I don't use Lightroom. I work with Bridge and Photoshop. My workflow is complex. I look at the photos I've taken, and I render the ones I like. If I like one a lot, I print it.
Paul via phone > On Jun 19, 2017, at 9:33 PM, Stanley Halpin <s...@stans-photography.info> > wrote: > > Good detailed description Larry. Some good ideas here. > > I won’t go into my workflow now nor attempt a complete compare/contrast. But > I do note a couple of things: > 1 - your Lightroom workflow as described is pretty much all about filing and > storing for ease of retrieval. > 2- You say >> I'll make gross technical adjustments that apply to groups of photos, and >> only rarely tweak specific photos > > The major departure of my workflow from yours is that for me no image > rises above a 2 rating until I have spent at least a few seconds looking at > color, contrast, sharpness, noise and other aspects. If I have worked on an > image and/or don’t think in needs much if any additional post processing, > then it gets a 3 rating. Once I have finished with a day or week or month’s > worth of images, I go back to the 3 rated ones and decide whether they are > worth additional time, good to go as they are, or maybe overrated and > reassigned a 1 or 2. If I am doing a themed gallery (e.g., "My Trip to the > Store” or “Memories of My Friend Mrs. Smith”) I may dip into the 1s and 2s if > I need to find an image to tell part of my story but would mostly work from > 3s and above. > > The thing I most like about Lightroom is that is does not force any sort of > workflow. So you can do it your way, I can do it my way, and we are each > taking advantage of the capabilities in the program that matter to us. > > stan > >> On Jun 19, 2017, at 6:49 PM, Larry Colen <l...@red4est.com> wrote: >> >> A friend asked about going through 7500 photos from his trip to the UK, so I >> wrote up my workflow for him. I get teased a lot for treating my shutter >> like film was free, but this is what works for me. By throwing away 550,000 >> photos, I end up with a hundred good ones. >> >> On the remote chance someone is interested in how I do it and it would be >> helpful to them, here's an outline of my workflow >> >> The premise that for the first several passes quick decisions are better >> than right decisions, so if you can't decide whether something is worth >> keeping, just keep it and move on. >> >> I also (to a first approximation) don't throw files away, because I've had >> my two star files be the best recent photo of a friend who recently died. >> >> My nominal rating system is: (total 560k photos in lightroom) >> 0: unrated (90k) >> 1: significant technical errors (2600, most could be deleted, many have been) >> 2: nothing particularly wrong, but not worth looking at (314k) >> 3: good enough to post on the web (152k) >> 4: good enough to spend money on a print (3k) >> 5: My absolute best work (38) >> >> Note that I don't post everything that is a 3 star, nor do I print every 4 >> star. I probably have another 50-100 that I should bump up to 5 stars. >> >> workflow, first load the files onto the system with basic keywording, before >> any basic rating. >> Import raw files into lightroom (shooting jpeg is like throwing away your >> negatives, and with lightroom and cheap hard drives saves you nothing) >> >> I have a directory structure of 6 month top level directories, directories >> for each month, and directories for each logical photo session. >> >> /Volumes/photo_c/photo4/pictures_2017a/1701 >> in 1701 I have >> 170103_jan_eriksson >> 170103_power_line >> 170104_macro_test >> 170104_tail_lights >> 170106_covered_bridge >> 170107_tv_van >> >> Note that each top directory for each shoot is named with the date, and some >> short description. This way in addition to LR cataloging, I also have a >> logical directory structure in case I ever change my photo management >> software. >> >> I may also sort things into subdirectories below that. This makes it easier >> to compare like with like when rating. For example with a band, I'll put >> photos of each band member in a separate directory. >> >> As soon as I enter my photos, I do basic keywording, at some point I'll also >> do facial recognition and try to ID people. >> >> I have an SSD primary drive, and that is where I load my files to initially. >> When I'm all done with my photos from each shoot, they go into long term >> storage in the above calendar directory tree. >> >> Now the bit you were asking about. >> I tell lightroom to only show unrated photos. I go quickly through them >> setting any one I might like to 3 stars. When I get to the end, I set the >> rest to two stars. If something is totally trash, I set it to one star. If I >> know right off hand it's amazing I "pick" then set it to three stars. >> >> I tend to do this for all of my directories. >> >> At this point I'll make gross technical adjustments that apply to groups of >> photos, and only rarely tweak specific photos. I'll often do color balance >> at this point, finding something black or silver to set my white balance on. >> >> I then go to the end of each directory, and working backwards "pick" each >> one that I think is good enough to look at further. >> >> At that point I start setting up a collection structured, using collection >> sets and collection. >> >> In the collection set 170601_england I will then go through and make >> collections of all of my picked files based on the directory names: >> >> 170603_canterbury_00 >> >> I then select everything in canerbury_00, unpick it, then starting from the >> front, pick the ones I like the best. those become 170603_canterbury_01, >> then from the end canterbury_02, lather, rinse repeat. >> >> Once things get into lightroom collections, and I've narrowed them down by >> 60-80% then I start doing more fine adjusting, cropping, specific tweaking >> of the curves. >> >> At some point, I will often ask someone to go through and rate the photos 6 >> (red/dislike), 7 (yellow/meh), 8 (green/like). Of those I may go and over >> ride some with 9 (blue, I really like even if you don't). >> I'll use purple for "special selections" such as "sensei likes this". I'll >> also keyword photos "bill likes" or "bill dislikes", or "don't post on >> facebook". >> >> I will be far less selective for photos on facebook, particularly event >> photos, than for photos on flickr. >> >> From the photos I put on flickr, my absolute best for each month go into my >> monthly picks folder, which goes into my collection of monthly favorites, in >> theory, every one in that collection is rated four stars. I tend to average >> about three or four shots a month that end up in that collection. >> >> In short, if I wouldn't be willing to spend $4 for a 12x8 print of >> something, it doesn't get 4 stars. In theory a photo could get that rating >> at any time in the process, but it's generally not until it's been posted >> and moved to my monthly favorites >> -- >> Larry Colen l...@red4est.com (postbox on min4est) http://red4est.com/lrc >> >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> PDML@pdml.net >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >> follow the directions. > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
