Sunday, June 3, 2007

Editing The Raw Files...Part 2

Continuing from the 'Editing The Raw Files' post on Monday, May 28th :

9) With the DCIM folders safely backed up on multiple drives or disks ( DVD, CD etc...), its time to create the 'Editing Folders' that will be the back-bone of our 'Workflow'. To keep things organized, their must be a designated place for each edited or processed file that can be quickly accessed from your editing software and in the final stage from Adobe Photoshop. I find it easiest to create 1- 4 folders on my Computer's Desktop to hold the edited selects, before and after the software ( Conversion to Tiff ) processing. Each folder can be given a name that clearly explains what is inside. Example: ABCorp_RawEdits, ABCorp_Tif, ABCorp_WIP ( Work in progress ) and ABCorp _Final. The final folder is obviously the 8 or 16 bit PSD's or Tiff files after all color correction and manipulation. If you do anything freaky to them after that, create a new folder off the desktop for them and label it appropriately. When the job is edited , processed and delivered to the client you can move the folders off the desktop to a final 'Work Folder' with just the clients name and date.

Continued ...

APS-C Snobbery!

Some of you may be wondering why my focus seems to be exclusively on APS-C and Full frame Digital SLRs versus the medium format Hasselblads, Mamiyas and Large Format Digital Options that are currently available. The reasoning behind this is simple and partly selfish on my part. I believe that almost all my advice will easily translate to shooters who use large format capture devices or medium format digital cameras. Also, if your shooting with a Hasselblad H1, you probably have enough jack to pay someone to bring you up to speed on the whole digital thing! For the rest of us with meager budgets, the quality, clarity and file size offered by the new Canons and Nikon DSLRs is far beyond that which is needed to produce our work! Most of my images are reproduced at their largest as full page 'Magazine Covers' or the occasional 'Double Truck'. When a larger file size is required, upressing with 'Adobe Photoshop CS2' or 'Genuine Fractals' is an easy answer. 'Alien Skin Software ' has an excellent Photoshop Plug In called 'Blow Up' that will give you a more film-like-look when upressing. The Imaging Software Gurus at 'Alien Skin' also produce several of the most useful image enhancement software programs available. I currently use a little magic from their product 'Exposure' on almost every job I shoot.

More about 'Alien Skin' in a future post!