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Digital Photography Workflow
By and © Shelleyrae Cusbert
The idea of creating a digital photography workflow is to establish a process which helps you to manage your image organization, editing and storage efficiently. Short term storage and retrieval, as well as long term archiving, are important considerations for digital photographers. An efficient system is one that works for you, once you have established each step it should become second nature for you to follow.
This article outlines some of the aspects to consider when establishing a digital workflow.
Camera Settings
The obvious choice to make here is to choose the size, quality and file format of the images and to ensure the date is set correctly.
Another factor to consider is choosing the file naming options. Rather than the camera resetting itself to 00000 each time a new card is inserted, you can opt to have the system continue to count to its limit, generally 10000 before returning to the zero count. The latter choice will assist in the sorting and identifying process.
If your camera gives you the option you may also wish to choose a color space, sRGB or Adobe RGB mode. For those editing with Adobe Photoshop or Elements then electing Adobe RGB will improve your color management process.
Finally with some prosumer and DSLR models you can elect to create and save a file that records the EXIF details of each photograph taken such as aperture, shutter, meter and mode settings in a *.txt format.
Transfer
As a rule, the process begins with transferring the images from your media card to your hard drive. The means is not usually relevant in terms of workflow, however it should be noted that some methods, for example the use of a built in card reader, are considered more stable than others, such as the camera cable transfer.
Camera’s generally come bundled with a software program that manages the process of transfer – the software may allow you to complete tasks such as batch renaming or file conversion before saving to the hard drive, but there are other options including using nothing but Windows XP transfer wizard. Identifying which method suits you best is the first step to establishing an efficient workflow.
Download Location
Choosing a single location to initially download your images to is useful for a number of reasons. Firstly you need only check one folder to ensure the images have transferred successfully and secondly, batch processing is easier to manage.
You can choose to either download the entire folder contents of the card or just the images, and you can generally choose a location no matter the method of transfer you use. Windows defaults to the My Pictures folder but you can browse to any other location on your hard drive.
Format
How you manage this part of the process depends on your initial choice of file format and your own preferences. Digital cameras use either jpg, tiff or RAW file formats to capture photos and some also offer more proprietry types such as psd, png and pcd. Each has their strengths and weaknesses and you can choose to make no changes at all to the file format.
RAW format is unique in that it is not yet a standard file type but is highly regarded as the equivalent of a film negative. RAW files are those that have undergone no in camera processing and so must be processed for parameters such as exposure and white balance. While RAW offer’s great benefits to serious or professional shooters who want to have ultimate control of exposure processing, it is generally a unnecessary process for amateur photographers. RAW files are much larger than other formats so need more storage space, require more processing and hence time post shoot, and do require some specialized knowledge of software and photography technique in general. A high quality jpg or tif file will give you a print just as good as one from a RAW file. RAW files also require conversion to either tiff or jpg for viewing after processing.
There are strong advocates for converting jpg files to tiff format. This is largely because while tiff is a lossless compression format, jpg uses compression and this affects quality when the same image file is saved over repeatedly during editing. This is not such an issue as long as you choose the least compression available in camera and work on a duplicate of the original photo within your editing program, at which point you can use the “Save As” command to save as tif or your program’s native format such as psd, rather than overwrite the original image with the “Save” command. Repeatedly opening an already saved jpg without resaving it will not cause any loss of quality. Losses are only incurred when you use the "File", "Save" or "Save As" command and you choose jpg as the file type. There are also disadvantages in using the tiff format where storage is an issue as they are significantly larger files than those in jpg format.
For the sake of an efficient digital workflow choose a file format that suits your needs, and make any conversions if necessary.
Identification
Once the files are saved in the download location and are in your chosen file format, the process of identification can begin. Your camera tags each image with a name based on its own file naming process. Usually this is something containing initials that identify the camera and then a number that tells the sequence in which the images were taken. These file names are unhelpful for identifying anything about the image apart from whether it was taken first or thirty first during the shoot. Renaming your images in way that is more meaningful to you makes sorting, storing and retrieving photographs much easier.
Choosing a renaming method that is consistent streamlines your work flow. Most find that using a format that identifies the subject and/or event, the date and retains the sequence number, the most convenient method of identification. This results in file names such as “Rons50th_Jan06_0004”. How much detail you include in the file name is a matter of preference, as long as the identification makes sense to you. You should not include spaces, commas or other punctuation marks or symbols such as & # * etc in your file names. Use the underscore [ _ ] or hyphen [-] to separate descriptors.
While you can rename each file individually it is more efficient to use a batch rename feature. Many image viewer programs, including XP, allow you to do this by selecting a group of files and the program will rename all the selected images as you indicate.
Archiving
Once you have completed the steps above the files should be considered your original master images.
The next step is to archive (back-up) your master images onto another media storage device. This may be a second or external hard drive, or a CD or DVD disc. Archiving is important to prevent the loss of your images in the event of a hard drive failure (crash). As a general rule photographers are encouraged to have at least two back ups of their work, with one stored off site in case of fire or other destructive force.
For more information and advice regarding good archival practice, refer to this article http://scrapbook-bytes.com/cgi-script/tutorials/publish/article_294.shtml Burning to CD or DVD.
If you are archiving to disc you need to determine a labeling and disc storage system that lets you identify the contents of that disc easily. You can create a printed visual index, similar to a photographers contact sheet, to be stored with the CD or DVD, generate a file name list or label the disc with a distinct identification.
Your master images are now protected from accidental erasure or alteration.
Editing
As a digital scrapbooker you may prefer to make edits to your photographs when you are working on your layouts to suit your design, whereas photographers concentrate on the image alone during the editing process.
The generally accepted order for the editing process begins with orientating the photo to the correct perspective (vertical or horizontal), resizing (using 300ppi as the standard resolution to determine pixel and physical size), cropping, correcting exposure (brightness and contrast), correcting color (balance and saturation) and as a final step applying any specific changes or effects.
While each photograph can be edited individually, a batch editing feature may be useful if for example a number of the images from a shoot require the exposure to be corrected by the same amount.
You can choose to delete photo’s you are unlikely to use or that were not successful from your hard drive at this stage, since you can retrieve any image from the master storage system.
Sorting
As a final step, the files that remain on your hard drive can now be sorted and organized according to your wishes. Establishing a method of organization on your hard drive for your files can initially be time consuming but in the long run will be more efficient.
There are several ways to organize your photos and again it needs to be a system that suits your needs. Deciding how to sort your photographs is largely dependent on what type they are, what time frame they encompass and the amount that you have. Broadly you can create a folder system determined by the subject of the photographs, or the timeframe in which they were taken or a combination of both. Further sort these by creating subfolders to identify events or people. When your images could belong in one or more folders determine what is the subject of the photo. If you are can’t decide, copy the photo and place one in each folder of your choice. Move each photo into its’ appropriate folder within your system.
You can also use a photo management software program to help organize your image collection. While the features of organization programs vary, they essentially allow you to create a custom catalogue of your files. You are able to “tag” files with multiple keywords and descriptions and when complete, perform a file search with the software to find items that match what you are looking for. As most of this type of software does not change the location of the original file, but simply imports a thumbnail representation of the image you can also tag files on external removable media such as CD’s, DVD’s or external hard drives. As long as the correct media is present e.g. in the drive or connected, the software can be made to search through those collections. When choosing your software consider ease of use, the ability to use multiple tags, the ability to read removable media and the file formats the software can read especially when using RAW. Many popular programs used in digital scrapbooking have companion file organization software. In some cases the software may need to be purchased separately.
Adobe PhotoShop and PhotoShop Elements adobe.com
Adobe Photoshop Album (available stand alone or included with PSE3)
JASC/Corel Paint Shop Pro corel.com
Paint Shop Photo Album (available stand alone)
Ulead Photo Impact ulead.com
Photo Impact Album (included with v10 or named Photo Explorer stand alone)
Microsoft Digital Image Pro microsoft.com
Digital Image Library (included with Suite versions only)
There are also a wide variety of other file organization programs available. The most popular commercial applications include:
ACDSee
Extensis
IPhoto -MAC only
Popular free programs include:
Picasa
FXFoto
Kodak EasyShare
PreClick
While the initial stages of establishing a digital workflow can seem overwhelming, you should find that you soon work more efficiently and quickly with your images. The most important consideration is to create a system that suits you.
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