Digital Image Editing Workflow
What is your Digital Imaging Workflow like?
I was just reading ‘Digital Photo’ Magazine (August 2006) and they suggest a 10 point workflow for Digital imaging which might be a helpful guide for those starting out in doing some post production work on their images using Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. Here it is:
Digital Image Editing Workflow
1. Transfer Your Photos (get images from your camera/card into your computer)
2. Edit Your Pictures (delete the bad ones, rename images etc)
3. Convert RAW Files (if you’ve shot in RAW convert them to a regular format after doing some basic editing of white balance, exposure, brightness, contrast, saturation etc)
4. Crop Your Images (get rid of parts of the images that are distracting)
5. Clean up and Enhance (clone out problems, manipulate the image in any way that changes elements of your shot)
6. Check Contrast (using Levels palette to get full range of tones)
7. Check Colour Balance (if needed use Levels, Colour Balance or Variations to tweak your colour balance).
8. Save the Layers
9. Flatten and Sharpen Up (flatten layers into one and do final sharpening)
10. Save the Final Image (different options here depending upon what you’ll use it for)
Obviously they give a lot more information on each point along the way but I’d be interested in hearing about the workflow that readers of DPS use in editing images using Photoshop? I’m no expert on the processing of images and would love to hear how others do it.
What’s your Digital Image Editing Workflow?
Feel free to share yours in comments below.
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September 27th, 2006 at 11:47 pm
I normally leave any tidying up like cloning to paint out distracting elements until after bulk adjustments like levels and colour balance. The reason is that they may emphasise areas which have been changed (or become irrelevant, for example if I end up blurring the background a little to create the effect of a narrower depth of field.
September 28th, 2006 at 2:43 am
My last step is to crop. I crop to the print size I plan to print to and then save my image as image number say (0122-5×7) and then I could just hit undo and recrop to whatever other size that I need to print and save to (0122-4×6). This would continue your workflow to the printer and would save you many steps. Retouch only once but crop as many times as you wish.
September 28th, 2006 at 6:39 pm
I usually do my editing after getting back home from Partying all night. First i dump them to the hard drive, then i scan through and delete anything that’s useless. After that’s done i open it all in photoshop and make any neccesary edits (colour/lighting adjustments, cropping, etc.), then they all get uploaded to my zooomr page. As soon as that is done, i go and get some sleep.
September 29th, 2006 at 1:39 am
my flow in photoshop:
A. Bridge
1. Import script
2. Rename pics
3. Rank and cull pics
B. Adobe Camera Raw:
1. exposure
2. white balance
3. highlights/shadows
4. curves (contrast)
5. crop (hide, not delete)
6. Save as .dng file in /Originals
C. Photoshop: I run a few actions that either do it automatically or make it much faster.
1. PT Lens plugin(optical correction)
2. Noise Ninja plugin (remove digital grain)
3. Levels (increase contrast)
4. Curves (finer contrast/brightness adjustments).
5. High Pass Sharpening: Layer-based, non-destructive sharpening much less affect on noise.
6. Final manual adjustments (incl. cloning or other prescriptive post-processing)
7. Save w/layers, flatten save .jpg or .tifs for prints in /Derivatives folder.
If it’s not a complicated or high priority image, it usually takes about 3 min per image.
September 29th, 2006 at 3:49 am
My workflow revolves mostly around uploading images to the web, but I also keep a large version of those images in case I want to make a print later. So far I haven’t sold any prints yet but I live in hope!
The editing I do on a photo largely depends on the image. Sometimes all I need to do is auto-levels, resize, unsharp mask and save, but those are the rare occasions when I get my daily photo prepared in a timely manner.
September 29th, 2006 at 6:48 pm
It would be so great if somebody could recommend the best way to learn how to use Photoshop so I can get into the workflows??
September 30th, 2006 at 10:38 pm
You could search for “Photoshop Tutorial” on the web
Here is the Adobe site:
http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/tutorials/index.php
Some more:
http://www.photoshopsupport.com/elements/tutorials.html#elements_4_videos
October 1st, 2006 at 1:58 pm
The best way really is to play with the software. I think that it is easier and cheaper to first learn Paint Shop Pro. But whatever package, install it, open up a copy of an image, and experiment - just don’t save that copy over the original. A great book is Scott Kelby’s “The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers” (2005) - but it is really an intermediate book. You can also try any number of other books, such as “Secrets of the Digital Darkroom: The Complete Illustrated Guide to Getting the Best Results from Your Digital Photographs”, Peter Cope & Simon Joinson (2003); and “Photoshop for Photography: The Art of Pixel Processing”, Tom Ang (2003).
October 3rd, 2006 at 1:54 pm
I don’t have the need to do a lot of adjustments to my photos as far as visual corrections / manipulations. Since most of what I do is either personal or for Mako’s Kitchen, I find using ACDSee Pro works great for…
- import
- rough cull obvious screwed up shots
- resize to new folder
- detail sort (normally take 2-3 shots per “image” with minor differences)
- rename
- create thumbnails
- append name for thumbnails
end
I’ll do my upload via FTP and call it a wrap.
January 2nd, 2007 at 4:08 pm
I just bought a MacBook Pro (replacing my PC) and I have been checking out Aperture. I looks like it really streamlines this whole process. Anyone use it?
pete
March 18th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
I have subscribed to Digital Photo mag from the offset and find it invaluable and now I have discovered Digital-photography-School things could not be better! What a great site.
June 26th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
My workflow is fully in Linux but the basics work with pretty much anything :
1 : Dump the PEF (RAW) files in a directory named with the date in ISO format
2 : make a blind run on the directory with Bibble to create JPEG files. Those go to a sub directory called JPEG.
3 : review the JPEGs to see which file need (or are worthy) of working on
4 : The interesting files get corrected / balanced / cropped in Bibble and go to a second directory called Export.
5 : If needed, further retouching is done with the Gimp or with the digiKam editor.
6 : Files are indexed with comments and keywords in digiKam.