My Workflow (Light Version)

Part I: Importing The Photographs

I highly recommend for you to use a card reader to do this, there are many advantages in doing so, you save your batteries, it's faster (if you have a decent reader), you don't need to have your camera connected with cables to your computer just to name some of the benefits.

So for starters I download all thee cards to a descriptive folder organized by date inside my RAW images folder.

RAW Folder > YYMMDD-Description > Files from the card

After all the files are downloaded I open the folder in Adobe Bridge and delete all the photos that don't have enough quality for me, I tend to delete all the photos that aren't well focused, or have distracting elements, etc...

After I made my selection I use the Batch Rename Tool inside Adobe Bridge to rename the files using the following mask:

After all the files are renamed they are ready to import into Adobe Lightroom. To do that I simply use the File > Import Photos From Disk dialog.

PART II: Editing the Photographs

I now have all the photos that have some value loaded up into Adobe Lightroom and the next thing I'm going to do is to fill up the metadata in those photographs, so I can easily find them inside my catalog. After that is done I start to work on my pictures. I tend to start attacking the problems I can find in groups of images and using the Sync... button to streamline all the changes. These things can be White Balance, Exposure values, vignetting correction, you name it.

For some of the editing I further export the photos into Adobe Photoshop because some things are better done in Photoshop, you can clean your images a lot faster and have some greater control over the editing. I tend to leave only the simple stuff for lightroom like cropping. (This is about to change with the new brush tool in Lightroom)

After all the photographs are edited is time to export them.

PART III: Exporting the photographs

I tend to use the following folder structure to keep backups of all the files I export so I can find them if something goes wrong and I need to use them again.

Of course all the files remain the name that Adobe Bridge applied to the raw file. This way I know exactly to what raw file these complete files relate to.

I thinks this is rather easy to copy by anyone, but I advise you to contact me through the comment form if you have any suggestions or answers you want me to answer.

Creating My Own Workflow

I'm a perfectionist, this means that my files have to be perfectly organized inside folders that are neatly named and etc... This has been the major problem in using only Lightroom as my workflow program. This habit of mine makes me use two programs, Lightroom and Adobe Bridge, simply because I need to delete the duds before I batch rename all the pictures so I won't get gaps between the file numbers...

Over the next article I will describe my workflow as best as I can, but you should have in mind that I'm a perfectionist so I have a lot of work organizing all of the pictures and etc... That doesn't mean you should do the the same.

See you soon!

The Art of Survival

The photography business is going through some rough times, wherever I turn I see photographers complain about these hard times. However there are a couple of well established photographers that seem to been to strive. So I don't really know what to think.

I want to pursue a career in photojournalism, but the market seems to saturated here in Portugal, and even in other countries there are news of people being sacked... I really don't know if I have it in me to pursue this career.

Maybe I'm better of just keeping photography as a hobby. I really don't know what to think of all this. It's hard to pursue our dreams, but that is what makes it so rewarding when you finally achieve something.

After three years in the University making this choice is kind of hard. I can't help to feel that I wasted the last three years of my life... On the other hand I don't want to waste the rest of my life doing something I don't like...

The plan was to get a part-time job and try to change courses from Civil Engineering to Journalism, graduate, and go work for some newspaper or a magazine, I figure once I'm inside it's easier to become a photojournalist.

Heck, I don't know where this is all leading me, but one thing is certain. Sitting back and waiting for things to happen is not the best way to achieve what I'm looking for. So I have to be proactive. Easier said than done.

Open Source Photography

Believe it or not this is a theme that brings much interest to me. I've been a GNU/Linux user for more than 3 years and since I got into photography I had to clean the dust out of my Windows XP CD... I'm not saying that it's any better then Vista, it's just that this is the one that came with my computer.

After some time investigating the Web I found out some cool stuff and even some communities of people that only use open source software (OSS) to post process their images. What I needed to know was if those applications could deliver a fast and stable workflow for professionals or even the more serious amateur.

After some poking around on the subject my opinion is simple. If you value OSS or you don't want to spend any money on software the Open Source is the way to go. There is a lot of information out there so there is no excuses.

For a professional environment things are a bit different, there are a lack in the "workflow software" solutions. You can't find any solutions to compete directly with the new Adobe Lightroom 2 or Apple's Aperture for that matter... The closest thing is Bibble Pro, it's not free but it does work on Linux.

I just don't have the time now to install all the applications and give them a real try so I based my opinion on the experiences described by others.

Shooting Tethered

These last few days I've been seeing lots of photography videos and tutorials and I'm noticing that photographers are shooting tethered more and more. At first I thought, well this will work well in the studio because of the advantages it has, but on location this is maybe not so great at all. Well the other day I discovered that it's not really that bad to shoot tethered on location.

Watch the Video:

As you can see the tethering is also used in "on location" shoots. And It has its advantages. Now this made me curious, and I decided to try this! As some of you may know, Canon provides the software you need to pull this off for free, as with Nikon you will need to buy it, so I guess I'm in luck here, I can pull this off with no cost whatsoever.

So I went in my backpack and I fetched my camera and it's USB cable and simply used the cable to connect the camera to my Desktop. I was ready to rumble, so I then fired up the Canon's Remote Capture software and started to take some pictures.

Now I have to say, it transfers the pictures mighty fast when using my 400D but there where two problems I had that blurred my overall experience. For starters I need a bigger cable, and second, I should've been doing this with a laptop de Desktop is kind of hard to move around to get a better view.

Here are some PROS of using this method of shooting:

• No need to worry about the size of your memory cards;
• The computer screen is better for reviewing the photographs;
• Clients can look at the photographs you are taking while you're taking them;
• You can operate your camera from the software, useful for when you have your camera strapped to something;
• You save a lot of time (no downloading the cards, etc...).

The cons of having such a setup are all related to the cable wise and would not exist if you could somehow do this wirelessly which I know it's possible with some special grips. The main problem with having a cable to connect your camera to a computer would be it's size. It would have to have enough length not to restrict your movements. But it has to be small enough not to be a hassle or a danger to both you gear or others that might be passing.

I would definitely recommend for you to give it a try! It's real useful inside or outside the studio! Just don't try to do it when you go out hiking or something like that!