My Photographic Workflow (Updated)
With the advent of digital cameras and inexpensive memory cards it's possible to take take hundreds or thousands of pictures over a few days. A Workflow provides a standardized way to process all these shots and add relevant metadata (keywords, copyright info, etc.), "quickly" identify the best shots, and post process them to look their best (or at least close).
Everything starts with Photoshop Lightroom 3. Photos are imported from the camera card with Lightroom automatically adding metadata indicating copyright ownership. (The copyright ownership data is set up beforehand and includes name, contact information and copyright ownership declarations.)
Once the images are imported, Lightroom is used to assign keywords.Next up is identifying the best shots. Lightroom really shines for this. I use the Compare View in the Library Module to identify rejects first. These are the the out of focus, obviously terrible shots. After going through all the photos, the Photo/Delete Rejected Photos... command automatically removes them.
A second pass is made, looking for the standout shots. The Compare View and Survey modes are the primary tools for this. Often I'm looking at a series of shots of the same subject, trying to find the most expressive, best focus, etc. This is a go/no go decision. I do not grade them as very good, good, not so good, etc. It either makes the cut as a serious contender for use now or it's held in storage. A key point is the no go's are not deleted. They are good photos, but don't fit current needs. The photos that receive the go sign are moved into a "collection" for further processing.
My default settings for Lightroom "Develop" module set all processing steps off except one: Lens Corrections. This ensures lens distortion, aberration, and vignetting are removed. Finally, simple corrections with the tools under Lightroom's Basic tab are made: white balance, tone, spot removal, and red eye removal. This results in a collection of post processed Best Photos with full keyword and copyright metadata.
If the photo works as is, only two steps remain prior to publication: cropping as needed and output sharpening. Sharpener Pro 3.0 is run as an external editor from Lightroom to provide output sharpening for printing or display on the web.
If the photo doesn't work as is, it's off to Photoshop CS5 often for one or more of the effects in Color Efex Pro 3 does the trick. If noise is a problem, DFine 2 is applied. A luminosity blend may be tried if there's a contrast problem. A color blend may be tried to enhance colors using the "Man from Mars" technique. Other creative enhancements may be applied at this point using Mystical Tone, Tint, and Color. (Note the two blends mentioned were developed by Dan Margulis and are detailed in his book Professional Photoshop.) The crop and sharpen is done in Photoshop and the image returned to Lightroom for publishing.
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