Post Process Workflow - Best Practice

[jonrayner]

Wondering if anyone is able to help.....
I am struggling with adopting the best practice in terms of post camera workflow. I have iPhoto and Photoshop elements 6 for the Mac which has a version of Bridge bundled in.

Currently I use iPhoto to manage all my photos and then use Photoshop Elements 6 as my editor.

I am very new to the Mac OS/ iPhoto and in actual fact fairly new to Photoshop Elements 6 and have never used Bridge. At present I seem to muddle my way through, but I do not believe that I am using the most effective way.

iphoto brings the photos in directly from my camera, and sorts it out into Events. If I click on a photo it uses Photoshop Elements to edit it.
I do not use Bridge at present.

Once I save the photo down after editing I seem to have to then import that photo back into iPhoto which seems to be a pain. However I believe that iPhoto always archives the original photo, so that if I do amend and save the photo in the iPhoto library it doesn't matter as it has a copy of the original photo anyway. iPhoto links seemlesslt into iWeb which is useful as I do not wish to spend too much time in the web site side of things.

What other work flows do people use, especially anyone who is using iphoto and PSE6?

[coffee]

I use PS CS3 and bridge. The nice thing about PS and bridge is they integrate into each other. Meaning, at least with the versions I use, you can go back and forth between the two while in both programs making editing and organizing so much faster.

I started using bridge later in the year (2008) when I spent the winter organizing and editing all my images. Like you I use to use two programs to do this. Since then I found more time for other things because of the fluid nature of the two. There is a learning curve to bridge, but I'm glad I made the jump. Bridge is very powerful in organizing photos, and it does it all: Organizing, moving, rating, tagging, meta data, everything. The search engine is unbelievable too. You can search with any criteria found in Bridge. Like stated above, I can jump from one to another with a photo very easily. I do suggest learning and using it for a time and see if it works for you.

As far as work flow, that is a huge subject and you won't find two work flows alike. I also spent a lot of time during the winter trying to come to grips with it, and I have something in place, but still working on it. I would suggest doing searches on photography work flows and start reading up on it. There is lots out there.

[jonrayner]

I use PS CS3 and bridge. The nice thing about PS and bridge is they integrate into each other. Meaning, at least with the versions I use, you can go back and forth between the two while in both programs making editing and organizing so much faster.

I started using bridge later in the year (2008) when I spent the winter organizing and editing all my images. Like you I use to use two programs to do this. Since then I found more time for other things because of the fluid nature of the two. There is a learning curve to bridge, but I'm glad I made the jump. Bridge is very powerful in organizing photos, and it does it all: Organizing, moving, rating, tagging, meta data, everything. The search engine is unbelievable too. You can search with any criteria found in Bridge. Like stated above, I can jump from one to another with a photo very easily. I do suggest learning and using it for a time and see if it works for you.

As far as work flow, that is a huge subject and you won't find two work flows alike. I also spent a lot of time during the winter trying to come to grips with it, and I have something in place, but still working on it. I would suggest doing searches on photography work flows and start reading up on it. There is lots out there.

Thanks for the reply Joseph, I'll look into the Bridge software. In terms of the workflow, I uderstand it is quite an open book, no way is correct or incorrect! I think I am trying to run before I walk, as I am trying to get the perfect process for me immediately so that I don't waste time redoing something that I am doing now!

[coffee]

I know what you mean. Now that I know more about PS and work flow, I plan on going back and PPing all my best images once again. I see thing in them now that can be much improved now that I know more editing techniques. But I've put it off until I'm satisfied with a work flow that is leak proof. If that's possible. And one of the best things you can do as far as work flow, is to save a master copy of your work as PS file with layers. I never did that early on and looking back that could have been the best thing I could have done. I could have just gone back and changed things instead of starting over like I'm going to put myself through. It takes up a huge amount of space, but I found it to be worth it. So do yourself a favor and save in a format that has layers, and so you can change as many things as possible in the event you want to go back and work on them again at some point.

[jonrayner]

I know what you mean. Now that I know more about PS and work flow, I plan on going back and PPing all my best images once again. I see thing in them now that can be much improved now that I know more editing techniques. But I've put it off until I'm satisfied with a work flow that is leak proof. If that's possible. And one of the best things you can do as far as work flow, is to save a master copy of your work as PS file with layers. I never did that early on and looking back that could have been the best thing I could have done. I could have just gone back and changed things instead of starting over like I'm going to put myself through. It takes up a huge amount of space, but I found it to be worth it. So do yourself a favor and save in a format that has layers, and so you can change as many things as possible in the event you want to go back and work on them again at some point.

Good tip, thank you, I shall start that tonight! I assume that would be saving in a PSD or TIFF format?

[coffee]

Yes. I don't really know that drawback of one over the other, but since my native editing is in PS I choose the PSD format.

[coffee]

I thought I would post a few link for you jon. It might be for other versions, but the workflow should be similar.

http://www.google.com/search?q=PSD+file+work+with+PSE&rls=com.microsoft:*&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1

http://www.flickr.com/photos/luca_eos/

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=667409&highlight=noise+ninja

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-use-bridge-cs3-in-a-photography-workflow-4017/

[jonrayner]

Thanks for these links Joseph, I am still wading through them. Not sure if I am clearer or more confused! I am liking the look of Bridge though, that last link had a good work flow which I am trying to fit into my life.

[coffee]

Great, I hope they can help some. There are tons of other work flow hits out there. One drawback to having so much stuff to look at is they are all different and it gets confusing which way to turn sometimes.

One drawback to Bridge, even though I find it the best out there for organizing your images is that it's hard on resources. Especially when you jump back and forth with PS. But it really is a one stop shop, and that makes it worth restarting from time to time.

[jonrayner]

Hey Joseph
Hope all is well. Just thought I would post an update on the ongoing quest for the perfect workflow!
I am now, just in the last week or so, getting into Aperture 2. I am finding that this is suiting me a whole lot more. I find that it keeps all my photos in one central place so that I can track them easier and it is simplifying my workload.
My old method was that I would import them into Bridge CS3 and rate them, filter them etc. I would then create a new folder within Bridge to to put the amended (I shoot RAW, so they all need to be amended) photos in, which would have been amended in photoshop elements. Then I would import the amended photos into iphoto to be able to link into other areas in the Mac OS, such as iweb. iphoto would then also make an original copy. So I was then getting 2 copies in iphoto and 2 copies in Bridge of almost the same photo. It was getting messy and filling up the disk space unnecessarily. Also I was using 3 different applications to carry out very basic things. I was becoming increasingly frustrated! It seemed to be a very disjointed thing and I seemed to be fighting against the software as opposed to working with it!
Along came Aperture 2. Wow..... Already my life seems to be easier. I import into aperture, rate the shots and discard the rubbish. I then concentrate on the 3* and up shots and tweak them, directly in aperture. I find that most (80%+) of my shots, I only use basic editing, such as cropping, exposure tweak etc. These basic tweaks are all carried out within aperture. The imported photos are kept within a 'project'. All amendments to the photos are kept in an adjustment file and the original photo is untouched, thus this is all a non-destructive process. Also, as it is an adjustment file, there is still only one copy of the file and it is the original, untouched RAW file. I then create a smart album from within the project that includes all 4*+ shots. If I then change the rating of a, say 3* shot to a 4* shot, it is automatically included into the smart album. Then, aperture automatically links in with the rest of the Mac OS, so I can very quickly update iweb and have the album on the web site for my family to look at without having to go into another software.
I have downloaded a free plug in for aperture; facebook exporter. This enables my wife to go in to aperture and select the photos from the album and send them to facebook. It makes it so simply to use, where as before I had to convert the images from RAW into JPG so that she could then find the images she wanted to send up. She can now do this all by herself!
If I need to perform more detailed adjustments, aperture links into PSE, so that I can use it's power. It then saves the new file as a version of the original within aperture. So instantly i can then see which shots I have been used in photoshop.
Aperture has become a central hub for all my photo management. It has enabled me to have one place where I can perform most of my daily tasks. Only on more complex adjustments, do I need to use PSE. Also disk space is being saved as everything is kept within one place. It's main rival is Adobe Lightroom 2, which I was originally going to trial as well, so that I could see which one suited me best, but Aperture has solved by issues so conclusively that I have felt no need to look at it. Also with Aperture being made by Apple, the interaction with all my other software is seamless.
I think that I am finally happy with my workflow, although I still now need to import all my older photos from Bridge and iphoto, which is going to take a while!!!
How is your workflow going, have you now mastered it?
Jon

[coffee]

Hi Jon and glad to hear that your new workflow is running smoothly. Yes I have had my workflow nailed down for about 5 months now. Family pictures and such is very easy because I don't do much post to them, the workflow I finally developed is strictly for the images I upload on my stock selling sites which is somewhat lengthy.

I have heard great things about Lightroom and wish I would have considered that before developing my workflow. It may have made things a bit easier, but now that I'm comfortable with what I have, I will stick with it till I have more time to try other things.

Thanks for the info.

[jonrayner]

I have heard great things about Lightroom and wish I would have considered that before developing my workflow. It may have made things a bit easier, but now that I'm comfortable with what I have, I will stick with it till I have more time to try other things.

That's the problem, once you have a work flow that suits you, it must very hard to change. I am looking forward to sticking to this one workflow now. I am fed up with all the changing, don't know whether I m coming or going!