My DSLR Workflow

My DSLR Workflow

OK…my image workflow maybe different that what other people use because my background comes from shooting LOTS of images at sporting events, and then having to turn them around for a newspaper or to post on a website to sell, so my workflow was based on the best image I could get, edit and then post as quickly as possible or provide to the newspaper. So with that in mind, I’ll take you from the time I actually shot the image until it is either posted or sent to a reporter.

At events, and that can be sports, concerts or even portraits…I’ll shoot lots of images. I will review as time allows right in the camera and delete those that have exposure or focus issues and keep ALL sharp images regardless of composition.  Now that I no longer shoot sports, I shoot everything in RAW format.

Once I get home, the first thing I’ll do is download all my images and then begin reviewing them with a program called BreezeBrowser Pro, which is used for converting my images to JPG format. So that is one PASS of the images I do initially. As I go through the RAW images, I will delete any that I missed when chimping  (or reviewing) them in camera. Those images which are not framed properly or the composition is off, I will evaluate as to how much time I would have to spend on the image to make it right…if it going to take a lot of time, I delete it too.

Once I go through all the images in the RAW format…that leaves the images that I want to convert to JPG’s and I’ll begin that process and just walk away as conversion takes a while…especially if I have shot a LOT of images. Once the images have been converted, I’m done with the RAWS and eventually remove them to another hard drive dedicated to only RAW images. The JPG’s are then reviewed AGAIN and the best ones are copied into a separate folder (called EDITED), for actual EDITING of those images. For example, if I had shot 1000 images initially, by the time I am in the process of editing…I’m probably editing about 200 images. Once the images are edited to my liking, I then review them again (this is the 3rd pass of reviewing images), and copy those images I want to turn to B&W or artistically edited to a folder called (Artistic).

Once I have my edited images completed and the artistic images completed, I will then review them one last time to a folder called (POSTED IMAGES) of my FAVORITE images for posting to Facebook and then resize them to about 960 pixels on the longest axis.

You’ll notice I have not mentioned any software yet…so here is the software I used to do all of my editing. I use the OLD Photoshop CS2 (it’s probably 10-12 years old), and I never upgraded to Lightroom or any other program…I’m comfortable with Photoshop CS2 and use it to crop, do levels adjustments, curves, shadows and highlights…I do ALL of my artistic stuff using a program called PaintShop Pro 9, which I have used for more than 15 years. I’m much more comfortable in PaintShop Pro than I am in PhotoShop CS2, but I like the editing function of CS2 better.

So when I’m all done with my images…I will have done at the very least 4-5 passes of reviewing my images.

As for organization. My folders are named by date, TYPE of event, description and camera used. Here’s an example of what my Images Hard Drive looks like:

• E:Photography2018 Images2018-02-13_Music Hambone and Kingfish 1d
• E:Photography2018 Images2018-02-13_Music Hambone and Kingfish 7d
• E:Photography2018 Images2018-02-13_Music Hambone and Kingfish Edited
• E:Photography2018 Images2018-02-13_Music Hambone and Kingfish Posted

Here’s an example of what the naming nomenclature looks like on my Images Hard Drive with the image file:

• E:Photography2018 Images2018-02-13_Music Hambone and Kingfish Postedwjeos-1d mark iii_26864.jpg

For an average concert shoot of 1000 images, it generally takes me about 16 hours from processing to posting or preparing for print.

I hope this helps a little bit.