Basic Workflows

[Overread]

For me - using photoshop elements 6 for editing:

1) Put the memory card into the card reader and connect it to the computer

2) Make a new folder inside my "My photos" folder. The folder has a name assigned that connects to the day of shooting (mostly) and also the date

3) Go through the shots and open up any that I think are good enough for editing. (all are now RAW shots)

4) edit the shots (usually crop, levels, curves, saturation, brightness, noise and unsharpening)

5) Make a subfolder in the shoots folder called "Keeps" and save a JPEG at full size into that folder.

6) Make a series of subfolders in the keeps folder - 1000, 720, 200 - with each number corresponding to the max number of pixels on the longest side - and then resuze and unsharpen the shot for each size
(the 1000 and 200 I use in my blog whilst the 720 goes to the forums - sometimes 600 and 100 versions are made for other forums and sites as well of select shots)

In the end I keep all RAWs and all versions of my shots - I currently have enough storage space to allow for this and I don't like getting rid of shots - even if they are really really bad. Oneday I might do a chuck out (after a back-up) but at the moment I don't as I am still new to this game and a few new tricks in photoshop can save a shot from the bin sometimes!

 

[doenoe]

When im done taking pics, i open Zoombrowser EX and download the pics to my computer. The program makes a new folder with the date as filename in a folder called "new pictures". When thats done i look at all the pics and give the bad pics 1 star. When done i click on a button and select the option to see the pics with one star. Once i see those i delete them. Then i go and look at all the pics again, but this time im looking for the pics which are worth editing. I give those pics 3 stars. Then i choose the option to see only the 3 star rated pics and open PS.
When im editing i resize the pics to 1024 on the longest side and save them in a folder called "NeatImage" After editing all the pics i close PS and open NeatImage (i didnt get the plug-in version) and let NeatImage do its magic. The pics are saved again. The pics which will be shown on TPF for instance are opened in PS again and the border is added and saved under a new name. These are saved in a folder called "TheWeb" The images which are in the NeatImage folder are moved to my website folder and uploaded to my site.
I shoot RAW and all of the original files are kept (except for the deleted ones offcourse) and saved in all kinds of folders. It depends on where i took the pics and/or what the subject was. If i need a bigger resolution pic, i just open the RAW file and edit it again.

 

[JerryPH]

After reading this thread, I can expand a little on how I do mine:

- I shoot only RAW/NEF
- Dump all pics to the D:\digital pictures\ToBackup\year-M-D-location folder
- Using View NX, cull the ones that I do not meet my standards
- Use Adobe CS3 and convert the ones that I consider keepers.

In CS3, I:
- change white balance if needed
- remove vignetting if needed
- smooth skin features if needed
- sharpen either all or parts of a pic if needed
- Crop picture if needed

After that, it all depends on what the needs are:
- Composite pics
- Collages
- vignetting work
- frames
- watermarks
- etc...

Then I either post them either to flickr or my private site where family members can see them. At the same time I copy the completed pictures over to the BACKED UP folder after a copy has been placed on my SAN and copy to DVDs. If space would start to get low on the D: drive, I would delete the oldest saved pictures off the hard drive, but thats a 2 TB Raid 5 partition on my personal computer and I am up to 5 years of photos and have tons of room left.

It is hard to put a time to anything... some pics take seconds, others take hours. Actions are big time savers in PS, the one I use the most is the action I created to output the final product to a high quality JPG.

 

[Bifurcator]

I didn't cover what I usually do for hobby/fun/family photos so here's that. It's not always the same but recently it's normalized some.

1. I use FIFO sequencing of cards and batteries. (always have lots of both)
   
   
2. When I intend to shoot I grab the two batteries and the two cards that are up
   next and format one card in camera.
   
   
3. When I get home I put back anything unused, put the card(s) with the shots in
   one of the card readers (having 2 or 3 is useful), and recharge the batteries.
   
   
4. I'm on a mac so everything works and is fast so next I open a Finder window of
   the card in "CoverFlow" mode (like iTunes). This is where it varies because based
   on my mood i'll use OS X CoverFlow, Adobe Bridge, or GraphicConverter to look,
   sort, delete, and load for edit off the card.
   
   
5. I'm in the habit of shooting in RAW + JPEG and OS X CoverFlow (as well as the
   others mentioned) show both, so I delete the mistakes that I didn't delete in
   camera in the field.
   
   
6. I then edit the RAW files I want to edit by right-clicking and selecting "Load With"
   (in any of the 3 viewers). I usually edit with Photoshop but that varies too.
   
   
7. After loading directly from the card and editing I save the most editable version
   back to the card. So if it's PS and there's layers I save it just before flattening it
   or scaling it down.
   
   
8. If it's something I want to post on-line I flatten, scale, and save as (usually) JPEG.
   But many times also PNG. I save those to a single folder on the Desktop usually
   sorted by date, named "Shared_OnLine". My desktop is a large RAID 0. And then
   upload those to my own FTP server somewhere in Washington State I think.
   
   
9. I then load Adobe DNG converter, create a "Burn Folder" (part of OSX) and convert
   all the RAW files over to the Burn Folder. It renames the files to the date and time
   shot, embeds the RAW and Jpeg, and stores all of the camera/user specific info.
   
   
10. I usually then copy over the JPEGs as well to the same Burn Folder and place the
    card last in the stack. My card stack is about 10 inches long so this also acts as
    an additional backup for a month or two till that card comes around again and is
    formatted.
    
    
11. When the Burn Folder hits 4GB I move it to a partition named "Burn Me" and create
    another one.
    
    
12. When the "Burn Me" partition (about 400 Gigs) is full I start burning DVDs. Two or
    three DVDs in duplicate of each folder. I label each with a number and the DVD
    burning software automatically catalogues the content to the number for later
    reference.
    
    
13. If I ever want to edit a different image after this process (and I very often do so) I
    load the DNG into PS directly from DVD and it opens up in Camera RAW.

Hmm, that seems a little wordy. Oh well.

 

[manaheim]

I posted this in "the other thread", but I figured this one will be the one people hit on in future searches, so I'll post it here too.

1. Shoot all raw.
2. Cut obvious failures on-camera, keep anything on the edge or better.
3. Transfer automatically to folder on my desktop via Nikon Transfer NX (or whatever it's called).
4. Rename folder YYYY-MM-DD - Basic Subject of Folder
5. Immediately backup desktop folder to my home server. (key is back it up somewhere before you start messing with it)
6. Use Adobe Bridge to batch-rename files with appropriate names for easy searching later. (I don't use keywords, though I probably should)
7. Go through all images and color correct/sharpen/etc. Save copies as JPEG in a folder called ADJ under the root directory of the images in question.
8. Delete any redundant images once I'm sure I have the ones that are acceptable. (if I have 4 exposures of the same subject doing essentially the same thing, I pick and keep the 1-2 I like and huck the rest)
9. When done, I use Tools->Photoshop->Image Processor within Bridge and have it execute a series of pre-defined actions that I recorded previously. These create low-quality 400x pixel previews of each image in the folder and save those to a directory called PROOFS off the root.
10. I upload all the proofs to a web based gallery that I can later use to search to find whatever I need.
11. Copy all JPEGS up to my web gallery software on my home server (I use an archaic app called IDS).
12. I keep all RAW images so I can go back and re-correct later if needs be.
13. Eventually burn entire folder off to archival DVD media, which is a huge process in itself because I create an index text file of the images I archive off, and move the web gallery into a folder named in the same way as the DVD name so I can find it easily later on.
14. All media gets stored in a fire-proof safe.

 

[Bifurcator]

bumpski - I'm steeling posts.

• Shoot in RAW
• Copy from my card to my hard drive
• Import to catalog in Lightroom
• Rename the photos
• Correct exposure, color, sharpness
• Do selective edits in Photoshop if necessary

I just keep the raw files, and then export them to jpegs or tiffs if I need to.

1a. Create a new folder within the appropriate section (for work or play or events or concerts, etc)
1b. Import RAW images from SD card via Lightroom and convert to DNG
2. Make necessary edits.
3a. I store all photos as DNGs until I need to do something with them outside of LR.
3b. When I am ready to print, resize, share, etc. I export as 300dpi TIFF. For sharpening and other edits, I export as 300dpi TIFF and edit in Photoshop CS3.
4. For Flickr, I usually export the TIFFs, then resize images with FastStone Photo Resizer to fit within 800x800px and JPEG format, then add a small border in PS.
5. Photos that I think are exceptional are exported as TIFFs and stored in a separate folder for future sharing and/or printing

 

[Bifurcator]

bumperistic - steeling more posts.

• I create a directory using "event"_"year+month+day" ... "disneyland_20080826"
• Copy everything into directory - this is JPEG & CR2 (RAW)
• Sort by JPEG so I can view using windows viewer - forgot it's name.
• Delete mangled JPEGs, re-orient those that are portrait.
• Sort by name again.
• Every CR2 should have the corresponding JPEG. Those that do not are deleted because I've deleted the JPEG.
• Back up to external HD, back up to DVD, upload to flickr.com, upload to costco.com

Recently realized, I'm not too thrilled with in-camera processing. Much prefer to use DPP (or LR1/LR2 depending on price). That may change way I archive. It will definitely save at least 30%-40% storage because I will no longer store every JPEG.

• I make a folder for each job. These folders are numbered sequentially since day one. That number is generated by my customer data base.
  
• Inside that folder, I make separate folders for RAW, TIF, and ORDER... sometimes JPG for web stuff. Only files that get printed are retouched, so I keep them in the ORDER folder, preserving the original image.
  
• Since the same image will be stored in different formats and in several folders, I don't any re-naming to avoid any confusion.
  
• Each job is then backed up onto DVD or CD and filed sequentially. Hard drives will fail eventually.

-Pete