# How much time do you spend on processing your photos?



## Redreflex (Aug 1, 2011)

Out of curiosity and of my current struggles of working out the most efficient way of dealing with my rapidly accumulating photos, how much time/effort do people spend on post-processing in general? 

I take family/toddler/travel photos purely as a hobbyist. I can see a huge difference in IQ of my 7D captured photos between in-camera jpg and RAW captures. So all I do is shoot in RAW, download to Aperture, do the occasional exposure adjustment, and that's it. I then export to jpg as required. Can't imagine doing the multitude of adjustments that are possible with Aperture, let alone more sophisticated software like Photoshop, LR, DxO etc. I know you can run macro changes to batch of photos. That's still a lot of post-processing time, if you consider I typically take 2000 photos on a 2 week vacation.

I accept that it's difficult to generalise these things, but how much post-processing do you do, either in terms of time, or number of steps? What would you realistically do for a batch of 2000 personal travel/holiday photos which would include a mixture of indoors/outdoors, people/landscape/architecture, all shot in RAW?


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Aug 1, 2011)

I personally find that lightroom is excellent for handling large batches of images. You can correct one image and then select all 2000 or just a few and apply the same corrections or just selected corrections to the whole batch in seconds.

Examples;

Change aspect ratio to 8.5 X 11

Almost every adjustment can be applied to all photos from cropping, aspect ratio, noise reduction, color, exposure, lens corrections, sharpening, etc.

That creates a starting point to complete the editing.

with Lightroom, you do not actually change the image, the image adjustment settings are recorded in a database and can be changed or undone without ever affecting the original file.

Then, when you are ready, you can render a copy of the original image to jpeg or other format with all your edits. You can always go back and do them over, or even make multiple versions done different ways. Need something done in Photoshop, click edit in photoshop, do your photoshop edits and return to lightroom.

I commonly take large numbers of images, and process them in Lightroom very quickly.

I flag the images according to my personal rating so that only the best ones are printed or uploaded to my website, no one would want to see 2000 photos.


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## Canihaspicture (Aug 1, 2011)

I used to take that many pictures... 

How many of those 2000 photos would you be willing to print large and hang in your home? How many of those do you think would sell if you tried to sell them?

I started taking photography more seriously and thinking before I shoot. It resulted in far fewer shots which out of those I still rate them and then really edit the good ones. I do it all in Lightroom because it is nondestructive and super fast. 

For photos that I really consider snapshots more than anything else I just adjust exposure, maybe white balance, set the black and white points, maybe a little contrast adjustment via tone curve and I'm done. It takes under a minute. If I am editing a photo that I might post online, or print, etc. I will spend significantly more time per image.

If you can control the lighting and/or dynamic range of the scene then your post processing time drops dramatically too. I only have one strobe, but if I decide to use it, you better believe my exposure is spot on and my post processing will be measured in seconds (as long as no retouching is needed).

Like I said I rate my pics first and start editing the best ones first... There's also no real reason to edit the photos that you don't plan on doing anything with except saving them to look at later.


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## neuroanatomist (Aug 1, 2011)

My average over time is ~250 shots/week (spread across 5DII/7D/S95), and I spend a fair bit of time with post processing. The first step is triage - as Mt Spokane Photography stated, no one wants to see all your images, and you probably don't want to keep them all. A personal pet peeve is the photographic equivalent of babbling - Flickr or Smugmug pages filled with multiple versions of the same basic image. Edit, edit, edit. Pick the best, most memorable images from a set and toss the rest. 

The next step is post processing - that's where most of the time is spent. With effective triage, you minimize the amount of time spent tweaking each image, or put another way, effective triage frees up your time to bring out the best in your best images.

The final (optional) step is conversion to JPG. You may only need to do that for images you want to share (via the web or prints).

Personally, I use Aperture for triage, DxO for global adjustments (exposure, corrections, etc.) and RAW conversion, and Photoshop CS5 for selective editing, and back to Aperture for library organization. It's a somewhat complex workflow, to be honest, but it gives me the results I want.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Aug 1, 2011)

Canihaspicture said:


> I used to take that many pictures...
> 
> How many of those 2000 photos would you be willing to print large and hang in your home? How many of those do you think would sell if you tried to sell them?
> 
> ...



Yes, indeed, rate them first! I usually reduce the number to 30% on my first cut and work a little more on them before reducing them further. i typically produce albums for local theater events for the cast, and may include 100-130 images as finally selected by the director from a group of 300-500 images I've processed.

I have it down now to spending only about 3 or 4 hours for the first cut, and then about 16 hours for editing the remaining images. It only takes a hour or two to prepare the album once the images are selected.

I was going to attach a pdf copy, but its 57mb, and reducing it further would make it look pretty awful.


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## motorhead (Aug 1, 2011)

I probably tend to spend between 15 minutes and 30 minutes per image for those that I consider are worth processing. However I have spend many hours on a few very special shots. These tend to be images that need extremely careful, subtle "massaging" to draw out the best.

I certainly don't process all my RAW images, only those that I believe deserve the effort. But I enjoy the time I spend doing all this and certainly don't consider it work. Each image is processed entirely on it's own merits. with no bulk processing.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Aug 1, 2011)

As you can see from the posters above, there is no absolute right method or wrong method. We all have developed a methodology that meets our needs and we are, at least reasonably satisfied with. 

If you are producing images for large prints, spending a considerable amount of time per image will be required. If you are going to print at 4X6, less time will be needed. Internet photos will be a case by case decision, it can be difficult to make a low resolution image on the internet really pop.

I typically make one large print of the entire cast that is a panorama like format about 40 inches long and 17 inches high. The students sign the margins and present it to the teacher / director. A few prints are 8X10, and the other 100 plus are about 3.5 X 5 (4 to a 8.5 X 11 page). The biggest difficulty is getting colors to print right with a laser printer so that the images pop and look photographic. The cost of printing all the albums on 34 pages of photo paper are far to expensive for the students who perform in the theater events to afford.


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## unfocused (Aug 1, 2011)

I'll try not to repeat too much of what others have said, but also try to answer your specific question.



> What would you realistically do for a batch of 2000 personal travel/holiday photos which would include a mixture of indoors/outdoors, people/landscape/architecture, all shot in RAW?



First, I think about what pictures I have and mentally divide them into two categories. Category one I'll call "friends and family" and category two I'll call "portfolio."

Friends and family are the pictures that will go up on my Facebook page to be shared with (you guessed it) friends and family. Most of these fall into a "snapshot" category. They are the obligatory pictures that I take to prove I was there and to re-live the personal experience. They are generally heavy on family and other travel companions, but also include scenics that are nice, but frankly, unlikely to be all that much different than thousands of other pictures taken by visitors to that particular location. These pictures will never show up in my portfolio, but instead are destined for family albums or the electronic equivalent. At the most, I'll maybe need two dozen of these. (Who wants to see more than that?) 

These pictures get some post-processing to make sure the subjects look good, the color is good and the cropping works. I give them enough work so that I won't be embarrassed by them, but don't worry about the fine points that only matter to me. 

I usually get these out of the way first so I can get to the "fun stuff" the handful of images that may make it into a portfolio. 

The second batch are the "portfolio" images. These are the ones that I think I may want to include in my collection of personal bests. Of course, there is likely to be some overlap, so I may give these an initial post-processing with the intent of going back later and fine-tuning them.

In order to pare these down, do some simple math. Imagine that an average of just five pictures taken every month makes it to your portfolio. In a year, you'd have 60 images for your portfolio and in five years you'd have 300, which is way more than you need. (To put this in perspective, think about the work of your favorite photographer. Chances are you can't visualize more than a half-dozen of his or her images. Do you really think you need more images in your portfolio than Edward Weston?)

Instead of thinking about the 2,000 exposures I took, I think about the five or six images I want to add to my portfolio. Then it becomes pretty easy. Usually, I know what those images were before I even get home so I can quickly review the image files to see if those five or six really work. 

I'm under no deadline to get these done, so I can take my time and process them the way I want. I usually start with the ones I'm most excited about and work backwards from there. When I've got those five or six done, I've usually discovered a few others that I want to play with. 

At some point, I'll have moved on to the next shoot (for me, these are self-assignments since I don't do this for money). I will have processed the images that I know I want and I can let the other 1,950 or so images sit untouched on my hard drive, secure in the knowledge that they will be there if I ever get the time to revisit them.


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## Haydn1971 (Aug 2, 2011)

I've just started using RAW & Lightroom, I've noticed a big difference in picture quality, but as mentioned above, I've loads of "family and friends" shots and a smaller selection of my favourites, which currently get uploaded to flickr, then an even smaller selection that makes it to our company screensaver - it's nice getting comments at work about my photos, even if I know I could have done better.

Since moving to Lightroom, I'm mindful that whilst I can access the RAW files now, will I be able to in 10 years time ? So I've continued to batch process images into jpeg and store them in with my previous method of storage... folders ! I've now got the advantage of both worlds where I can get the higher quality output, but ensure longer term accessibility - I can't see jpeg disappearing any time soon, but fully expect the RAW compatabilty with my 450D to disappear much earlier.

I have some old classics from 10 yrs ago taken on a cheap 2mpx Fujifilm digital compact, these or memories for me, of places I've been and people I've known, regardless of quality, these images are very important to me but represent zero time in post editing. Always be mindful of that aspect of photography and that once you are dust, no one will be looking through your hard drive in the same way as people now look through old photo prints... Which is a rather sad thought :-/


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## Redreflex (Aug 2, 2011)

Thank you all for the prompt and helpful replies. So first off, I need to qualify the "2000 photos" - apologies about the lack of info on my part. So in fact, with that example, I took 4700 photos, deleted 60+%, and am left with 1700 photos. How many photos one takes is dependent on a myriad of factors. I'll be the first to put my hand up to say that I can certainly cut down on the number (and I should!). However, my wife and I (and both our parents) treasure all these photos immensely, in part due to our love of the minutiae and multitude of facials expressions of our toddler son.

If and when I do upload photos on Facebook, it typically in numbers of <50. I occasionally extract some for printing calendars etc, but vast majority stay exclusively in a digital form.



Mt Spokane Photography said:


> I personally find that lightroom is excellent for handling large batches of images. You can correct one image and then select all 2000 or just a few and apply the same corrections or just selected corrections to the whole batch in seconds.



I haven't been able to do that successfully in Aperture yet. I think a batch change of a maximum of 20-30 photos at a time is possible, because that is probably the limit of how many I'd take in a particular setting. Nonetheless, that'd be useful. 



Mt Spokane Photography said:


> I flag the images according to my personal rating so that only the best ones are printed or uploaded to my website, no one would want to see 2000 photos.





Canihaspicture said:


> Like I said I rate my pics first and start editing the best ones first... There's also no real reason to edit the photos that you don't plan on doing anything with except saving them to look at later.





unfocused said:


> The second batch are the "portfolio" images. These are the ones that I think I may want to include in my collection of personal bests. Of course, there is likely to be some overlap, so I may give these an initial post-processing with the intent of going back later and fine-tuning them.



Yes agree with all of you. Rating/grouping helps tremendously. So from that example of 1700 photos I've got left, 241 are rated 3 star or better (out of 5). OK, that's a slightly more manageable number. But actually, even to go through each of those 241 photos, and spend say 2 (very conservative) minutes on each, that's 482 minutes, or just over 6 hours. Wow, that's a lot of time to spend processing photos.



motorhead said:


> I probably tend to spend between 15 minutes and 30 minutes per image for those that I consider are worth processing. However I have spend many hours on a few very special shots. These tend to be images that need extremely careful, subtle "massaging" to draw out the best.
> 
> I certainly don't process all my RAW images, only those that I believe deserve the effort. But I enjoy the time I spend doing all this and certainly don't consider it work. Each image is processed entirely on it's own merits. with no bulk processing.



I take my hat off to you - you must be a perfectionist! If I do put in 15-30 minutes on each... wow... I'd have to give up my real job.



neuroanatomist said:


> My average over time is ~250 shots/week (spread across 5DII/7D/S95), and I spend a fair bit of time with post processing. The first step is triage - as Mt Spokane Photography stated, no one wants to see all your images, and you probably don't want to keep them all. A personal pet peeve is the photographic equivalent of babbling - Flickr or Smugmug pages filled with multiple versions of the same basic image. Edit, edit, edit. Pick the best, most memorable images from a set and toss the rest.



So 250/week would be completely out of the question for me - I'd certainly feel I've missed out on capturing stuff I'd really like to have for keeps. Thankfully (for you neuro! ), I don't upload photos onto any Flickr-type sites.



neuroanatomist said:


> Personally, I use Aperture for triage, DxO for global adjustments (exposure, corrections, etc.) and RAW conversion, and Photoshop CS5 for selective editing, and back to Aperture for library organization. It's a somewhat complex workflow, to be honest, but it gives me the results I want.



I'm stating the obvious, but I presume you find the adjustments functionality less than adequate on Aperture, even though it's not an amateur photo management/editing programme?

With Aperture, do you have 1 large library? Or do you have multiple libraries across several external drives? I fear I have to consider the latter soon, as these 25-30MB RAW files are just eating my hard disk for breakfast.



unfocused said:


> At some point, I'll have moved on to the next shoot (for me, these are self-assignments since I don't do this for money). I will have processed the images that I know I want and I can let the other 1,950 or so images sit untouched on my hard drive, secure in the knowledge that they will be there if I ever get the time to revisit them.



That's the problem I have right now. Photos that aren't bad enough to delete, but just taking up too much space! Gotta use that DELETE button more.

I guess there isn't a panacea for my photography woes! What I'll need to do is:

1. Organise photos better. Continue to use Aperture as my library. More vigorous rating and deleting.
2. Processing photos. Establish a system. Looks like I'll eventually have to give in to a Lightroom / DxO / Photoshop, as the consensus from other threads on this forum appears to be that noise reduction (amongst other things) is significantly better than Aperture. It's disappointing, because I was under the impression I can do vast majority of editing with Aperture. Yet another software interface to have to deal with!

So what about DPP? It seems pretty impressive in terms of being able to more finely apply/adjust various in-camera settings like white balance etc in the comforts of your computer. I guess you guys don't find it all that useful?

And when you take a photo into LR/Photoshop/DxO, in what order do you typically adjust a photo? Exposure, highlights/shadows, then NR, then curves, then xxx? Because I so rarely adjust photos, I know next to nothing about how to really do it properly... I do a little exposure adjustment and that's about it!


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## V8Beast (Aug 2, 2011)

Almost all of my work is for editorial outlets, and the typical feature story runs anywhere from 4-6 pages. My clients usually expect 40-50 final images to choose from, and from there, they will only run 12-16 images in print. So, after you bust your butt in the field and in post production, 2/3rds of your images aren't even used. That, in addition to the fact that editorial work isn't the best-paying gig out there, means that it literally doesn't pay to spend lots of time processing your images. You simply can't afford to do it. Spending an extra two minutes per shot to get things right in camera can often save me ten minutes in post processing. Multiply that by 40-50 images, and the time savings is substantial, and impacts the quantity of assignments you can turn around. 

The big wild card with editorial work is that the size the images are run at in print varies tremendously. In my line of work, there will usually be 1-2 two-page spreads per story, and all the other images can range anywhere in size from 1x1.5 to 8.5x11. Naturally, it makes more sense to spend more time processing the images that will run large, but on the other hand, there's no way to predict which images the art director will decide to run as a two-page spread. Consequently, you can't get lazy and spend less time processing certain images just because you don't think they're going to be printed in a large size, which is all the more reason to minimize the need to process images in the first place. 

All that said, it usually takes between 4-8 hours for me to process a batch of 40-50 images. An image that is potentially two-page spread material can take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour to edit, whereas I spend less than 7 minutes editing a typical shot. In scenarios where I can very closely manipulate the lighting and all the other elements that can add to or detract from the image in the field, I won't edit them at all. 

Again, it all depends on the image, your client, and how much work you have to turn around each month in order to pay the bills. Super high-end commercial photogs that charge $5K-plus a day are only expected to submit a handful of photos, and can therefore afford to spend hours or days processing one image. This is in an entirely different league from most professional work, and these photogs have the budget to hire assistants not just in the field, but to process the images as well. It's no wonder this upper-most tier of photography is being replaced entirely by CGI. 

As for the typical family snap shots or vacation photos, those don't get any post processing love at all


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## Redreflex (Aug 2, 2011)

V8Beast said:


> All that said, it usually takes between 4-8 hours for me to process a batch of 40-50 images. An image that is potentially two-page spread material can take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour to edit, whereas I spend less than 7 minutes editing a typical shot.



That's very insightful, thank you.




V8Beast said:


> As for the typical family snap shots or vacation photos, those don't get any post processing love at all



No money for these, but they are the only ones that experience true love!


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## aldvan (Aug 2, 2011)

After long years of Kodachrome, I love digital photography since it gives me the total control of results. For that reason, I never take pictures in jpg but just in raw format. I'm not a professional, so I'm free to spend my time without be pushed by deadlines or other goals rather than my own appreciation. I process all my raw, provided they are not badly out of focus, blurred or irremediably over or under exposed. Processing with LR 3.4 can do miracles to pictures apparently bad. And what seems a good picture, as coming from the camera, after a good and cautious post processing will acquire unexpected qualities. Furthemore, working on each picture you learn by yourself a lot more than any stage can do.
Since, as I said before, I'm not a pro, I needn't to process groups of pictures together. No picture is like an other. You need to crop individually, to enhance that color instead of another, to sharpen or not to sharpen, to adjust some chromatic aberration.
Obviously there many reasons to take pictures. When the main one is your own pleasure to read and interpret your own perception of reality, it makes no sense to cut corners...


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## bycostello (Aug 2, 2011)

i delete ruthlessly and then after a straighten, colour and exposure adjust if required i'm pretty much good. get it right in camera to avoid lenthy post is the key.


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## motorhead (Aug 2, 2011)

I only shoot RAW and have the images open in DPP with lowered contrast and saturation. This means I have more work to do but gives me a better starting point. It also means I have no chance of "getting it right in camera". I may be strange, but I actually like post-processing so its no hardship.


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## tomscott (Aug 2, 2011)

All digital images need post production. I have all my in camera settings set to 0 as i dont like the camera adding sharpness or contrast before I start my workflow. 

All digital images need some sharpening to bring out their best, also levels adjustments and white balance. Just to get the image to a point that makes it useable. Also all images need some touching up, removing distracting elements, dust, distortion etc.

My workflow is ...
â€¢ Import files into Lightroom (as a library)
â€¢ Star rate and flag
â€¢ Make smart albums of my star ratings 
â€¢ Then I work on these images with the above
â€¢ All my effects are produced through Photoshop, even if it is softening skin, I like to touch my photos in photoshop too 
as Lightrooms tools drive me insane.
â€¢ Flatten the image and save it as a .tiff or .psd depending on the type of effects and whether I may want to edit the 
result in the future.
â€¢ That brings it back into Lightroom as a version and I export from there.

Depending on what I am shooting changes my workflow.

If i am shooting a wedding I will make a new Lightroom library and store it and a copy, generally on an external drive. Then I can take it with me and edit the pics on the fly, then when coming back to my main machine I just update the library with the changes. Make workflow very easy and convenient. 

The faster you can determine the best workflow for you, the faster you can get on with sorting the bad from the good, finish editing and get back out with the camera. Because lets be honest everyone prefers being out with the camera than being in front of a machine editing. 

For special images I may spend up to an hour, but only if I am bringing multiple images to create a perfect image. If I am happy with the original then 5 mins is all thats needed. 

If you ask me, I preferred shooting in film for this reason. If you only have between 12-36 frames on a film, its stops you shooting the crap, and makes you look, and look again until the picture is perfect. As an exercise I like to go out with a tripod and a 100mb CF card and spend a whole day shooting. The satisfaction of those images at the end of the day is immense. It teaches you to look, slows down the process, making you be very specific and reduces the time you need to spend editing. Because at the end of the day looking and watching is key.

Henry Cartier Bresson said that he would be lucky if he had one perfect frame out of 36. If you are that critical with your own imagery you will find you will evolve as a photographer extremely quickly and will be shooting some incredible imagery. 

Tom Scott


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## Canihaspicture (Aug 2, 2011)

Call me crazy but lately I have been using the Cinestyle profile to take photos in RAW. Obviously this has no effect on the RAW file but it allows me to better shoot to the right of the histogram and allows me to more properly see a truer dynamic range of the capture since I can see it on the LCD. When I shoot standard I get highlight warnings which are not actually clipped in the RAW file, Cinestyle reduces that.

I don't personally use DPP since Lightroom covers everything I can think of. Sometime I start like Motorhead so in Lightroom I use the preset General - Zeroed to see the zeroed low contrast, flat, RAW file.


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## Hillsilly (Aug 2, 2011)

I'm not a pro, but this is what I do. I download the files onto my computer. I then open up the files using Windows Photo Viewer. I spend maybe 10-30 seconds per photo deciding if I like it. I don't bother with a star rating system. It is simply "Keep" or "Delete". I'm ruthless with deleting. Anything which isn't 90% right gets deleted (unless it has some sentimental value of course). I generally cut the number of photos by more than half in the first round of deleting. On the second round, I delete more. I keep going until I'm left with the ones I like. Depending on the number of photos, this could take takes 20 minutes to an hour.

I then use DXO Optics to do the RAW processing on the final photos. My initial move is to use the automated defaults on DXO. Therefore, I just start it running and the magic all happens in the background. 

I generally like the default DXO options, but its not perfect. For a handful of photos I'll tinker with the settings. But I would rarely spend more than ten minutes doing this. However, like everyone, there are photos that I just keep going back to and spending lots of time on.

So to answer your question - 10 to 30 seconds to decide if the photo is a keeper. I might keep about 10%. These go through DXO Optics' automated processing. For a handful of photos I'll spend a few more minutes doing minor adjustments. I get through a few hundred photos in under two hours.


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## Edwin Herdman (Aug 2, 2011)

tomscott said:


> All digital images need post production. [...] All digital images need some sharpening to bring out their best, also levels adjustments and white balance.


Here is my situation where post production was not the answer:

Earlier today I shot into a hydrangea bloom with the TS-E 90mm f/2.8. Since I have mostly given up using the tilt at the closest focus distance, I tried some different focus settings for sharpness and to have a good range to pick out later (much better than spending yet more time with Live View than necessary).

Some pictures showed the stigma (female parts, fluffy looking from a distance, spiky covering in macro) and others showed the stamens or anthers (male parts, clumpy, look like yellow caviar clumps), which was a slightly closer focus setting. As it turned out, the best picture of the group was one in which the focus point was really set to neither, but somewhat inbetween, focused on a short section of petal with a water droplet on it. The spiky parts of the stigma, while natural and correct, might not be pleasing to everybody as they resemble thorns. On the other hand, focusing closer to get the anthers in focus would throw the focus too far off the stigma. A bit like a human portrait where some softness can often be desired, and achieved by the lens itself.

Aside from some quibbles with my composition and focus selection, my main problem with the image is that I unthinkingly kept ISO at 400 - which is still pleasantly smooth but I had more than enough light for a ISO 100 or 200 setting (shutter speed at f/2.8 was over 1600th of a second).

The bottom line is that image composition succeeded or failed because of the background blur, the focus point selection, and not by the addition of artificial sharpening routines. The relatively high ISO setting didn't appreciably damage it, and sharpening wouldn't have helped.

I will have to white balance the other pictures I took, for the most part, because I had the camera set to incandescent, instead of cloudy. I set the WB in-camera correctly for the other shots. All that remains for this photo is to simply run it through DPP.


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## Edwin Herdman (Aug 2, 2011)

Hillsilly said:


> Anything which isn't 90% right gets deleted (unless it has some sentimental value of course).


Not to pick on what you wrote, but I find I cannot make this judgement in the first, second, or even the third pass sometimes. I have a more relaxed method (since I don't have to make money off what I do) which means I generally shoot photos, come back and load them on the computer, and then:

- First pass is to look for photos that are outstanding or plain wrong. I do this in Irfanview. The "good" photos get mentally tagged; if I get around to looking at the set in DPP I can use the star system (5 stars for good photos; other settings are just placeholders). Bad photos (terrible exposure, blur, nothing interesting going on) get deleted outright.

- Second and sometimes third pass is to look for photos with more subtle problems: Slight amounts of motion blur (bird photography for example) almost always gets a photo deleted if otherwise it is similar (unless I don't have another to replace it with; likewise incorrect focus (small-scale nature photography i.e. flowers) can get a picture deleted.

- Assuming everything is in order in the remaining exposures, I then can look at the remaining files to nitpick for the best composition and so on.


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## RuneL (Aug 2, 2011)

10 minutes, rarely more.


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## unfocused (Aug 3, 2011)

Redreflex:

I'm giving you an internet forum version of a slap upside the head! 

Don't listen to these folks, listen to me. 

Just kidding...sort of.

Seriously though, think about what you are asking. You have the most beautiful, precious, intelligent, clever, talented child to have ever walked the face of the earth. So, do you want to spend time with him or with his pictures?

If it's not the latter, then let's focus on saving some time here.

1) Ignore everything about deleting photos. Your time is more valuable than drive space. A 3TB of memory is $140 at Best Buy and the price is dropping. Every minute you spend deleting images is a minute that could be spent either editing a picture or better yet, enjoying your son.

2) Ignore everything about additional programs. Do you really want to take the time to learn some new program so you can spend even more time editing pictures? Learn to use the program you already have and when you outgrow it and feel a strong need for something else, then move on, but don't go out and buy some new program based on what someone on this forum gets off on. 

3) Don't worry about some future change in image formats. When a change occurs, there will be several years of backward compatibility available. You can decide what to do then. 

4) Don't get freaked out by the 2,000 (or more) pictures that you think you have to go through. Concentrate on the task at hand. Let's say you have four hours a week you want to spend editing photos. Okay, each time you sit in front of the computer pick the one shot you most want to post or have printed. Work on that one until it's "good enough" then move on to the next one. Don't look back. If you get five done in a night, that's five more than you had before you started.

5) You'll get faster and more ruthless with time and experience. 

6) Those 1,995 pictures you don't get to aren't going anywhere. They will be there when you are retired and enjoying the grand-kids (and, hopefully, have more time to play with the images as well). That's the whole advantage of digital: the bytes never go bad. Besides, you'll enjoy the pictures even more when you are old and grey and so will your wife, kids and grand-kids.

7) Finally, don't waste your time on this forum. That's time you could be spending either editing pictures or playing with your kid. (This one falls into the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do category).


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## Redreflex (Aug 3, 2011)

unfocused said:


> (This one falls into the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do category).



Does this apply to your entire post?


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## zerotiu (Aug 3, 2011)

For the photos I like usually I spent 15 minutes. Opening the RAW file, tweaking the RAW file , converting to JPEG, tweaking the JPEG again and maybe adding some text or signature


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## unfocused (Aug 3, 2011)

Redreflex said:


> unfocused said:
> 
> 
> > (This one falls into the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do category).
> ...



Hah! Probably. But not intentionally.


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## Hillsilly (Aug 3, 2011)

Another way to answer your question - my last big family holiday was March to April 2010. I came back with over 8,000 photos. It was only a couple of weeks ago that I ordered a photobook of my favourites. Therefore, how long do I spend processing photos? About 15 months.

In relation to deleting photos. My wife would never delete a photo of our kids. Whereas, I tend to think that I've got 10s of thousands of photos of them already and it has to be something pretty good / interesting to keep. I just find that deleting photos makes things more workeable and easier to find. For example, I tend to copy all my favourites onto a PS3 as I like to run slideshows while listening to music. I simply copy the whole folder. Same with uploading to Smugmug, photoprinting etc.

But when I said I deleted anything that wasn't perfect, I was probably thinking about general photography. For fun, I enter photo competitions and club challenges and for this, a photo is either good or not. But I generally also keep the ones that are close enough. I've a much lower threshold for family photos and take the opposite approach - I keep everything except the ones that are really bad. But as pointed out, disk space is cheap so there is no real need to do this.


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## tomscott (Aug 3, 2011)

Edwin Herdman said:


> tomscott said:
> 
> 
> > All digital images need post production. [...] All digital images need some sharpening to bring out their best, also levels adjustments and white balance.
> ...



TBH ISO 400 really shouldn't matter, most modern cameras exceed in quality up to about ISO 600 and are extremely useable. If you had shot at 1000+ then yes you may have had an issue. But 400 in my opinion is pretty average, 400 would be the average ISO you would use in film cameras if the day was overcast, so I would say that isnt an issue unless you are using a pre 20D camera like a 10D where your image quality will suffer through older technology. In fact ISO is so good these day that it is hard to tell the difference between 200 and 400 unless you zoom into 400%. Also if you shot raw and are using the a newest raw processing update like 6.4.1 (or anything in the CS5, lightroom 3 etc) the noise reducing tools are extremely powerful, when ever I use an ISO over 200 i usually add 5+ on the Luminance slider and it creates a fantastic effect. Not too much, but enough to sort out the minor problems. Obviously it works much better at high ISO's because like I said at 400 there shouldn't be a problem.

Also if you are shooting with a TS-E 90mm, at 1:1 or larger magnification you really need to be shooting at a smaller F stop, 2.8 is far too open at these distances you will be lucky if you got 3% of the image in focus, I would say the minimum F number I would use is F5.6 which will give a nicer effect and still keep a pleasing bokeh. you can get some nice effects with 2.8 if you are going to use the images to paint or other uses, but from a visual standpoint there isnt enough of the image in focus to keep the viewer interested in the image. A lot of people do this, there are hundreds of pics on the forums of bees (or other macro items) that there is only one leg in focus because the depth of field isnt large enough. It is extremely difficult at that magnification to get a full depth of field, even at F22. But just because a lens is a 2.8 doesnt mean it is technically right to use it wide open.

With macro photography you shouldn't use an overall sharpening technique. There is no point in sharpening areas which are out of focus (or bokeh) because it will degrade the image and add unnecessary noise. Your much better off using a selective sharpening technique using a mask to paint in your sharpening. This will not only excentuate the part of the image you want the viewer to concentrate on it will also add more depth and clarity and increase the overall visual effect.

There are a number of ways of doing this, A. within your Raw processing - using the mask slider (works ok but for better effects use a custom one. (Also sharpening should be added in the last stage of image processing)

B. In my opinion the best way to selectively sharpen. Use the high pass filter and paint it in manualy.

Open your image, then duplicate your image in the layers panel (copy), on the layer above your original (copy) go to filter - other - high pass. When the dialogue box comes up dial in a number that makes the image look embossed (dont worry about over doing it because you will reduce the overall effect later, in fact you should over-do so you have more control) then click ok. Next step is crucial, desaturate the image (because when you use a blend mode it will do some weird things with the colours left) 

Now the image should look very grey, next thing to do is go to your layers panel and add a blend mode, soft light or overlay works best. I usually find overlay works best but depends on your image. Now you should see you image very bold and too sharp. Now comes the interesting bit. Go to the bottom of your layers panel and add a layer mask, nothing should happen because the mask is visible (white) to make it invisible and allow you to paint the effect into specific areas you must invert the mask. Make sure you have the mask selected on your copy layer and press image - adjustments - invert or Command I on a mac. Then the mask should turn black and the effect should disappear from your image. 

Now we can paint the effect into the image. Select your brush tool and make sure the paint colours are set to the original black and white and the brush must be a soft edged brush. Select white as the foreground colour and use 100% opacity and fill. Then just paint over the areas of the image that need sharpening, if you paint an area that doesn't need sharpening (a mistake) you can switch your paint colour to black then paint over the mistake to paint away the effect.

When you have finished you will see that the areas are very sharp, too sharp. But because we have used the layers panel we can dial back the effect using the opacity slider in the layers panel, dial it back to what ever you feel, i usually find around 70% gives a good natural looking effect, and wallah a perfect selective sharpening effect which is editable by painting the effect in and out and changing the overall effect through the layer opacity slider.

Hope this helps.


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## te4o (Aug 3, 2011)

UNFOCUSED : 
+1
Great advice, can't think of a better one ! Probably use SW which deletes automatically the unfocused shots... There should be someone working on this already.


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## torger (Aug 3, 2011)

It depends. I don't work professionally so I can choose to spend quite much time if I want to. I kind of like to make pictures look as good as possible, and as true to my vision as possible, there's art in that too. My favourite hobby is landscape photography, and if the shot is good enough to print then it could be hours or even days with post-processing for a single photo, especially if it is composed of multple shots (focus-stacked, panorama/mosaic, HDR) and I want do test prints etc.

For sports and events it is a whole other thing, then I find a standard profile that gives a pleasing image for the given setting and apply them to all photos, and then filter out the best images and crop if required. If there's some really good image in there I can spend some extra time on that, but rarely as much as for my "art" photos. I don't have the best workflow to handle huge amount of photos yet though (I don't do that kind of shoots very often), I spend a lot of time to look at the same images over and over again before deciding if they should be in or out which is not very efficient.


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## Edwin Herdman (Aug 3, 2011)

unfocused said:


> 1) Ignore everything about deleting photos. Your time is more valuable than drive space. A 3TB of memory is $140 at Best Buy and the price is dropping. Every minute you spend deleting images is a minute that could be spent either editing a picture or better yet, enjoying your son.


I am going to single this point out for disagreement as if it were general advice.

In some situations (wildlife - birds or macro scenes are a good example, I've even found handheld landscapes and flowers to fall into this category often) I find - and other people shooting in better light or at more reasonable shutter speeds often will, as well - that if you want the best picture it often pays to take more than one. I've only seen sports photographers claim that they can find the image at the exact right time, but their cameras (well over 7 frames per second) and many of their colleagues tell a different story. Those extra frames are there to help you out.

By all means, I encourage keeping images if you aren't sure if one is good or bad - coming back to a set of potential winners later on will give you an idea on what works and what doesn't. Pruning these image sets might just save Junior some time down the line (a bit like inheriting boxes of uncategorized 35mm prints on your kids, people talk about "digital hygiene" nowadays) but it also forces you to make some decisions about what works artistically, and what doesn't. It goes beyond emotionally parting with a subpar image.

I would emphasize that it takes relatively little time to prune an image collection, since you already will be looking through your images at some time later. When I look through images in Irfanview, it is literally less than two seconds to delete an image and load the next one - which maybe sounds like a long time, but I already have to wait nearly a second to load the next image without deletion. Deleting a RAW image is two additional keystrokes (a couple more at the end of the session to clear out the recycle bin, if wanted). It's not a big deal and I would argue it's a good habit.

If somebody isn't finding images to prune, that means you are most likely not taking a lot of images, missing opportunities, and probably not too serious about improving your skills as an artist and photographer. This is fine, and I wouldn't put somebody down for it, if they make a conscious decision not to let photography command their life, but I think we can promote something a little more aspirational here (and again, once you learn this stuff it is really very quick). It shouldn't be tagged as being a daunting challenge to prune your images.

What's superfluous is all that stuff about opening the RAW and tweaking it - if you don't have a good exposure to start with, you can't save it (unless you're a hardcore photoshop abuser / airbrusher)! I used to have a lot of familiarity with Photoshop (version 5-6, circa 1998-2000) but now (despite having a raft of image editing programs) I mostly swear off it and focus on getting it right at the scene.


unfocused said:


> 2) Ignore everything about additional programs. Do you really want to take the time to learn some new program so you can spend even more time editing pictures? Learn to use the program you already have and when you outgrow it and feel a strong need for something else, then move on, but don't go out and buy some new program based on what someone on this forum gets off on.


It would be Nice, for sure, not to have to worry about software changes. But these days you are a technological luddite at your own risk. The downside to not having your RAWs saved in a more long-lived format is that you won't be able to read them back years from now - we're all planning on living at least another decade, right? - and while it's nothing like the risk posed by not paying attention to computer security, not logging into your bank account from a public computer, etc., it goes with being an informed, modern citizen. Just like "ignorance of the law is no excuse," sheltering yourself from the real changes that are happening in photography means that you might end up with nothing to show from years ago.


unfocused said:


> 7) Finally, don't waste your time on this forum. That's time you could be spending either editing pictures or playing with your kid. (This one falls into the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do category).


You don't *have* to believe in the infamous, mythical Bit-Rot, but those hard drives most assuredly are prone to the same effects of time that even the Bible warned us about. And even if the hard drive survives, do you think that Circa 2011 computer hardware will be as plentiful in the future as today? Maybe, maybe not. I have tons of 5.25" floppies about but still haven't hooked up a drive to my computer. Most of them I probably don't have a chance of using (on modern computers) in any meaningful way.

Other than those points, I would say that your overall message - just stop worrying and take pictures - is pointing in the right way.


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## Edwin Herdman (Aug 3, 2011)

(Second part of my reply; previous page response is to unfocused.)


tomscott said:


> TBH ISO 400 really shouldn't matter, most modern cameras exceed in quality up to about ISO 600 and are extremely useable.


I realize that doesn't pass the usual sanity check, but for those conditions, that was my impression. Today (in fluctuating conditions, from very sunny to quite overcast within seconds, and back) I had the impression that moving from ISO 100 to 400 (partly to help achieve a faster shutter speed, which was critical) was of little apparent impact. I suppose I'll look at the 100% versions here later.



> Also if you are shooting with a TS-E 90mm, at 1:1 or larger magnification you really need to be shooting at a smaller F stop, 2.8 is far too open at these distances you will be lucky if you got 3% of the image in focus, I would say the minimum F number I would use is F5.6 which will give a nicer effect and still keep a pleasing bokeh.


I think this is something that I can judge best in the field. Some insects are actually quite flat, or there is some particular part of them that is most interesting (and sometimes both are true). Others that have more protruding or deep elements, such as spiders, of course do benefit more from such a technique, but you should not forget the artist's tool of selective focus. That f/2.8 aperture allows me, if I manage it properly (difficult handheld, but that's what the continuous shooting mode is for), to draw the eye to a most interesting part of the image, and blur the parts that are less interesting (especially if, as in the hibiscus situation earlier, some parts of it might wish to be less defined for modesty, as on a personal portrait).

One of my recent challenges was to see if a picture of a butterfly could be taken at a wide f-stop while keeping the background as blurred as possible while not losing too much of the detail on the wing due to a misalignment between the plane of that wing and the zone of focus. Unfortunately that's easier said than done, but it was an interesting experiment. Too bad the tilt function is less effective at close distances. On the plus side, nobody has to stare at all the bits of sand or cracks in the rocks in my driveway where the butterfly perched - instead the attention goes (in the better image of the bunch I had) to the proboscis which was curled slightly and laid on a particular rock.

The TS-E 90mm's native maximum magnification is .29X, or a ratio of about 1:3.45. The 2X does improve this specification, but at some cost. Defocus effects are a primary concern; I don't see a reason to cripple my low-light gathering performance and the boke unless I need depth of field, and even then, carefully manually focusing using Live View is the best bet. As I read somebody read recently: "I don't believe in good bokeh, only bad bokeh." A bit pessimistic, but you start with good performance and this characteristic generally gets worse (even on the TS-E which I find has some slight but definite color fringing in unusual circumstances, but not normally).



> you can get some nice effects with 2.8 if you are going to use the images to paint or other uses, but from a visual standpoint there isnt enough of the image in focus to keep the viewer interested in the image.


I find it amusing that you are critiquing an image you haven't ever seen. I needn't say much more than that, I hope!



> But just because a lens is a 2.8 doesnt mean it is technically right to use it wide open.


_Au contraire, mon ami_, there is no other reason to create a manual focus lens like the TS-E with a relatively wide maximum aperture other than to allow its use wide open. As a result there is no problem using it wide open, either. Certainly there are tradeoffs either way, but I find that selecting the right aperture is not merely "FIGHT FOR BEST SHARPNESS!" Even adding in chromatic abberations, vignetting, and other lens characteristics that get helped out by smaller apertures, it is more complicated than that.

And of course Ansel Adams has weighed in as well: "Any good modern lens is corrected for maximum definition at the larger stops. Using a small stop only increases depth..."

Please do be advised that I am working on an APS-C sensor, so the depth of field appears to be greater (as a share of the cropped frame) and so DOF appears to be where it might on the full format sensor at around f/4 or so. It is still very small - no larger or smaller than it would have been, and so still challenging to use at these close distances and a wide aperture.

Among my random points, one stands out to me: For some reason I can't fathom, my Live View often gives a misleadingly sharp image compared to the output, even at magnification levels where I would have assumed that fake sharpness due to pixel skipping would have been the culprit. I haven't been able to figure this out entirely, other than to rule out motion blur. Then again, maybe it is simply pixel skipping (I'd expect moire to be a factor in Live View if that were the case, however).


> With macro photography you shouldn't use an overall sharpening technique. There is no point in sharpening areas which are out of focus (or bokeh) because it will degrade the image and add unnecessary noise. Your much better off using a selective sharpening technique using a mask to paint in your sharpening. This will not only excentuate the part of the image you want the viewer to concentrate on it will also add more depth and clarity and increase the overall visual effect. [more clipped]


I haven't been thinking about adding artificial sharpening (I think I mentioned that, but maybe not), but this is a helpful reminder about what that lasso tool / High Pass is for, thanks!


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## Sunnystate (Aug 4, 2011)

As some have mentioned before, I have learned not to delete photos unless they are 100% useless.
Don't know how you guys, but me every time, I go to my archives totally different captures draws my attention than before.
This is like my second hobby now, going back to old folders and picking up new "gems" that before just somehow seemed not worthy of my time. 
I am sure if somebody is working professionally this may not make much sense, especially once you got paid for the job, but for hobbyist like me, finding those forgotten good captures is just like receiving some kind of unexpected gift.


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