Sorting & editing large batches of photos - what do you use?
Discussion
Evening all,
Now that I'm actually getting asked to shoot events, I have come across the issue of sorting and editing a few hundred photos at a time and it is getting massively time consuming!
I am unprepared for this, as until now, I only took a few photos here and there for my own use, and consequently editing and sorting them was fairly quick and painless, however I have been thrust into the world of shooting festivals, nightclubs, car club meets and other such things and require better tools.
I use a MacBook Pro and a random assortment of software to do the job at present. Browsing, sorting and deleting is simply done using the Mac's Preview window, editing the photos I'm keeping is done between Pixelmator 2.0 (slick photoshop type affair) and Acorn, plus a couple of cheapie apps for stuff like vignettes and effects etc.
I also use the well known Photomatix for HDR stuff which I'm quite happy with.
But all this is a lot of messing about and switching windows and software. I would like a bit of software that allows me to quickly browse through a folder of a few hundred pics, and quickly do basic editing on them as I go without having to go in and out of a program all the time to load/save a new picture.
The editing I do is fairly basic at the moment, cropping, colour and brightness tweaks etc.
On the occasion that I do a big multi layer landscape shot or something I'm happy just to use Pixelmator and the like, but for a few hundred shots of people/cars etc I can't keep doing this!
Any suggestions welcome
Thanks
Now that I'm actually getting asked to shoot events, I have come across the issue of sorting and editing a few hundred photos at a time and it is getting massively time consuming!
I am unprepared for this, as until now, I only took a few photos here and there for my own use, and consequently editing and sorting them was fairly quick and painless, however I have been thrust into the world of shooting festivals, nightclubs, car club meets and other such things and require better tools.
I use a MacBook Pro and a random assortment of software to do the job at present. Browsing, sorting and deleting is simply done using the Mac's Preview window, editing the photos I'm keeping is done between Pixelmator 2.0 (slick photoshop type affair) and Acorn, plus a couple of cheapie apps for stuff like vignettes and effects etc.
I also use the well known Photomatix for HDR stuff which I'm quite happy with.
But all this is a lot of messing about and switching windows and software. I would like a bit of software that allows me to quickly browse through a folder of a few hundred pics, and quickly do basic editing on them as I go without having to go in and out of a program all the time to load/save a new picture.
The editing I do is fairly basic at the moment, cropping, colour and brightness tweaks etc.
On the occasion that I do a big multi layer landscape shot or something I'm happy just to use Pixelmator and the like, but for a few hundred shots of people/cars etc I can't keep doing this!
Any suggestions welcome
Thanks
Try Lightroom or Aperture.
I use Lightroom - it's simple to use and has a cataloging module for organising and managing groups of photo's. Allows for easy tagging and sorting of photo's. There is a develop enginebased on camera raw for basic (and some not so basic) processing and the batch applying of develop settings.
Aperture I believe offers similar capabilities but I've not tried it.
I use Lightroom - it's simple to use and has a cataloging module for organising and managing groups of photo's. Allows for easy tagging and sorting of photo's. There is a develop enginebased on camera raw for basic (and some not so basic) processing and the batch applying of develop settings.
Aperture I believe offers similar capabilities but I've not tried it.
Another vote for light room
Probably pays to really learn how to use it though. I bet it's got some cool little hidden features I don't know about. I hope so because even with LR sifting through and editing 100's of photos can be a chore for me. I've still got stuff from 2010 to fix up!!
That plus I reckon it runs better on a windows machine. I've ran it on a 2007 mac book pro and it was choppy.... It's still choppy on a 3.6ghz dual core 27inch iMac with 8gb of ram!!!! Does it need quad core or something?
Probably pays to really learn how to use it though. I bet it's got some cool little hidden features I don't know about. I hope so because even with LR sifting through and editing 100's of photos can be a chore for me. I've still got stuff from 2010 to fix up!!
That plus I reckon it runs better on a windows machine. I've ran it on a 2007 mac book pro and it was choppy.... It's still choppy on a 3.6ghz dual core 27inch iMac with 8gb of ram!!!! Does it need quad core or something?
Another vote here for Lightroom, runs very well on my MacBook Pro.
It's ideal for sorting through large numbers of images and applying non destructive edits to the files. You can also launch your chosen image editor directly from within Lightroom if you need to do more detailed edits to an image. It's very easy to apply batch changes, export images to preset file sizes for printing/web etc and can directly upload images to online resources such as Facebook, Flickr, blogs etc.
It's ideal for sorting through large numbers of images and applying non destructive edits to the files. You can also launch your chosen image editor directly from within Lightroom if you need to do more detailed edits to an image. It's very easy to apply batch changes, export images to preset file sizes for printing/web etc and can directly upload images to online resources such as Facebook, Flickr, blogs etc.
RobDickinson said:
I dont use lightroom, mostly because I tend to edit limited numbers in a more intensive way, and I know photoshop..
But I recommend lightroom, cataloguing and editing in bulk its the one to go for.
Yep, I know what you mean. But I recommend lightroom, cataloguing and editing in bulk its the one to go for.
I previously worked in very small numbers of my own shots and was therefore quite happy tinkering with single images in Pixelmator, but now I'm coming home with 400+ photos, sorting them to keep about 50-70%, and then giving most of them a quick tweak or crop.
All of which takes me a lot of time!
Capture One Pro, it makes editing batches really easy. Combine it with colorchecker passport and I can batch white balance correct images, remove dust spots, add saturation, contrast etc, add tags and keywords and then batch output them in different formats simultaneously, eg a set of pre-sized 6x4s with the DSCL colour profile embedded, a set of 1024px longest edge for online and a set of full size TIFFs for archive, all in one go.
It is sometimes on sale from Capture One Complete for £99 +VAT.
It is sometimes on sale from Capture One Complete for £99 +VAT.
markmullen said:
Capture One Pro, it makes editing batches really easy. Combine it with colorchecker passport and I can batch white balance correct images, remove dust spots, add saturation, contrast etc, add tags and keywords and then batch output them in different formats simultaneously, eg a set of pre-sized 6x4s with the DSCL colour profile embedded, a set of 1024px longest edge for online and a set of full size TIFFs for archive, all in one go.
It is sometimes on sale from Capture One Complete for £99 +VAT.
Thanks for that, hadn't heard of Capture One and it would certainly fit the bill by the sounds of it.It is sometimes on sale from Capture One Complete for £99 +VAT.
I'll have a look at it along with Aperture.
I use Lightroom, as a random amatuer, and it will do everything you need but may be expensive.
Some edits can be done quickly e.g. adjusting white balance or contrast or something to a similar bunch of photos...
I'd guess cropping is going to be more time consuming as a lot will need to be done a on a photo by photo basis...You wont be able to avoid the fact that your brain needs to think about each one and decide if a crop will make it "better"?
Some edits can be done quickly e.g. adjusting white balance or contrast or something to a similar bunch of photos...
I'd guess cropping is going to be more time consuming as a lot will need to be done a on a photo by photo basis...You wont be able to avoid the fact that your brain needs to think about each one and decide if a crop will make it "better"?
I use Picasa for bulk organising and ranking of images. It's free, powerful and has some nice basic non-destructive editing tools. Also it had geotagging and facial recognition, whilst not vital they have some value.
Otherwise it's Lightroom for the final stages. It's a very good package.
Otherwise it's Lightroom for the final stages. It's a very good package.
NinjaPower said:
Hmmm...
Lightroom 4 is £99 and Capture One is £199.
Might try Lightroom!
You can get Capture One for £144Lightroom 4 is £99 and Capture One is £199.
Might try Lightroom!
Go to this link:
Capture One
Buy the Capture One Express for £60+vat
Then buy the upgrade for £60+vat
Total = £144
Ok so still not £99, but at least a bit cheaper.
note: the above assumes that the 'upgrade' applies to capture one express, unfortunately I can't open the link to check!!
Same answer I always give - Lightroom for Library, catalogue and surprisingly good editing; especially using downloaded and self created edit presets. However, a lot of my work is Fashion and Portraits so I use Photoshop and Portraiture for sunday best. An unbeatable threesome that many software developers have tried to surpass but failed.
The only area where Capture One is better than LR IMHO is in tethered shooting although I still use LR in the studio.
The only area where Capture One is better than LR IMHO is in tethered shooting although I still use LR in the studio.
Thanks again folks
Another reason why the PH photography sub-section is as good as, if not better than any other photography forum for advice and tips.
I'm currently downloading Lightroom 4 free trial and will try that for a couple of weeks then try Capture One free trial and make my decision, but thanks for narrowing it down to these two for me.
Another reason why the PH photography sub-section is as good as, if not better than any other photography forum for advice and tips.
I'm currently downloading Lightroom 4 free trial and will try that for a couple of weeks then try Capture One free trial and make my decision, but thanks for narrowing it down to these two for me.
Gassing Station | Photography & Video | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff