Digital Workflow

The Digital Workflow Process

© Melinda Nagy | Dreamstime.com

1. Download

Photo-editing software and camera utilities usually contain simple download features that automatically detect when a camera or memory card reader is attached to your computer. This is great to quickly and easily transfer photo files to your computer.

Some utilities supply image enhancement options ‘on the fly,’ for example red eye removal being applied to photos automatically. For optimized results, my recommendation is to save all editing or enhancement operations for a later stage in the digital workflow process.

2. Organize

Organizing your photos is a critical step in the digital workflow process. As different versions of a photo need to be saved at various stages of the enhancement process, it’s critical to have well defined and considered organizational structure to make tracking, searching for and locating different versions of similar files more efficient.

Directly after downloading of your images, take the time to name your photos, add keywords, tags, labels and other metadata details that will later help you to identify your files quickly.

3. Archive Virgin File

When your photos are downloaded and labelled, the next step is to archive a ‘virgin’ copy of the file, especially if you’re a RAW shooter. The original, non-manipulated file is gold – it’s the basic building block upon which all other refined versions of the photo are constructed. This means you can always go back to the source and start again if need be.

4. Convert to Working Format

The next step in the digital workflow process is to convert the photo from the format in which it was saved inside the camera to a file type that supports non-destructive editing techniques such as adjustment layers, for example as a PSD file (Photoshop document). Other photo editing packages will have similar formats.

Even though it may seem an unnecessary step, converting files to PSD before editing, is the only way to avoid ongoing destructive format. For RAW shooters, most conversion software, such as Adobe’s Camera Raw, now includes an opportunity to make changes to color, contrast, brightness, sharpness, white balance, noise and saturation.

5. Make Enhancement Changes

Professional photographers split their editing tasks into two phases:

• Global changes are edits that are applied to the whole image while its still in 16 bit mode. For example, color, contrast and brightness can all be changed with adjustment layers. This ensures that the original pixels aren’t changed, but the appearance of the picture alters.

• Local changes are made with features that only work in 8 bit mode. These enhancements may actually affect the underlying pixels of the photo and are therefore deemed to be destructive. These changes are difficult if not impossible to reverse and includes alterations such as spot removal; conversion of a color image to greyscale; and filtering activities such as sharpening.

6. Save the Fully Edited File

The last stage of the digital workflow process is to save the fully edited and enhanced file ready for its intended outcome. Make sure not to save it over the base file create earlier!

You can now label and annotate the file by adding details to the metadata. This will help you remember later how the file has been optimized.

• Always archive a virgin version of the file as well as the latest edited version.

• Edit in 16 bits per channel for as long as possible.

• Use non-destructive editing options such as adjustment layers.

Always remember...

...it's vital that you make back-ups of image files. It's preferable to have two back-up copies. One should be held in your digital darkroom to guard against destroying files due to human error or PC malfunction. Another copy should be held off-site to guard against fire or theft.

If you’ve found my professional workflow process tutorial useful, make sure to visit my pages on Digital Photography Free Tutorials for more great ideas on digital photography, as well as how to be a better photographer.

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