all RAW (I only shoot jpegs for quickie jobs at the newspaper, not for myself).

1. Put SD card in 9-in-1 Digital Concepts card reader, and copy the LEICA100 folder to my desktop.

1A. Immediately unmount and remove SD card for later reformatting in-camera.

2. Rename the desktop LEICA100 folder according to the subject matter in the pix or other relevant info (e.g., "QM2_Jamaica", "Capitol 90_28 tests", etc.)

3. Drag the new picture folder to the appropriate subfolder in my Pictures collection, which today would be the path PICTURES > 2007 Pictures > 2007 03 March > Digital originals 03_07.

4. Open Adobe Bridge, and folder-surf to the new folder. Bridge draws previews of the shots using my defaults, which include my own calibration settings for color. Open a picture in ACR by double-clicking the picture in Bridge.

5. ACR automatically uses my color calibration settings derived from a Gretag Macbeth Colorchecker. I have default settings for exposure, shadows, brightness, contrast, saturation - but if I don't like those I see what ACR's "auto" settings do, or just fiddle with the sliders.

6. Zoom in to check for focus or motion blur - if the shot is flawed, I close it and go back to Bridge to delete it.

7. Apply my saved lens settings for the lens in use (e.g. "90mm f/2", "90mm TE", 15mm"), which mostly correct color fringing/CA. One click from a pull-down menu.

8. If the shot is under tungsten light, apply my saved "tungsten" calibration settings - also done from the Colorchecker under - yep! - tungsten light. Gets rid of the "magenta" red problem and other "blue" noise distortions.

9. If the shot is at ISO 640 or above, increase color noise reduction from my saved default of "12" to whatever works - anywhere from 40 to 100 depending.

10. If I want to see the shot in B&W, I zero out the saturation in ACR.

11. If I want to open the shot in Photoshop, I hit the "open" button - if I've seen enough in ACR I hit the "Done" button. All the ACR settings get saved to the .dng file.

12. Repeat steps 4 through 11 as needed.

If I like a shot and do some work on it in PS that I want to save (cloning out dust, additional noise reduction, resized for printing, or whatever), I save as a Photoshop document (".psd") to my desktop. Those pictures get filed in a "Digital Reworks" folder alongside the "Digital Originals" folder for the same month. Once upon a time I had a third "Film Scans" folder for each month as well. Haven't needed any recently....

Pictures for the web I just resize, convert to sRGB, and then "save for Web" as jpegs into a "To Web" folder on my desktop. Once a month or so the "To Web" pix get tossed or archived in an "Old Web" folder if I might want to post them again some time.

Once a week the whole "pictures" folder gets backed up to two separate external Firewire hard drives. Progressive backups, so that only the new and changed files get copied, not the whole pictures folder (currently up to about 64 Gbytes). Depending on the volume of new shots, this take 5-20 minutes for both copies.

[icura 0-)]

Greetings,

This is my very first post in the Leica Forums! Well, here goes.

1. Shoot lots of photographs. With attitude. Sorry, that is just me. Shoot some more. Take a break and have a beer. Shoot some more. Oh yes, then shoot some more. Just when you think you have got your subject covered, shoot a couple of more variations. What the heck, its digital right? And if its film, so what? Film is cheap compared to your camera.

2. From a philosophical standpoint, I view myself as a photographer first, and darkroom or digital technician second, so I make a very conscious effort to put much more time into shooting than in the darkroom or sitting at my computer doing postprocessing.

3. This means that I immediately download my digital photographs onto an external hard drive that is partitioned (so as to optimize its speed). I make new folders for each year, and sub-folders for each month. Just about everything is placed into the month folders.

4. If I shoot a specific project, it gets its own folder with a name that easily identifies it. All of the images then go into that folder.

5. I don't have enough hours in the day to do all the shooting that I want to do, so after the photographs are archived, I just leave them until I need them. I burn all of the folders onto an archival Mitsui DVD-R disc, then duplicate this disc. I keep one disc at home and one at work. This is my archival protocol, the discs at home are the work discs andd the duplicates at work never see a computer and are pristine.

6. Whenever I need an image or group of images I edit via Bridge in PS2, but will soon change this part of my workflow to Lightroom, because it seems to work a bit better than Aperture.

7. This workflow works really well for me because I don't spend a lot of time with the photos on the computer until I use them, plus it is really, really FAST.

I shoot a fairly large volume of photographs on a regular basis, both RAW and Jpegs, so this workflow goes along at a brisk pace. Thanks. More time for beer at the end of the day!

[Jamie Roberts]

Imants--I like your overview best

For my work:

1) While shooting, shoot WB card or use custom WB and shoot RAW plus small JPEG

2) Dump DNGs from cards to harddrive

3) Copy DNGs to separate physical drive. Work from this location

4) Use Breezebrowser on JPEGs for first cut. Move selections to "keeps" folder and burn this to gold-substrate disc.

5) Use C1 for second cull of RAW images (critical focus, etc...)

6) Set WB, bp / wp and some cc

7) Output proof JPEG and 16bit TIFF to output directory

8) Proof shots with client

9) Work finals for print in PS.

Note there are two backups, on different physical media. At the end of a hard drive's worth of shooting, my partner and I copy the RAWs again and keep versions at each other's location. So we're backed up a lot.

[stnami]

Jamie I am sure other than the vital need to backup which really is a matter of diligence and refusing to say I'll do it tomorrow, Workflow varies from client to client and needs.

The following is not recommended
The last work I did a couple of nights ago after a poor shoot, I got home at 2am discarded all the saleable shots, backed up what was left and went o bed.
Woke up and messed all day with the images left and sold them to someone from left field who wanted a alternative perspective on events. Told some others if the wanted straight shots to that go and see one of the other 50 odd photographers who were there.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Realistically there is no one formula and it takes a while to get into a rhythm that works right. I am sure that most of you would be lost with my methods as I could not cope with the way Jamie or others work. All ideas are interesting to read and there is always hint that is worthwhile picking up.
p.s. mine has no rhyme or reason to it

[Jamie Roberts]

Originally Posted by stnami

Jamie I am sure other than the vital need to backup which really is a matter of diligence and refusing to say I'll do it tomorrow, Workflow varies from client to client and needs.

Imants--you're right, of course. Once you wrap your brain around a digital workflow from film, it all boils down to backup and archiving.

The following is not recommended
The last work I did a couple of nights ago after a poor shoot, I got home at 2am discarded all the saleable shots, backed up what was left and went o bed.
Woke up and messed all day with the images left and sold them to someone from left field who wanted a alternative perspective on events. Told some others if the wanted straight shots to that go and see one of the other 50 odd photographers who were there.

That's hilarious! I sometimes wish I had the artistic freedom--or more accurately, the financial freedom--to do just that, as well as the photographic support.

I love shooting weddings; I sometimes hate making those saleable, straight, shots... but not always, I guess. I'm lucky to be able to separate business and personal work. Of course, being the only professional there means you have a different responsibility (if only you could count on the myriad of digital shooters at weddings now to get the straight shot!).

Realistically there is no one formula and it takes a while to get into a rhythm that works right. I am sure that most of you would be lost with my methods as I could not cope with the way Jamie or others work. All ideas are interesting to read and there is always hint that is worthwhile picking up.
p.s. mine has no rhyme or reason to it

I'm sure yours has artistic, or inspirational, rhyme and reason But you're right, it's interesting to read what people do. My workflow is driven by the need to cull 2000K plus shots down to 150 for final printing; all the while keeping a large intermediary set.

The tools help me do that... it's one reason I stick with C1, for example.

[elansprint72]

1. Take a photograph.
2. Make a photograph.
3. Open bottle.

3 sometimes comes before 1.

[Paul Gruyters]

Am still looking for the silver bullet.

Lightroom BETA did a lot of things, but I found file management annoying.

All I want is an ordered download system like Kodak provides, with the editing capabilities of Lightroom.

Is that too hard?

Regs,
Paul.

[fotografr]

1. Create folder on hard drive for images from shoot.
2. Using a card reader, transfer images (RAW) from card to folder.
3. Copy folder with images to external hard drives (two) for backup.
4. Open Adobe Bridge and select folder with images.
5. Select all images>File>Open in Camera Raw
6. Make batch adjustments, then quickly tweak individual images as needed.**
7. Save, re-name and re-number images as jpegs into same folder.
8. Have coffee or wine, depending on time of day.
9. Put processed jpegs into a new folder named for shoot.
10. Burn jpegs to CD for client and call FedEx.
11. Copy folder with processed jpegs to external hard drives.

**The only time I go into Photoshop is when an individual image needs additional processing or to change the size for web posting.

This whole process is pretty fast. To give an idea, a few days ago I had almost 300 images from a theatrical production shoot and it took just over an hour from the time I started to when I burned the CD.

[uni]

Originally Posted by hfehsenfeld

Great idea to collect the different workflows - it will immediately show what the hell time most of us spend on workflow instead of shooting and finalizing.

I'm shooting DNG, using MacBook Pro, Aperture and (temporarily) Adobe DNG Converter until OS X will support the M8.

Here is my workflow:

(1) Put the SD card into the card reader and connet to computer
>> DNG Converter will automatically start and choose the folder of the mounted card.
Attachment 27724

(2) Hit the button CONVERT
>> DNG Converter will convert and save the converted files to the predefined folder.

(3) Quit DNG Converter

(4) Open APERTURE

(5) Choose the destination (project, album) within APERTURE where the files should be importet to

(6) Hit the import-arrow and choose the folder the converted files are in
>> APERTURE will show all the images to let me choose which to import which to ignore.

I'm very interested in this method. So I tried convert to DNG file from M8 data .
Import is OK.
But preview is gray.Click a Preview,then APERTURE warning "not support this file".
Are there any hints?

Adobe DNG Converter 3.7
Aperture 1.52
Mac OS-X 10.4.8
PowerMac G5 Dual 2Ghz

uni from Tokyo JAPAN

[Larko]

Firstly and most importantly in my view is to get a dvd of the DNG files burnt before you even consider messing ,processing, converting or anything thereafter, it is so important to get the origionals burnt i cant believe nobody so far does that, i never throw away any images I have shot until i have this first copy, having recently gone through all my work from the past 10 years in order to formulate a website those images you might have binned now do creep out and bite you sometimes, for the price of a dvd you can and i recommend keep everything you shoot.

[hfehsenfeld]

Originally Posted by uni

I'm very interested in this method. So I tried convert to DNG file from M8 data .
Import is OK.
But preview is gray.Click a Pr