Remember the simpler days of film, click the shutter button, process the film, edit the good from the bad, type descriptions on those tiny sticky labels, send off to stock agency or client and wait for a sale. I remember those days well. As I reflect back, it didn't seem that bad. The advancements in digital technology from image capture to delivery has become a daunting task, but at the same time an enjoyable creative challenge.

Creating a time efficient and effective workflow is a constant challenge for many photographers. Workflow is a personal choice with no right or wrong system, it's all a matter of what works best for the individual photographer. Workflow for many is an evolving process as new software is introduced and old software improved. I am a bit reluctant to write this as I recently switched from Photo Mechanic to Adobe Lightroom. I say this because Photo Mechanic is a wonderful program for initial editing but has its limits. Adobe Lightroom on the other hand offers so many more options beyond the initial edit, therefore eliminating the task of loading images into another program for other tasks such as adding captions, keywords and other metadata. I'll briefly discuss initial editing in Photo Mechanic for those who prefer a lesser expensive software and an easier program to learn.

Lets start with the editing process in Photo Mechanic, assuming you have already captured your images and downloaded the raw files to your harddrive. I begin with a rough edit which I do in Photo Mechanic. Why Photo Mechanic? For years, at least in digital years, this has been the most popular software with photo journalist. Photo Mechanic loads raw files very quickly, much quicker than Adobe Bridge. Photo Mechanic is easy to use and for my purposes used only to establish a quick edit.

Digital Workflow: The Editing Process (two options)

Software used for editing:
Photo Mechanic- http://www.camerabits.com/site/index.html
Adobe Lightroom- http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/

Editing in Photo Mechanic: Open Photo Mechanic and navigate to the folder you wish to edit. The illustration to the left is what appears when you select your folder. Double click the first photo in the folder and this opens a second page as show below.

This window is where I begin my editing. I have a nice large view of the individual photo with its histogram and below a film strip view of all the other images in the folder which I can toggle back and forth with the arrow keys on my keyboard. As I toggle through the images I simply press the T key (tagged) for the images I wish to keep. Once the folder has been edited I then close this window by simply clicking the red button in the top left hand corner. I then go to the pull down menu (second pull down) and select tagged as this will show only my selected images. I then select all these images and drag them into a folder I create on my desktop with an appropriate title. This is my edit.

After this edit I open my folder into Adobe Bridge (a very slow process) add metadata and rename my raw files, make adjustments and open in Photoshop. I am purposing not going to step you through these steps because I now have a much, much better solution for raw conversion which I'll share in a later lesson. Before going any further I'm going to share a my editing process in Adobe Lightroom.

Note: In both Photo Mechanic and Adobe Lightroom, one can choose to use a color code or star system to rate photos. I personally don't find this useful for my purposes but may be helpful to others.

Editing in Adobe Lightroom

Photo Tips

Editing in Adobe Lightroom