Digital Photographic Practice - Exercise 1

I have to admit I am something of a cynic where workflows are concerned. I have seen them used on multi-million pound building projects where the paperwork constitutes a filing cabinet full of material that seems to have little relationship to what is happening on the ground. Time lines and critical path analysis look and sound wonderful but do you really have to be told that the walls have to be built before you can put the roof on.

In the simplest terms the photographic process can be defined as:

• Decide what you want to do
• Go and do it
• Process the results
• Publish

Having got that off my chest I have created the following  workflow.

Objective

Portrait shoot. One session

Output - to Blog

Location

Choose location - Outdoors - Indoors

Equipment

Lighting

Available Light

Off Camera Flash

Studio Lighting

Camera

Canon 5D Mk II

Lens 24 - 70mm and/or 70 - 300mm

Colour Checker

X-Rite ColorChecker Passport

Computer

Mac OSX Snow Leopard with automatic back-up on external hard drive (1tb space)

Check

If other than available light check flash and/or studio lighting are working correctly and batteries do not need replacing.

Camera battery fully charged. Fully charged spare battery available.

Memory Card has sufficient space for planned shoot. Additional memory cards available.

Lens clean. Lens hoods available. Auto/Manual focus working correctly.

Computer. Ample space on hard drive and memory back up. Calibration within time schedule

Software for transfer and processing of images functional.

Shoot

Location

Having chosen location check lighting levels and finalise decision on available light or use of photographic lighting.

Decide on initial position of subject and test camera angles and lighting on subject.

Camera

Set and/or check all camera settings based on information from test.

Shoot test shots and check results using display and histogram

Carry out shoot checking results.

Back Home

Download

Download Images from Camera to Computer

Check

Using Bridge check images discarding all those with obvious technical faults or other unaccepptable results

Trawl second time awarding rating using star system

Check and discard images that are rated low

Identify

Name, number or otherwise identify all ‘keeps’ and place in separate folder(s)

Process

Using Camera RAW process individual images:

Apply Camera Profile as established by Colour Checker

If necessary check White Balance. Use temperature slider to get desired result

Use ‘Exposure’ in Camera RAW to set desired result

Add Contrast if necessary

Add Clarity and Variance

Use Adjustment Brush for local adjustments

Apply any finishing effects deemed to be necessary

Transfer image to Photoshop and finalise processing.

Save images in separate folder

Selection

Re-visit all remaining images and make final selection either several for clients approval or, if you are the sole arbiter the number you require.

Saving 

Include necessary metadata into file 

Publish

Transfer in desired forrmat to destination

The next step is to take the portrait images and see whether it works.