In January I attended a couple of Sean Bagshaw workshops in Portland. The first day was “Digital Processing Workflow For Nature Photographers”. The second day he taught “Processing For Extended Dynamic Range”. The weekend was jammed packed with excellent instruction. I enjoyed his teaching method as well as his enthusiasm. Along with the class instruction, all attendees received Sean’s video tutorials to go over on our own time.
Since that workshop I’ve had a chance to re-evaluate my own method of workflow. I must say that my workflow needed a tune-up! My workflow was to take my RAW images into Adobe Bridge, to Camera Raw and then Photoshop. I’ve done this for the last few years. I did purchase Aperture and Lightroom 3 last year. It was my intention to use one of these two softwares for organization but never got around to it. I have been storing all my images by dates. Sometimes that works well and sometimes it does not. If I’m looking for a particular image I have to look through several folders to find it. My RAW image files go back to 2008, so it makes it very difficult.
Since the workshop I began creating categories in my Lightroom catalog and organizing my best images there with keywords that should make them much easier to find. I’m still in the process of working on it but it’s a great start and am feeling much more organized. I’m still copying my folders to a couple of external drives by date. But from there I import them into Lightroom. I’ll delete images from there and rate the images I plan to keep and work on. All the keywords will be added at this time. So I intend to keep the original folder on these externals. My Lightroom catalog will only host my best images under the catagories I’ve set up. I’ll keep the original RAW image and the edited image together.
Once the image is in Lighroom, I do some basic adjustments that Sean taught us in the course. These basic adjustments may include straightening, white balance, sharpening and chromatic aberration. In using cheap polarizers and non-prime lenses with my past photos, chromatic aberration is a problem with some of my images. I now see the value in using high quality filters and lenses. This feature in Lightroom is fantastic for cleaning up this problem. From Lightroom I then take my image into Photoshop and do more adjustments if necessary. It’s here that I begin working on some tonal adjustments, curves and luminosity masking. I love how when I’m done, it saves nicely back to Lightroom. These programs work together seamlessly.
It’s kind of fun to go back to some old images and reprocess them with the new method of post-development. Here’s a popular image I’ve sold many prints and cards of - Siuslaw River Bridge. With my original image I did some adjustments in Camera RAW, Photoshop and used Topaz Adjust or the final outcome you see. It has an HDR sort of feel to it, but it’s a single image. In redevelopment all I did was make some tonal adjustments, used curves on the clouds to bring out the details that were all ready there. Using a luminosity mask, I can bring out the colors that I saw on this day when I took the photo.
Images below are my original socc version and the one I adjusted a couple of years ago. At the beginning of this post is the newly processed image. What do you think? I’d love to know your thoughts.
Though, I still have much to learn from Sean’s video tutorials, I feel that the workshop was very beneficial and well worth the money I spent to attend the class. I highly recommend any of Sean’s workshops and videos for anyone that wants to learn a better workflow and how to bring out the dynamic range in their images. His method of development gives you more control over the outcome of your image, rather than letting a software determine that outcome.
Please visit Sean Bagshaw’s website for information about all his workshops and video tutorials.
Original SOCC Version
Good timing on this Pat! I was actually looking at ways to improve my workflow. I also use LR3 and CS5, although I’m not making good use of LR in regards to imports, catalogs, key words etc. If you would, please let me know how this works out for you, and how you refine it. I may look at putting some of your ideas into practice myself. Thank you very much for sharing this. Hope things are well with you guys!
Nice post Patricia. Pretty close to what I do except I’m just starting to play with luminosity masks, excited about mastering this technique. My method for organizing and cataloging images comes from Peter Krogh’s The Dam Book. I’ve been using his methods for many years now with excellent results.
Nice article Patricia.I’m like you always trying to find some new tips for my post processing. I already downloaded the Varina Patel & Zack Schnepf video tutorials and they had some very good stuff.If I understood what u said It looks like Sean are using Lightroom…not me , I need to right ? btw thanks for sharing
Thank you Alan! I will look into the book you mention!
Thank you Todd! I would be happy to share what I’ve set up.
Eric, I think the Patel’s and Zack’s have similar methods of processing to Sean’s from what I’ve seen, but I could be wrong. I decided Lightroom was the way to go after reading Scott Kelby’s, “100 Ways Adobe® Lightroom™ Kicks Adobe® Bridge’s™ A$$ for Photographers!” page. http://www.photoshopuser.com/lightroom I loved Bridge, but I love Lightroom even more.
Even though my files are pretty well organized, I have been thinking about going from the by date organization to by location. I may have to look up Sean’s tutorials for some tips on best practices. Thanks for the recommendations!
I really enjoyed looking through your images on your website. It is nice to see them all in one place rather than one by one on G+!
Thank you Sarah! So nice of you to drop by!
Nice write up Pat. I have a couple of Sean’s videos and it is amazing how some little post processing tips can really transform an image. I think you have show that here, the new version looks great. The downside of course in learning one of these new tips is that you want to go back and reprocess all of your work! :-)
Thank you Mark! You are so right about wanting to go back and reprocess old images!
Love the Oregon bridges and your shot. Excellent write up as well, Pat. I was looking at Sean’s video selection and just wondered if his work flow on the video is CS or LR based. I have had LR for ages but have been reluctant to use it as it involves a much needed reorganizing of my work. So a little (read: a lot) of hand holding is required. ;-)
Thank you so much Marianne! Sean’s workflow starts in Lightroom for basic adjustments but then goes into PhotoShop CS5 for bringing out the dynamic range in the image. He does teach how he has organized his Lightroom. My workflow is much better now and I’m in the early stages of a better organization within Lightroom. Moving from Lightroom to Photoshop is pretty seemless, I like it. I’ve still tons to learn about Lightroom but I’m loving it so far.
Thanks Pat. I bought the videos and am already learning a lot. Sean is very thorough although I almost fell asleep during one of the videos (not his fault, though). I discovered that reorganizing my photos is not quite a straight forward as I had hoped as they’re all stored in folders according to date shot. I think I have a huge project ahead of me with over 38,000 shots (a lot of which need to be deleted which is another headache). Anyway, thank you for pointing me in the right direction. It seems to be money well spent.
Oh cool Marianne! Yes, mine are in dates as well. Rather than going back through all my folders, I’m adding the raw and edited files of my most popular images from the past. I think I will continue to store by date and pull out what I really want in categories in Lightroom. It is a huge project and I’ve lots to do as well.