Digital Workflow

[bulb763]

Arrgh! If I don't sort this out soon I'm going to be swamped!

I use RAW most of the time. Once downloaded to PC, I use RawShooter to preview the images, delete the awful ones, then for the ones a like, I do some quick straightening, tick the box that says apply sharpening, and convert to TIFFs. These get dumped into a folder within the same directory as my RAWs. Any other agreeable snappy-type shots get converted to jpeg using the same, and saved where ever suits.

For the TIFFs I've just converted, I'll send them through PS and do whatever is necessary (levels, curves usually) then save a full size, top quality jpeg to where ever suits. My theory being that this is the best compromise between file size, and being able to work on the image later - for example: if I wanted to create a desktop-sized version, or to get a large print done, I would be able to resize without getting a degraded image.

Is this a good approach? Does anybody save their TIFFs? or even use TIFFs? Storage space isn't too much of a concern at the moment - I just dont know how quickly these things mount up! At ~30Mb, I'm thinking quite quickly!

I keep all my RAWs, and when I get round to it, these will be archived to DVD.

I'd appreciate any advice

[Major Bloodnok]

Are you using RSE or RSP? If RSP, did you get the free copy of Lightroom?

Prior to Lightroom, my workflow was:

Download with RSP, burn images to CD/DVD
Make adjustments, convert to tiff in a separate directory next to the RAW dir. (e.g. PlacesUKBathRaw get converted to PlacesUKBathConverted). Append the snapshot number to the TIFF file name.
Edit the TIFF and save it as a native (PSP) file in the parent directory.

Using Lightroom:

Download and convert to DSG, check the "Save a backup" to transfer RAW files to a safe area. Burn the backup to CD/DVD.
Make adjustments in Lightroom,
edit a 16-bit (.PSD) copy in PS Elements (usually if I need to clean up any spots or suchlike)
Edit an 8-bit TIFF copy of the PSD file in PSP XI (it's better than Elements for a lot of things) - sharpening, adding border and so on.
Back to Lightroom for printing the final TIFF.

The thing with Lightroom is that it makes it very easy to organise all the copies, including "virtual" copies of the original RAW (with different adjustments).

the only downside to Lightroom is that it doesn't recognise .pspimage files, but I don't find this very inconvenient with all the extras that it does give you.

[V6GTO]

Download RAW to "My Pictures" folder, then put in sub folder marked RAW.Copy sub folder RAW to an external hard drive.
Open in lightroom, rotate portrait mode shots and do batch adjustments if nessesary.
Convert to 750X500px and 600X400 then send to original folder.
Work on individual images in Photoshop before posting.
If I want to do anything large I pull it up in PS and do it individually.

Martin.

[Mr Noble]

V6GTO said:

rotate portrait mode shots

Is there not a setting in your camera which does this for you? I thought it was just to what you see on the lcd screen, but it actually saves it as a P or L file.


Now there's the student teaching the teacher!

[V6GTO]

You are correct, my young Padwan, but I like to see the portrait shots full frame on the LCD of the camera.

Martin.

[bulb763]

Thanks guys

[VxDuncan]

Hi,
your workflow looks about right to me. Couple of things I would say - always do the sharpening last. If you resize, the sharpening will be wrong for the new image resolution, plus if you pull the levels/curves, you are pulling the sharpening artifacts. If I'm resizing a good image a large amount I will even blur the image first, then resize, then sharpen after the resize - this gettings rid of the "jagged power line" effect due to the maths of the pixel conversion. Other than that, keep everything in 16-bit and remember JPEG is lossy, so everytime you edit an image you lose quality.

[bulb763]

Thanks Duncan.

I think from now on I will be keeping any TIFFs that I create in a separate folder on my HDD, and archiving off the RAWs as soon as I have a DVDs-worth of them. I backup my HDD to an external HDD every fortnight-or-so, so everything on there is safe (touch wood), but this way it will be quicker, as there won't be as many RAW files included in the backup.

Thanks again

[hardboiledPhil]

I use Aperture on the Mac most of the time and shoot in raw. Basically it allows me to do basic cropping and tweaking of pics without having to store multiple versions. Only putting it out to Photoshop and then importing it back in again would cause this. So everything stays in the app until I export it at the size I require.

Backups are just one click of the button away.

Might not be ideal for those who do lots of photoshop work but as a keen amateur it works well enough for me for the time being. Oh and using 2 * 20" monitors helps a lot, one screen for the application windows (tools, folder browser, etc) and the other for image viewing full screen all the time.