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 Post subject: What's the heart of your workflow?
Unread postPosted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 7:53 pm 
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Maybe I'm old-fashioned or something, but I never seem to get on with "all-in-one" or media-management type applications. Two big ones that come to mind are of course Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture. Not that they're bad apps or anything, but I know and prefer a more traditional workflow.

I like to do my own filing and management (via the Finder on Mac OS X) and do my post-processing in the mother of all apps, Photoshop. I'll often use Bridge though to browse the files and directories. I know how Photoshop works, I have my own set of actions and my life revolves around the "Curves" dialog box...

I guess one thing I don't like is the notion of "libraries" or "catalogs" holding all my data either. Both Lightroom and Aperture have come a long way in this regard, so I do try them again every now and again but just never make the switch.

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 Post subject: Re: What's the heart of your workflow?
Unread postPosted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 4:17 pm 
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After a short switch to Aperture I'm back with Lightroom again. Main reason is that I want to be system independent and with LR I can go back to Windows any time.

The nice thing about Lightroom is that you can have two structures. The physical structure on the disc that's most of the time organized strictly chronological. Inside of Lightroom you see this structure but you can also build any other organization you want. I have virtual folders (collections) for "vacations", "photo tours", "family/home", "official events". Within a collection you can have more collections for a single vacation, event etc. I use this a lot.

Next good thing with LR is that you don't need all your photos on the disc for browsing. I only have the the current year on my local disc and two external discs that are not always with me or switched on. But I have a preview of every photo in LR so I can browse through everything I have. When a photo is not active I can not work with it but when I plug in the corresponding disc, I can instantly work with the photo.

What I don't do is excessive tagging of photos.


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 Post subject: Re: What's the heart of your workflow?
Unread postPosted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 4:37 pm 
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Double Negative wrote:
Maybe I'm old-fashioned or something, but I never seem to get on with "all-in-one" or media-management type applications. Two big ones that come to mind are of course Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture. Not that they're bad apps or anything, but I know and prefer a more traditional workflow.

I like to do my own filing and management (via the Finder on Mac OS X) and do my post-processing in the mother of all apps, Photoshop. I'll often use Bridge though to browse the files and directories. I know how Photoshop works, I have my own set of actions and my life revolves around the "Curves" dialog box...

...


I have played with curves a bit - so far, for B&W, I can't do better than the basic adjustments in Vuescan. For color, I have improved some shots significantly by playing with curves.

Unfortunately, "playing" is the operative word. Any suggestions as to good tutorials, especially from the standpoint of scanning negatives? Might you consider an article on the topic?

Randy


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 Post subject: Re: What's the heart of your workflow?
Unread postPosted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 5:01 pm 
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A book would help, I guess. Try one of Scott Kelby ones, if you can stand his funny remrks. They are excellent entry level books that will help you start in Photoshop or Lightroom. For Photoshop, apart from his " for photographers" series, I can really recommend " The Seven Point System" It is as simple as Jamie Oliver's cookbooks ;)
After that you can progress to Martin Evening and for Photoshop nerds there are of course the headache-inducing books of Dan Marguiles about the ins and outs of LAB colour. Really useful once you have mastered it (more or less :().
For sharpening techniques and a lot more there is the highly recommended "Real World Sharpening" by Schewe and Fraser. Or this PDF:
http://www.pixelgenius.com/tips/schewe-sharpening.pdf
Quite apart from that Adobe has hours and hours of excellent video tutorials on their website.


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 Post subject: Re: What's the heart of your workflow?
Unread postPosted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 5:24 pm 
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The heart of my workflow are photographs.
Without them the rest is just...............more computer work.


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 Post subject: Re: What's the heart of your workflow?
Unread postPosted: Fri Dec 02, 2011 1:07 pm 
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True - in the past we slaved away in the darkroom, now it is the computer :( At least no noxious fumes.


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 Post subject: Re: What's the heart of your workflow?
Unread postPosted: Fri Dec 02, 2011 1:22 pm 
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Jaapv wrote:
...At least no noxious fumes.

That was one of my favorite parts. ;)

"I love the smell of fixer in the morning. It smells, like... Victory!"

I think I'm going to have to give Lightroom a serious going over, as it does sound like it has some interesting features I could use.

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