Digital Workflow Part 1
When I first started out in photography, I used good old fashioned film cameras. The first I can remember was bought for me as a birthday present by my Dad. It was a wonderful 35mm Olympus. Workflow back then was simple:
- Take picture
- Take to the printers
- Pick up from the printers
- Review images and select the best ones for an album or frame
My second camera was a freebie from work. At the time I worked at HP, and they were just starting to get into digital imaging. I had a little compact that was 4 megapixels – pretty good at the time!! Workflow then meant:
- Take picture
- View the back to check the picture
- Transfer to PC
- Occasionally print with own printer.
I shot in the only format available – JPEG, and hardly any manipulation was done in the post processing. I don’t even think I have PhotoShop at the time. I quickly started to become frustrated with the results from the digital compact.
The battery life was rubbish, the shutter was really delayed, and I just wanted more from my images. I decided to get into photography ‘properly’ and purchased a Nikon F65 SLR. I was then back to the original workflow, but had more control over the framing, shutter speeds, aperture etc. I was also in control of the film – colour, black and white, fast, slow ISO etc.
The workflow changed in that I now ordered a CD of my images along with the negatives, instead of the prints. I did this because I wanted to be able to manipulate the images in PhotoShop – post processing. I could shoot in colour and then convert to mono, I could increase saturation or contrast. I could crop images to improve the composition, straighten wonky horizons. Suddenly more time was being put into ‘workflow’.
Eventually I saved up and purchased a Nikon D70 Digital SLR. Initially I shot in JPEG, but I quickly started to learn about the advantages of shooting in RAW, and workflow suddenly became rather important! I have muddled about in a variety of applications over the last year:
- RAW Shooter Essentials
- Adobe Camera RAW
- Adobe Lightroom Beta
RAW Shooter Essentials was highly recommended and at the time was a free software download which was incredible given the level of features the programme had, and really opened my eyes to the power of RAW processing. I also spent some time using the Camera Raw add on in PhotoShop, perfectly adequate, but a little limited compared to Raw Shooter Essentials.
I am now finally starting to settle on the Adobe Lightroom beta. It can be a little slow, but the wait is worth it. The processing feels like ‘proper’ processing and I have beenincredibly impressed with the results.
Typical Workflow
- Take Picture
- Transfer to PC
- Select files for processing
- Process RAW files and convert to JPEG or TIFF
- Edit in Photoshop
- Print/publish to web/backup
In Parts 2, 3, and 4 over the next few weeks I will run through examples of my workflow using RAW Shooter Essentials, Adobe Camera RAW and Adobe Lightroom Beta.
