Tag: Workflow

Ultimate Lightroom Workflow — Get your proofs out FAST

 Gavin   Digital Darkroom, Lightroom, Techniques, Workflow
Ultimate Lightroom Workflow -- Fast, efficient post production

Ultimate Lightroom Post Production Workflow…

…fast, efficient process to get your proofs out quickly

Customers don’t like to wait, especially in the digital age.

We’re all spoilt by instant gratification, being able to see our images immediately on the back of the camera as soon as we click the shutter.

That’s why having an effective and efficient workflow is soooo important. The faster you get your proofs out…

  • the more money your client is likely to spend
  • the more you avoid a backlog
  • the more time you have to do other things

If you can’t get your proofs out to your client by the next day, this 5-step Lightroom workflow will be a big help. Continue reading Ultimate Lightroom Workflow — Get your proofs out FAST »

How a Non-Destructive Workflow Can Lead to a Happy Client

 Gavin   Digital Darkroom, Lightroom, Photoshop, Techniques, Tips, Workflow

A long time ago I adopted the policy of making all my edits in Photoshop non-destructive fo rthe simple reason that I could easily go back and change something if I needed to. This slowed me down at first but as I became more adept at wielding a stylus and graphics tablet, and through the benefit of actions, experience and perseverance it is no longer true. Using the right tool for the job is also a huge help and my workflow consists of a mixture of Lightroom and Photoshop.

Earlier today I embarked on a retouch session. Nothing spectacular about that as it happens all the while. What mad this one all the more important though was that my client was off on holiday this afternoon and needed the images before she went. Continue reading How a Non-Destructive Workflow Can Lead to a Happy Client »

Do it right, do it quick

 Gavin   Digital Darkroom, Lightroom, Photoshop, Techniques, Tips, Workflow

One of the things I’ve found with digital photography is that I can spend a lot of time post processing my images if I’m not careful. Retouching is a bit like writing software for a living – no matter what one does there will always be something else that can be done to improve it. I used to believe that this was because it was easy to make a change but having read Pressfield’s book entitled “The War of Art” I’m wondering if sometimes this is also an excuse to never finish an image. Read the book and you’ll understand why I made that statement.

Getting back on topic, I find that sitting at my PC and retouching an image can be quite fun so I’m not complaining but when faced with a deadline and the necessity of getting a body of work out the door to please a client and the fun element can very soon evaporate. This is further exacerbated if there is a large number of images to sort through

So, what canbe done to speed up the workflow?

Continue reading Do it right, do it quick »

Backup, backup, backup… Part 3

 Gavin   Digital Darkroom, Equipment, Lightroom, Techniques, Workflow

Following on fom my previous posts here and here about in-field backup and in particular the solution I have opted for, today I had the opportunity of testing it out in anger.

As I write this post, I’ve just returned from a day shooting Big Cats in deepest, dakest Kent. And I really do mean “deepest” and “darkest” owing to the weather.

With freshly charged NiMH batteries, a stack of compactflash cards and two bodies I proceeded to put the device through its paces. After each shooting session I swapped the cards and backed them up onto the drive. It isn’t the fastest solution but it worked admirably, even when I went out for the final session of the day and had the unit backing up whilst in my pocket. The cards from the final shoot I backed up in the car during the journey home. It performed faultlessly throughout the day.

I did discover one unforeseen benefit of using this device, and that is the ease by which the images can be loaded into Lightroom. Plugging thebackup drive into the PC allowsall the images from the day to be imported and processed in one go rather than having to swap out the media cards.

This suits my workflow very well as I rely on the import processing capabilities of Lightroom quite heavily…

  • Copy the image to the local hard disk
  • Rename the image according to the shoot date and theme
  • Apply my standard metadata settings (e.g. copyright notice, contact details, global keywords etc)
  • Keywording withe client/shoot details
  • Apply capture presets
  • Backup to the NAS.

Getting back to the topic of this post, I would say that today has proved a great success. I’m still a little nervous of losing battery power but I can work around that and with two drives the risk if a total failure is somewhat mitigated.

A truly fun event…

 Gavin   Digital Darkroom, Equipment, Event, Photoshoot, Techniques, Tips, Workflow

Had a fun afternoon yesterday covering the Nokia 5k Fun Run in London and all for a good cause too. All the images are available on ovi.com, here: http://share.ovi.com/album/Nokia5k2009.UKLondon5K2009. All mine are tagged with QTPortraits.

091028 Nokia Fun Run-1133Needless to say, I jumped at the chance when asked to take part (on the condition that I didn’t actually have to run anywhere :-)) seeing this as a fantastic opportunity of gaining that all too precious commodity: experience. In hindsight it also proves that Marc Gamble‘s podcast about the Education Spectrum although this could be argued an accident rather than by design.

This was my first attempt at event photography and a real eye opener too. It was also a good excuse to practice some of the techniques that we covered on the Wedding Seminar a couple of weeks ago, both at capture time and in post. I find it quite odd, although hardly surprising, that two distinctly different genres such as Events and Weddings share so much in common.

So what did I learn from the afternoon? Continue reading A truly fun event… »