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How to Develop a Photography Workflow that Preserves Your Images

28 Apr

The post How to Develop a Photography Workflow that Preserves Your Images appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Karthika Gupta.

“I love spending time in front of a computer working on my images – sorting them, cataloging them and editing them,” said no photographer ever!

Well, maybe a few of us like to be sitting in front of our desk pouring over image after image, shoot after shoot. But let’s face it, as photographers, we would much rather get out there and photograph in the field than be chained to our desk and computers indoors.

How to setup a workflow to protect your images Karthika Gupta

This is where having a good solid workflow that can help you ease the post-shoot process is very important. Workflows are not just for the editing portion of your life as a photographer. In fact, a workflow is something that can help you before, during and even after your photo shoot.

Whether you are a busy professional photographer or an active hobbyist, having a good solid workflow and method of organizing images is crucial.

Having a workflow is even beneficial if you just photograph on your smartphone.

We have all been in situations where your phone runs out of space because you have images from three years ago that you have done nothing with. Sorting through three years worth of data to find images to delete under pressure of missing a key moment is no joke!

I wear many different photography hats as a wedding, lifestyle and travel photographer. So my workflow is slightly different based on the type of session I am photographing. But for the most part, I follow the same series of steps.

Here is my process. Hopefully, you may be able to replicate some or all of these steps to create a process that works for you in your photography.

1. Choice of Gear

Camera

My camera of choice is a Canon 5D MKIII. At this point, I only have one digital camera. I used to have a Canon 5D MKII as my backup, but ever since I starting working with a second shooter for my weddings, I didn’t find the need for my Canon 5D MK II. So I sold it.

For commercial shoots or bigger gigs that require multiple cameras and lenses, I just rent what I need. I am lucky in that I have a big camera store close to home that has all the gear I could need. They even have a studio that I can rent out should I need more space.

Batteries and Cards

I purchased two extra batteries when I was a full-time wedding photographer, and because I sold my backup gear, I am now left with extra camera batteries for my primary camera.

This works really well because I carry all my batteries with me when I am traveling or going to a multi-day event. That way I don’t have to worry about finding a plug point or charging my camera battery in the field.

This was a lifesaver earlier in the year when I traveled to Portugal and lost my power converter/adaptor. Try figuring out how to say power adaptor in a part of the world where you don’t speak the language! I drained out my batteries to the very last percent of battery juice during that trip!

Side tip: try shaking the battery to squeeze out every last bit of battery juice if you are running out of battery life. I’m not joking. I have tried this successfully many times in Portugal to get that last shot before the battery died!

I have 5 x 32GB CF cards, 3 x 16GB CF cards and a handful of 8 GB CF cards. For the most part, all these cards travel with me for a multi-day shoot or a personal travel trip that is several days long.

Part of my pre-shoot workflow includes downloading all my cards, charging my batteries and packing my bag with everything I need the night before.

Camera bag

My camera bag is a backpack that I used not just my photography but also for excursions and trips around town. I ditched the proverbial camera bag many years ago when I started traveling with my family of young kids. Carrying a camera bag, diaper bag, and a purse was just not practical. Also, once I got used to carrying a day pack that held all my treasures, it just seems second nature to me to pick that bag up no matter what the occasion.

Since I have just one camera/day pack, part of my workflow is to make sure the bag is empty and ready for the next adventure as soon as I come back home from a shoot/trip or even just going around town.

Luckily, it has enough pockets to store batteries, CF cards and other things like filters, and flashes.

How to setup a workflow to protect your images Karthika Gupta

At a recent class I taught, I loved seeing the diversity in terms of camera bags that everyone was using!

2. During the shoot

There is nothing quite like learning the importance of having a workflow than losing data or content in the absence of one. I learned the hard way when I lost all my images from a shoot on a card that failed. Luckily it was for a family shoot that I could reschedule.

So from that point onwards, I change my camera data card with each logical break in the event I am photographing.

For example, if I am photographing a wedding, I have the getting ready activities on one card, the ceremony on another card and the reception on a third card.

Even though the cards are not full, this gives me the security of losing only a part of the day should anything go wrong.

Of course, my backup for weddings is my second photographer who does the same thing.

For non-wedding related client work, I use a backup SD card in my camera. The Canon 5D MkIII has a dual card slot, so I take full advantage of the technology at my fingertips. If I am on a personal assignment, I change out my cards every night and download the photos onto an external drive.

Another thing that is important to note is how you store used and unused data cards. Figure out a system that works for you in how you separate the two. For me, used CF cards from a photoshoot are placed in a separate pouch from unused CF cards. I place those in another pouch in my camera bag.

In terms of the actual shoot, try and come up with a game plan for what you are photographing. As a wedding photographer, one of the key things I make sure to discuss with my wedding couples is a shot list. A shot list is a list of all the key moments and images that the couple absolutely wants to have taken. Typically these are around photos with family members.

With client and commercial shoots, the clients typically have a list of images they want to get from you. Use this concept of a shot list to list down all the ‘must have’ images you want to get out of a photographic excursion.

Shot lists save you effort, and they help you become more efficient with your time in the field.

How to setup a workflow to protect your images Karthika Gupta 2

Wedding photography can be quite stressful. There isn’t really a do-over option if you mess up. Having a workflow is critical and life-saving for a wedding photographer.

3. After the shoot

When I am back home from a wedding or a lifestyle shoot, the first thing I do is pack away my gear. I separate my camera body from my lenses and pack them away separately. All batteries are removed, including those from my flash. I have heard horror stories where batteries, especially AAAs, have leaked into the flash socket, so I don’t want to have to deal with that mess! Plus I use rechargeable batteries for all my flashes and external lights. Once they are out, I put them back in the case ready to be recharged for the next photography gig.

If I am at a multi-day shoot, all batteries are plugged into the charger slots right away.

These are the steps I take with my images:

I download all the images from my CF cards onto TWO external hard drives, that act as a storage for my RAW images.
Once the RAW images are successfully transferred to my external hard drive, I go through and spot check the images and the total image count to make sure all the images are moved over.
Images are moved over based on the shoot, location or event. For example a wedding will be downloaded as follows on the primary storage drive:

20190101_ClientNameWedding_GettingReady

20100101_FamilyName_LifestyleShoot

20100101_Personal_VacationLocation_Day01

The secondary drive is less formal and has images just based on the event. For example:

2019

WeddingClientCard01

WeddingClientCard02

FamilyLifestyelShoot

Personal_TripCard01

Personal_TripCard02

I then format the cards in camera. This is done on the camera rather than the computer. The reason for this is because I have found that sometimes all the images are not cleaned out and the card still retains some data that occupies unnecessary space.

Treating every client shoot like it was a wedding really helped me nail down a process and workflow that works for me. Now it is second nature and something I don’t even have to think about.

4. After the shoot (remote)

When I am traveling for work or pleasure, I carry one WD My Passport Ultra external hard drive and all my camera data cards. Earlier in my career, I would carry two external hard drives and create primary and secondary backups in the field. Now I have found that I don’t photograph as much because I am more thoughtful about what I photograph.

So now I just carry all my cards, and one external hard drive to back them up in the field. I avoid taking an external hard drive when I am just traveling for pleasure or personal work to reduce my load.

When I get home, the RAW files from the CF cards used during the trip are copied over to both external hard drives (primary and secondary) that house all my raw images. They are deleted from the WD Ultra so that it is ready for my next trip.

Early in my photography career, there were times where I would travel with almost every lens I owned, a laptop, two external hard drives, and many camera cards to be safe. Perhaps it is age, or perhaps it is maturity (I like to think it is a little bit of both), but now I try to travel light and take only what is absolutely needed to get the job done.

If I need something along the way, I either borrow, rent or figure out creative solutions to make things work.

I would argue that personal photos are more important than professional ones – especially as the dedicated photographer of the family. I love documenting our journey for no-one but me!

5. Editing workflow

Eighty percent of my editing happens in Lightroom (LR). Photoshop is used sparingly if I have to make any advanced editing. I have invested in the Adobe Creative Cloud for LR and Photoshop. I’ve installed them on my iMac (my primary editing device), as well as my MacBook Pro (my travel companion).

My Lightroom catalog lives on an external HD. I understand some people have concerns over running a LR Catalog on an external HD, because of potential LR speed issues. So far, I have not experienced any issues with LR in terms of speed by having the catalog on an external HD. However, if you are concerned about speed, then your LR catalog can be put on your computer’s hard drive, and keep a backup on the external HD. A backup of my LR catalog lives on a cloud service that is updated every six weeks.

I used to use iPhoto on my iMac to store all my images and only upload selected images to Lightroom. I tried to use Bridge for a few years to select images that I want to import into Lightroom. Now I use Photos on my Mac to select images that I want to edit and upload them into Lightroom.

I know it is probably easier to just upload all images to Lightroom and sort them via the software to save an extra step. I have one Lightroom catalog that houses all my work since 2012, and so there are quite a few images in the catalog. I had found that when I used Lightroom to sort and select images, it takes forever to load.

My Lightroom catalog is sorted by year, and I use the following naming convention for my Lightroom. I am less worried about the naming convention in Lightroom than I am with my primary and second storage units. This is just my personal preference.

YYYYMMDD_ClientName_TypeoftheShoot.

After editing is complete, I export my client images onto the same WD Ultra external hard drive as my Lightroom catalog.

The client folders get arranged by the date of the session.

This time the naming standard is as follows:

CompanyName_ClientNameEvent_Date

All images have the same naming convention as the folder, along with an image sequence number.

Every few years I go through and delete edited galleries from the external hard drive. I don’t delete client RAW files – just the edited files. I have found myself going back to many client galleries and re-editing images as my style evolves and changes. There is no point in keep multiple copies of the same image.

I use a mix of presets and hand edits for my images. It took me many years to finally come up with a style and method of how I want my images to look. Ninety percent of my edits follow that same process. Every once in a while I drastically change my “look” to keep things fresh.

As a rule, I spend no more than a minute on each image. I would much rather be outside photographing than indoors editing.

How to setup a workflow to protect your images Karthika Gupta

Exact same image – two different looks. And I love them both.

6. Editing Remotely

I really avoid extensive editing of images in the field. I prefer to focus on documenting and photographing rather than same day edits. I would much rather take a quick snapshot on my iPhone and edit using phone apps for a quick social media preview than spend time and effort in editing in the field.

A couple of years ago, I traveled out of the country for three months over the summer. This was before Lightroom came up with their cloud version. Because I was gone for so long, I took my Lightroom catalog with me on an external drive and used that for 3 months.

Recently, I started using Lightroom Classic and Lightroom CC for my workflow. I primarily used them for working when traveling. When I know I need access to my files for a particular project or a particular job, I upload those files to my Lightroom CC and work on them while on the road. Once back home, I ‘sync’ Lightroom CC as a collection in my Lightroom Classic and have all those edits readily available.

7. Client workflow

I use an external portfolio service to host my images for client work. These client galleries are only online for three weeks, and then they are deleted. My wedding photography packages all include edited images on a personalized flash drive whereas my family portraiture clients have the option of purchasing digital images if they want them for future use.

Every few years I go through and update client galleries and delete old ones. Keep in mind these are just the edited files. My client RAW files are stored indefinitely in case a client comes back after a few years for the images. If you don’t want to delete client images, you can invest in an external cloud storage system.

How to setup a workflow to protect your images Karthika Gupta

In Conclusion

While it might seem like a lot, my workflow has simplified over time. Just as I limit the gear I own and use, I also try and limit the images I capture – for both client and personal work. Having 100 photos of a spectacular sunset no longer make sense to me. I also stick to my workflow because it saves time in the long run.

One of my favorite things to stock up on are external hard drives. Every so often they fail, and I have to replace them. As cloud storage gets more accessible and less expensive, I can see myself moving things over to the cloud and simplifying my process and workflow even more.

I encourage you to use this, or some variation of this workflow and tweak it to make it your own. If you do it consistently and often enough, it becomes second nature and saves you time so you can do what you enjoy doing – photographing.

The post How to Develop a Photography Workflow that Preserves Your Images appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Karthika Gupta.

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Secrets of a professional photographer’s workflow: Brian Ach

21 Apr

Brian Ach is an editorial and commercial photographer.

As photographers, most of our focus is on capturing images—finding good material and getting shots with all the gear we’ve spent so much time and money accumulating—but what happens next? For a lot of us, we download the images to a computer and edit a handful that catch our eye, and then… well, there are more photo shoots to pursue. Maybe we’ll apply some keywords, perhaps mark a few favorites, but too often the photos we worked so hard to create are just dumped onto a hard disk and forgotten. We know we should do better, but who has the time?

Professional photographers, that’s who.

To learn how a pro handles this process, I talked to Brian Ach, who frequently photographs celebrity portraits, high-profile events, and glamorous autos for numerous clients. You may remember his work from his stint as Prince’s official photographer during the musician’s 2011 international tour (the photos he returned to after Prince’s passing in “Purple Reign: Photographer Brian Ach shares his experiences of working with Prince”). He outlined his entire workflow, from preparing to leave for an event through handing off final images and making sure everything is backed up.

Brian’s outlined his entire workflow, from preparing to leave, through handing off final images and making sure everything is backed up

Although a professional’s workflow is different from that used by most photographers, there are aspects anyone can use in their own workflow to better manage their library.

A man of many skills, Brian shoots everything from rock and roll world tours to automotive ads. Shown here: Journey at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.

Understanding Expectations

To get a sense of how Ach’s workflow may differ from most photographers’ approaches, I asked him to describe the types of high-pressure assignments that he encounters. In most cases, time is the number one factor at play.

“If I’m shooting an event for Getty or WireImage or AP Images, time is of the essence,” he said. “If you’re doing the red carpet and don’t have an onsite editor, you want to turn around your best pictures as quickly as possible and get them up on the wire so you can get placement and, basically, make money. From the end of the event, the goal is to have everything captioned and up on the site in two hours. That’s the worst case scenario—you’re really looking to do it quicker than that. Often it will be trying to get your top 10 or 15 pictures out in 45 minutes or less.”

‘Always import your card immediately after you’re done shooting.’

He noted that when shooting a big job like the Academy Awards or the Tony Awards, photographers are usually hard-wired via Ethernet cables to editing stations on site where editors send images out as soon as possible. Sometimes he shoots the red carpet as a solo photographer, where there may be on-site runners who collect memory cards every 15 or 20 minutes from each photographer to deliver to editors. And, of course, there are plenty of events where he’s responsible for everything.

“Usually when I’ve worked with Getty, it’s what they call a hired job,” he said. “I’m often the guy inside the party, which means I’ll have an editor on site. You have 1500 frames and you need to send them out as soon as possible because you want to beat everybody else and get the stuff out correctly.”

When shooting a high-profile event, it is essential to get your photos up on the wire before other photographers.

During the Shoot

Regardless of which type of event he’s shooting, Ach has developed a consistent workflow through years of hard-won experience.

“I do everything the exact same way every time, because once you have a workflow, you do it the way you do it,” he said. “If you change anything—you have to trust me on this—you will screw it up in a big way. Something will happen. It took me probably my first year-and-a-half to two years, no lie, just to get a workflow.”

Usually we think of photo workflow as the process that begins after you’re done shooting, but for Ach it’s earlier than you might expect: in his studio preparing to leave, formatting cards and making sure batteries are charged.

‘I always keep fresh cards in my right pocket. Cards that I’ve shot on, I keep in my left pocket.’

“It’s very hard for me to separate out the workflow from shooting,” he said. “When I get to the event, if I know I’m shooting multiple cards I always keep fresh cards in my right pocket. Cards that I’ve shot on, I keep in my left pocket. Always. I’ve learned not to put them back in the bag, or put them in my jacket or anything like that. Right pocket, fresh cards. Left pocket, used cards. So after I shoot the event, I come back to the studio. Whatever is still in my right pocket I just put back in the bag.”

Celebrity portrait shoots are another high pressure assignment that Brian specializes in – he often has only a few minutes with his subjects to nail the shot. Shown here: Director and screen writer Christopher McQuarrie.

We’ve all received the advice that it’s best to capture photos correctly in-camera, but in environments like these, it’s even more critical.

“White balance and exposure are two of my biggest things,” he said. “Put a gel on your flash, create a custom white balance, and then get it right [before the event begins]. I don’t want to have to waste the time afterward processing it. It sounds so obvious, but it’s not if your editor has to tweak your white balance for every shot and you’ve got 100 shots and your red carpet photos are coming out slightly yellow. The editor may not have time to do it—they may need to just send it out.”

To assist editors, or for his reference later if he’s doing the editing, Ach will mark images during the shoot that stand out, using a camera’s built-in tagging or image-protection features.

‘Go out and over-shoot everything and be brutal on yourself when evaluating’

“You can help your editor by tagging certain photos that are very good or very important,” he said. “You’re not trying to tell the editor how to do their job; you’re simply saying ‘here’s that photo.’ They can look at the previous 10 or 15 frames, or the 10 or 15 afterward, and pick whatever they think is best based on your recommendation.”

And how does one know which images rise above the others? “It’s training your eye,” he said. “Look at books, look at everything and try to figure out what makes them good. And then go out and over-shoot everything and be brutal on yourself [when evaluating them].”

Ach mentioned he once shot New York Fashion Week events and had a day where he shot 17,000 frames. “Thank God I had an editor who was very good, and he was able to quickly whittle that down,” he said. “It’s just pattern recognition, and knowing what the shot is and what’s good. And the only way you can get better at that is shooting a lot and looking at a lot.”

Not all of Brian’s assignments involve models and celebrities.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Video: 10 tips for fixing Photoshop and speeding up your workflow

22 Mar

YouTube Photoshop tutor Colin Smith has shared a video in which he demonstrates ten tips for making the application run more smoothly.

His tips on the Photoshop Cafe YouTube channel include ways to streamline the program’s interface as well as methods to assign more memory to help with intensive tasks. One of the best tips shows how to avoid processes that use more memory than is necessary when we are copying one image on to another.

The tutorial is aimed at new users, but out of the ten tips there is bound to be one or two that even more advanced users aren’t aware of or hadn’t thought of. Smith claims his final tip will solve 99% of problems most users have with the software. Below is a rundown of the ten tips and their respective timestamps in the video:

0:48 – Remove the welcome screen
1:30 – Shrink the New Document window
2:00 – Increase recent documents up to 100
2:48 – Increase how much RAM Photoshop uses
3:20 – Fix varies display issues
3:50 – Go back to legacy compositing
4:20 – Tweak your scratch disk settings
5:42 – Don’t copy and paste
6:43 – Free up resources
7:44 – The ‘fix all’ solution (and bonus tip)

For more Photoshop tutorials, head over and subscribe to the Photoshop Cafe YouTube channel.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Video: 15 actually useful Photoshop shortcuts to help speed up your workflow

16 Mar

Photoshop Training Channel on YouTube has published a video detailing 15 useful, relatively unknown Photoshop keyboard shortcuts for power users. Unlike many similar videos, this channel’s video digs into actually useful shortcuts that many users are unlikely to know, including how to resize and rotate cloned content using keyboard keys, improving Puppet Warp tool control, and more.

The video is applicable to North American keyboards and includes both Windows and macOS shortcuts. Most tips build upon commonly known tools and shortcuts, offering ways for professionals to reduce the amount of time they spend clicking and sliding. Adobe maintains a large list of Photoshop shortcuts for Windows and Mac users here.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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How to Use Lightroom Star Ratings to Improve Your Editing Workflow

12 Mar

The post How to Use Lightroom Star Ratings to Improve Your Editing Workflow appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Ian Johnson.

Editing photos is time-consuming! The rule of thumb that it takes an hour of editing for every hour of shooting is not an exaggeration. You may find that sorting and grading your photos right after a shoot is one of the most tedious parts of your entire workflow – I know I do. Whether you are coming in from a long weekend of shooting wildlife or a busy day shooting a wedding, it is no small task to determine which photos to keep, edit, and store for later from a batch of a 1000 or more. Adobe Lightroom has several tools allowing you to sort, grade, and attribute your work to help you efficiently edit and store a photo. I will walk you through how I use the star-rating system to sort images for my editing workflow and long term archival storage.

My basic workflow is to import my images, use stars to curate the collection, edit the collection based on their ratings, keyword the collection, and then archive it.

Hot key stars

If you are thinking of stars as those little icons you click under an image to set the rating, let me change your world! Each star rating of 1-5 you can assign directly from your keypad! These “hot keys” are what makes the star rating system so convenient.

Your first assignment:

Open up Lightroom and select an image in your catalog. Now hit the “1” key on your keyboard. Lightroom tells you the image has now been assigned a rating of 1. With values ranging from 1-5, you can assign each value to an image for different things. Below, I’ll provide examples of how you may use these different values.

As a side note, Lightroom has hotkeys for everything. Learning them speeds up your workflow significantly; no matter which set of tools you are using to develop or print.

Lightroom has a star rating system which can be accessed under the thumbnail of each image in Grid View (G hotkey) in your Lightrom Library. Each image can be assigned a star rating of 1-5 by simply pressing the corresponding number on your keyboard. Using hotkeys will help improve your speed and make editing large photo shoots easier and faster!

Sorting files for deletion and advancing images to editing

Whether you are shooting wildlife, weddings, sports, or portraits the most important question you have after your import is: what photos do I keep? When shooting wildlife, you may have dozens of the same subject in slightly different settings or poses. At a wedding, you have many of the dance, but only a select few are going to make the cut to show your client, friends, or family.

You can use the star rating system to assign images for deletion. Why I prefer this over the “rejection” flag system is you can simultaneously start choosing what files to edit and which to delete using the range of values from 1-5 rather than the binary “yes” and “no” of the flag system.

There’s a lot going on during a wedding. When the day is all said and done you need to import the photos and then choose which you’ll keep, which you’ll develop, and which you’ll delete. Lightroom Stars can help you there.

Using Lightroom Stars to sort your work is easy and efficient.

Here’s a hypothetical situation: you import your photos and determine that a value of “0” (i.e., no rating) as photos to delete. You then decide that images assigned “1” are saved, but are a low priority for editing – perhaps these are b-roll images for applying general presets. You determine images set to “2” are developed immediately and images set to “4” are your best images. This multiple tier system ensures you only have to go through the images once and ideally not more than twice. That’s a huge time saver when dealing with large quantities of images!

I would recommend you avoid using “5” in your workflow. Reserve this for only your very highest quality images (more on that in the “Archiving content/ creating smart collections” section below.)

Once you’ve assigned ratings to all of the images, you can filter the image using the “attributes” filter while in grid view. Filter for all images = 0 stars to delete the images you no longer want and filter all images = 2 to start developing your shots.

Once you’ve chosen which photos to keep (rating 4) you can filter for them using the attributes filter in the Lightroom Library. Simply click “Attribute” and then set the rating to the image set you’d like to view.

Separating image content for keywording

If you are a wildlife photographer, and in particular if you are a bird photographer, it is very typical to change subjects (species) throughout the day. This may occur as much as every other shot. Once you’ve imported those images, it can be daunting to go about keywording your work so you can find them later. The star rating system can help you sort through them quickly!

Assign each star to a species and use your hotkeys to assign the star rating to that species. Once you’ve finished coding the species with stars, filter them using the attributes filter in Grid View and complete your keywording. You can then remove the star rating by highlighting the images and pressing the “0” key. There are many photography scenarios where you can apply this!

The diversity of birds creates a diversity of shots. It is critical to keyword your collection if you ever hope to find the images again. I used the star ratings assigned to different species to help sort them and keyword them.

Once a star rating has been set for a species filter for it to see all images with that rating. In this case, Marbled Godwit were given a temporary rating of 4, keyworded, and then the stars were reset for the image.

Archiving Content / Creating Smart Collections

Undoubtedly, you will create images you are proud of and want to save for future reference, printing, or portfolio work. As I eluded to above, these images should be assigned a value of 5 in your collection. Only a small percentage of your shots should achieve a rating of 5.

You can compile a portfolio of your best shots by establishing a smart collection in Lightroom. The smart collection automatically compiles all images in your catalog with a given attribute.

To create a smart collection right click on “Smart Collections” in Lightroom. Select create a new smart collection and then add the criteria for your collection. You can create a collection set from any attribute you can assign in Lightroom (e.g., stars, flags, keywords, etc.). As you go through the years, your 5-star collection set will continue to grow and document your progress and story.

You can create a smart collection to house your best work for printing or display by giving only your best images a rating of 5.

To create a smart collection you need to right click on Smart Collections and select create a new smart collection. Assign the attribute to the collection that you’d like it to contain. Simple as that!

That is it! I hope you see the value in using Lightroom’s star rating system in your workflow.

I’ll end by saying these steps are what work for me, but what works for you? Leave your thoughts on workflows in the comments below so we can learn together.

As I always say, “pixels are cheap!”. Be sure to make lots of them and then sort through them using Lightroom Stars.

The post How to Use Lightroom Star Ratings to Improve Your Editing Workflow appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Ian Johnson.

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Picktorial photo editor for macOS gets 4.0 update with new DAM and workflow features

21 Feb

Non-destructive macOS photo editor Picktorial has been updated to version 4.0, which is free for customers who purchased version 3.50. Picktorial 4 brings new workflow and digital asset management (DAM) features, including its own index — a move to shed its reliance on macOS Spotlight — as well as an updated search function with advanced search fields that aren’t supported by Spotlight.

With the new search capabilities, Picktorial 4 users can find content globally or within specific folders using filters like capture date, rating, IPTC metadata, tags, and more. The software’s DAM also received a number of other changes, including jpeg+raw image stack support, a new image browser with two layout options, batch exporting and editing, support for albums, smart albums, and quick albums, plus the option to sort images in the browser based on rating, name, capture date, and more.

Joining the DAM changes are new workflow features, including automatic adaption to Apple’s color scheme for a uniform appearance, a new viewer that displays an image’s focus point, support for dual-layer jpegs that save all editing info within the image file, automatic NAS and connected external drive syncing for seamless remote access to projects, and support for high-resolution images up to 100MP.

Picktorial 4 is free for existing version 3.5 customers, but some features, including unlimited adjustment layers and batch editing, are only available to Picktorial Premium customers. The plan is offered for $ 9.99/month or $ 4.99/month for an annual subscription. Customers also have a $ 69.99 perpetual license option that includes a year of free maintenance updates. Existing customers have the option to subscribe for $ 39.99/year until February 28.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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How to Customize Your Lightroom Workspace for Better Workflow

11 Jan

The post How to Customize Your Lightroom Workspace for Better Workflow appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darina Kopcok.

Although it is sometimes overshadowed by its powerful cousin Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom is a robust post-processing program in its own right.

Lightroom is designed with simplicity in mind, however, it still offers a lot of options and can be confusing to new users.

This article assumes you have a basic familiarity with the appearance of the various panels in the Lightroom, and gives you some tips on how to customize your Lightroom workspace for better workflow and productivity.

Lightroom Workspace in Grid View-Darina Kopcok-DPS

The Lightroom Workspace in Grid View

Modules

Lightroom is organized into seven Modules: Library, Develop, Map, Book, Slideshow, Print, and Web.

You can find these modules in the uppermost right-hand corner of your screen. This panel or bar is called the Module Picker.

Customize Lightroom Workspace-Darina Kopcok-DPS

Each of these modules contains a set of tools that work specifically within that module.

For example, if you want to design and print contact sheets of select images from a shoot, you would navigate to the Print module, where you would find the required tools to do that.

You will find, however, that there are some modules that you rarely (or even never) use.

Most users of Lightroom spend the majority of their time in the Library and Develop Modules. Therefore, Lightroom gives you the option to hide these modules from view if you wish.

To set up which modules you would like to remain visible, right click on the module panel to bring up a pop-up menu:

Module Panels in Lightroom-Darina Kopcok-DPS

The panels that are visible are noted with a checkmark. To make the module invisible, simply click on it to uncheck it in the menu.

For example, I never use the Book and Slideshow modules, so I have those checked off in my own Lightroom workspace.

The missing modules are still available under the Window menu; you can use keyboard shortcuts to open them.

Keep in mind that if you do this, Lightroom will automatically add the missing module back to the Module Picker.

Window View Lightroom-Darina Kopcok-DPS

Panels

Lightroom Panels-Darina Kopcok-DPS

In the above image, the following are noted:

A. Library Filter bar
B. Image Display area
C. Identity Plate area
D. Panels displaying photos
E. Filmstrip
F. Module Picker
G. Panels for working with metadata, keywords, adjustments
H. Toolbar

There are four panels in each of the Lightroom Modules. Only two panels – the Module panel and Filmstrip panel – appear in all of the different modules in Lightroom.

For example, the Library module has a top Module Panel, the Navigation panel is located on the left-hand side. The right-side panel is mostly for Metadata, while the bottom panel is where the Filmstrip appears.

Develop Module has Develop and Preset panels instead of Navigation and Metadata.

Tabs are small panels inside of panels.

Below are the various tabs in the Develop panel in the Develop Module in Lightroom:

Tabs in Develop Module Lightroom-Darina Kopcok-DPS

You can customize your workspace to display only the panels you want.

To open or close all the panels in a group, hit -> Command-click (Mac) or Ctrl-click(Windows).
To open or close one panel at a time, simply Option-click (Mac) or Alt-click (Windows) on the panel header.
To show or hide both side panel groups choose Window ->Panel -> Toggle Side Panels, or press the Tab key.
To hide all of the panels, including the side panels, the Module Picker and the Filmstrip, choose Window -> Panels -> Toggle All Panels, or press Shift-Tab.

Lightroom Panels-Darina Kopcok-DPS

If you don’t use a panel often, you can hide it form view: Control-Click (Mac) or Right-Click (Windows) on any panel header in the group and choose the panel name.

Change the Screen Mode

You can also change the screen display to hide the title bar, menus, and panels.

Choose -> Window -> Screen Mode, and choose an option from the drop-down menu.

Full Screen Mode Lightroom-Darina Kopcok-DPS

When in Normal, Full Screen with Menubar, or Full Screen Mode, press the F key to cycle through them.

If you’re on a Mac OS, note that Full Screen mode and Full Screen and Hide Panels mode both hide the Dock. If you don’t see the Minimize, Maximize, or Close buttons for the application, press the F key once or twice until they appear.

Press Shift-Tab and then the F key to display the panels and menu bar.

Command+Option+F (Mac) or Ctrl+Alt+F (Windows) to switch to Normal screen mode from Full Screen with Menubar or Full Screen Mode.
Shift+Command+F (Mac) or Shift-Ctrl+F (Windows) hides the title bar, menus, and panels.

To dim or hide the Lightroom Classic CC workspace, choose -> Window then -> Lights Out, then choose an option. Press the F key to cycle through the options.

Identity Plate

You can brand your Lightroom with the logo of your photography business through the Identity Plate Setup.

It’s not going to impact your workflow in any way, but this is a cool customization you can make to appear more professional when working with clients and utilizing tethered capture.

Identity Plate Editor in Lightroom-Darina Kopcok-DPS

To access the Identity Plate Setup click on a Mac -> Lightroom and choose -> Identity Plate Setup from the drop-down menu. For Windows, go to -> Edit and choose -> Identity Plate Setup.

Under Identity Plate, choose -> Personalized and Custom.

Click on -> Use a Graphical Identity Plate and then -> Locate File to navigate to wherever you have your logo saved on your computer.

However, if you don’t have a logo, you can still customize the text that appears in Identity Plate by changing the font, size of the font, and the color of the module names.

To sum up

A customized workspace can help you improve your workflow and therefore efficiency when working in Lightroom.

Hopefully, some of these tips will help you navigate Lightroom a bit more easily and has given you some ideas on setting up the interface in the way that works for you.

The post How to Customize Your Lightroom Workspace for Better Workflow appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darina Kopcok.

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6 Essential Steps in any Post-Processing Workflow

26 May

We live in a digital age, a time when a post-processing workflow is an increasingly essential aspect of our photography. Cameras produce images with the expectation that they will be altered later, will be corrected, sharpened, tinted, etc.

What this means is that post-processing isn’t something that can be easily bypassed, especially if you shoot in RAW, which I recommend.

That isn’t to say that every photographer today has to love post-processing. Some photographers, I consider myself to be among them, greatly prefer working in the field to working on the computer. But while it’s possible to shorten one’s post-processing workflow, a minimum amount of editing is necessary to keep up with today’s artistic and technological standards.

macro photography abstract winter ice - Post-Processing Workflow

In this article, I will discuss that minimum and explain the six essential steps in any post-processing workflow. My examples are done in Lightroom, but this applies to all photographers, no matter what software you use.

Once you’ve gone through these steps, you may declare your images complete, and that’s okay. Or you may choose to work on them further, which is okay, too. The point here is only to suggest the six core elements that all post-processing workflows should include—after that, the choice is yours.

1. Crop (and straighten)

The first thing that I do as soon as I have opened my images in Lightroom is to crop and straighten them.

While it’s best to compose properly in camera, sometimes you see a slightly better composition when your image comes up on the screen. However, it isn’t good to rely on this too heavily. Cropping heavily reduces image resolution while also magnifying image imperfections.

Furthermore, when hand-holding your camera, it’s easy to take a slightly crooked image. This isn’t a problem, as long as you remember to straighten it out later.

daisy abstract macro photography flower - Post-Processing Workflow

Notice the slight change from original (right) to cropped and straightened (left) – look at the stem.

This image required a slight amount of cropping and straightening in order to balance out the frame. This is especially important when images have clear lines, as this one does (i.e., the daisy stem).

A word of warning: especially if you are a wildlife or bird photographer, you will be tempted to use cropping to compensate for a distant subject. Resist this temptation and focus on your stalking skills instead. If you find yourself consistently cropping a significant amount, recognize that you should probably make some changes while you’re in the field (get closer or use a longer lens).

2. Check the White Balance

I shoot in RAW. Thus, when I’m in the field, I leave my camera’s White Balance on Auto. Because the RAW file format allows for you to change the image temperature without any image degradation, this is perfectly acceptable (though it does mean slightly more time behind the computer).

snowy intimate landscape photography - Post-Processing Workflow

The left (final) image is after some adjustment; the right is adjusted in the other (warmer) direction.

A cooler (bluer) color temperature was necessary to recreate a snowy, cold feeling for this image.

Use the Temp and Tint sliders to adjust the White Balance.

Sometimes the goal is to reproduce the color temperature that you saw in the field. Other times, you might be trying to achieve an artistic look. Higher temperatures (high degrees K) make for a warmer image and counteract colder light, whereas lower temperatures (low K) make for a cooler image and balance out a warmer color cast.

macro photography flower abstract sunset - Post-Processing Workflow

The left image is what I ultimately decided on; the one on right is an exaggeratedly cool version of the same image.

Taken at sunset, this image required a higher color temperature to match what I saw at the moment of capture.

3. Check the exposure

After adjusting the White Balance, I generally turn to the exposure. This is an aspect of a post-processing workflow that is often forgotten. Yet you should scrutinize your image carefully before moving on. Is it too bright? Too dark? Just right?

This is where the histogram is your friend. It’s to your benefit to learn to read it. Look for blown out highlights or crushed blacks as peaks pressing up against either end of the graph, as well as gaps that indicate a lack of darker or lighter tones in your image.

The histogram can tell you a lot about your image. This one says the image it represents is slightly overexposed. There are no blacks (it’s not touching the left-side of the graph). An Exposure adjustment and the Black slider will solve this issue.

macro photography flower abstract - Post-Processing Workflow

This situation was unique: While the right image isn’t underexposed, I was interested in a slightly brighter one with more contrast. So I altered the exposure in Lightroom and ultimately chose the left image.

A darker image can be corrected in post-processing (this is easier to do with RAW files).

While it is ideal to expose perfectly while in the field, post-processing allows for a bit of leeway here. For instance, you can use the general Exposure slider in Lightroom to correct small exposure mistakes. And if you want to take this further, you can also work with the more narrowly focused Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks sliders.

4. Check the Vibrance and Saturation

Saturation allows you to increase the intensity of all colors in the image, and Vibrance allows you to increase the intensity of the less saturated colors only. In most photo-editing programs, these are easy to change.

macro photography flower yellow abstract - Post-Processing Workflow

Notice the slightly more intense yellows in the left (more saturated) image.

A bit of saturation gave this image more punch.

Saturation and Vibrance can provide a slight punch to your images when done subtly. These are also quite easy to overdo, so be careful. You don’t want to slam the viewer with so much saturation that they are forced to look away!

5. Check for noise

Next, be sure to check the noise levels in your image. This is especially important if you’re working with a long exposure or an image that was shot at a high ISO. Increasing the exposure in post-processing may also introduce unintended noise.

macro photography abstract yellow - Post-Processing Workflow

This image required a slight amount of noise reduction.

While the difference is subtle, a crop of the final image (with noise reduction applied in Lightroom) is on the left.

If you find unpleasant levels of noise, you can generally use noise reduction software to remove it. Removing noise does decrease the overall image sharpness (if removing luminance noise) and saturation (if removing color noise). So, once again, this is a correction that should be used minimally.

6. Check the sharpness

Finally, I like to end my basic post-processing workflow by considering the complement of noise – sharpness. If working with a program such as Lightroom, this often needs little adjustment. With a good lens and good camera technique, your images will be rendered sharp simply by the photo-conversion presets.

For example, I rarely alter Lightroom’s Amount: 25 Sharpening preset. If your image is slightly soft, you may want to work with overall sharpness. You might also consider a second round of carefully applied sharpening in order to enhance specific features like the faces of birds, the center of flowers, etc.

autumn intimate landscape photography - Post-Processing Workflow

It is imperative that an image like this have a pin sharp subject.

A crop of the final image (left) with sharpening applied in Lightroom.

However, even once you’ve sharpened for your original image, the sharpening work isn’t over. Before you export for printing or web viewing, you will likely need to sharpen again. Otherwise, you’ll find that your new image is slightly soft.

Lightroom has a neat little way of completing this post-processing step. Upon exporting files, you have the option to choose a level of sharpening. I generally choose Low or Standard.

macro photography abstract flower yellow - Post-Processing Workflow

Conclusion

These tips should give you an idea of what a very minimalist post-processing workflow looks like. If you follow this guide closely—even if you do nothing else to your images—you’ll find that your images reach a higher standard.

What is your post-processing workflow like? Please feel free to share in the comments area below.

dahlia macro photography flower

Flower Abstract Macro Photography

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Raya Pro Photoshop Plugin – How to Simplify and Speedup Your Workflow

24 Apr

For a long time, my solution for a faster workflow was to create my own Photoshop Actions. But in the last couple of years, I’ve implemented another third-party software into my workflow, the Raya Pro Photoshop plugin.

The challenge

Let’s face it, Photoshop can be an overwhelming and time-consuming photo editor. However, it’s also one that plays an important part in most photographer’s work. Either they use it for simple color corrections or more advanced techniques, most professional photographers put their images through Photoshop at some point.

I’ve been using Photoshop for the last 10-or-so years, so I would say that I’m pretty familiar with the software. My biggest challenge, or rather annoyment, since I started using Photoshop was the fact that several of the techniques I used took a lot of time to create. Even if I’m only talking about a few minutes, it accumulates when I use it several times in each picture, and I process several pictures a day.

Raya Pro Photoshop Plugin - How to Simplify and Speedup Your Workflow

I’ve used a Luminosity Mask to create local adjustments to the highlights in this image.

What is Raya Pro?

Spending time repeating the same techniques over and over again can be quite demotivating and even lead to you being sloppy in your post-processing. That’s why Raya Pro has become a part of my workflow. It’s a Photoshop Panel which allows you to make several advanced and professional-looking techniques with a simple click.

It’s a tool that’s useful for both experienced Photoshop users (to save time) and complete beginners (to learn to create professional effects).

Raya Pro consists of seven panels:

Raya Pro HUB
InstaMask
Precision Mask
Quick Blend
Colors
Dodge & Burn
Filters/Finish

Raya Pro Photoshop Plugin - How to Simplify and Speedup Your Workflow

Each panel contains several Actions which you easily can use to create professional-looking effects or techniques, such as Luminosity Masks, Dodging & Burning, the Orton Effect and Web Sharpening.

Most Important Features

I’m not going to lie and say that it doesn’t take some time to understand all seven panels. It’s quite a lot to get into but along with each panel, there’s a button that takes you to a series of video tutorials specifically for that panel. These tutorials are easy to follow and if you’ve already got some knowledge of Adobe software, it won’t take long for you to master the panels.

While it may seem a bit overwhelming, you’ll most likely not use all the Actions. In my experience, you’ll find a handful of Actions you use on a regular basis and mostly stick to using those. Let me make it a little easier for you and point out the ones I use in my workflow.

Exposure Blending & Luminosity Masks

One of the main features and uses of Raya Pro is to easily blend multiple images and create Luminosity Masks. (If you’re not familiar with Luminosity Masks I recommend reading this article by Raya Pro creator and dPS writer Jimmy McIntyre).

Raya Pro Photoshop Plugin - How to Simplify and Speedup Your Workflow

There are three ways to blend images with Raya Pro:

With the QuickBlend Panel
Using the Precision Mask Panel
With the InstaMask Panel

The easiest option is to use the QuickBlend Panel. Here you can simply blend multiple exposures with one single click. However, being the easiest it’s also the most restricted so you might need to tweak it a little for optimal results. That being said, it does a good job most of the time.

The Precision Mask Panel is slightly more advanced and is divided into three sections: Exposure Blending, Color Zones and Fix Dark Blend. With this panel, you can create precise masks and further refine them by subtracting a specific color from your selection, for example.

InstaMask is the most advanced of the three but also the most flexible. Its main purpose is to create Luminosity Masks so if you want to do exposure blending you’ll need to create and apply the masks. This is my preferred panel as I’m able to further refine selections and apply either apply them to a mask or use them to create an adjustment layer.

Dodge & Burn

While creating a Dodge & Burn layer doesn’t take much time, it’s an effect that I often apply multiple times on an image; which is why I prefer having an Action (or Raya Pro) to create it quickly.

The Raya Pro Dodge & Burn panel.

Raya Pro has its own panel dedicated to Dodging & Burning where you’re able to create much more than only the traditional 50% Grey layer (though this is what I use the most). In this panel, you can create Dodge & Burn layers that specifically target only the highlights, shadows, or mid-tones. This is a great option to have when you’re working on local adjustments.

In addition to Dodge & Burn layers, you’re also able to create different styles of the Orton Effect; a glow effect that creates a dreamy atmosphere.

Correcting Color Cast

Raya Pro is also a great tool when it comes to working with colors. Whether you want to saturate, desaturate, convert to B&W or add warmth to the highlights, it’s all done with one simple click.

Correcting color cast is done with one simple click as well. In fact, you’ve got four options to use in case one doesn’t give you a good result: Correct 1, Correct 2, Correct 3 and Manual Correct. The three first make use of different techniques that automatically remove color cast. But should those not work, you can use the Manual Correct button for better results.

Filters & Finish

The last panel I use in my workflow is Filters & Finish. While I only use this panel for the Web Sharpening tool that doesn’t mean I don’t recommend playing around with the other effects as well.

Raya Pro Photoshop Plugin - How to Simplify and Speedup Your Workflow

You’re also able to add your own Actions if there’s a specific technique or effect you regularly create, that’s not already on the panel.

Final Words

Raya Pro has been a part of my workflow for the last couple years. While I still make the majority of the techniques, effects, or edits manually, I do use it at some point for most of my images.

It’s a plugin that is great for both complete beginners and advanced users as each panel is built differently. After some trial and error it’s pretty straightforward to use and, in my opinion, it’s never been easier to create professional looking techniques.

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How to use Photoshop Droplets and Actions to Automate Your Workflow

22 Apr

Most photographers who do any kind of event photography (including corporate or weddings) need to find ways to automate aspects of their photographic workflow. This is because events usually generate a lot of images. There are many ways to automate your workflow. This article will describe a technique for speeding up your workflow using Photoshop Droplets and Actions (rather than Lightroom).

To understand this method you need to grasp a couple of Photoshop concepts: Actions and Droplets.

Created using an Action and the Droplet we’ll make below.

Photoshop Actions

What is a Photoshop Action? An Action is a powerful tool in Photoshop which is essentially is a recorded sequence of steps. By recording the repetitive individual steps as a group, the entire sequence can be repeated. Actions are really intended for global edits and not for image specific local edits.

Conceptually, as you develop your editing skills as a photographer, regardless of whether you are using Lightroom or Photoshop, you will eventually develop a style or procedure that you like to do when you process your images. Using Actions will help automate these procedural edits.

Beyond your own types of global edits, Photoshop comes with a small set of pre-configured Actions that are included in the installation of Photoshop. In addition, there are many Photoshop Actions available either for free or for purchase on the internet.

Many photographers try to engage their followers by selling Actions to achieve particular looks. Anyone purchasing Actions should know that they are just pre-recorded sequences that anyone can do within Photoshop to achieve the same look (they do take time to set up though). Regardless, Actions automate repetitive steps in Photoshop.

Droplets

Droplets are a great way to automate the use of Actions with Photoshop. Droplets are similar to Actions but can be used on many files and activated from outside of Photoshop. There are other ways to do batch processing, but Droplets are a neat and simple way to allow actions to be performed on multiple images.

Sound confusing? Here it is in a nutshell: a Droplet is a small executable file that allows you to drop a folder full of images onto a file on your desktop that will run an action set and create final image results that are stored in another folder.

Why do this?

By using a Droplet, you can take a folder full of images and process them without having to open each one individually. It allows you to perform a long series of repetitive steps on images simply and cleanly. Just drop the folder on the Droplet and walk away to allow your computer to do all the work while you do something more fun, like make a sandwich or watch a Netflix show.

Why not do all of this with batch processing in Lightroom? Lightroom allows for batch processing of images with Presets. But some Actions are too complex for Lightroom and Actions for Photoshop don’t work in Lightroom unless they are specifically built for Lightroom. Any event photographer or any photographer that has to take and process a lot of images needs to find a way to simplify their process to get images finalized.

So how do you set up a Droplet?

First, you need to either decide on an Action or sequence of Actions (you can use more than one) and decide where you want to put the edited files when they are done. To show how to use a Droplet, let’s create a simple action and then set it up as a Droplet.

Step 1: Open an image

Droplet Batch Processing Before - How to use Photoshop Droplets and Actions to Automate Your Workflow

Image before processing

Let’s make a simple action to apply the appearance of motion to an image by applying a radial blur.

The first step is to open an image in Photoshop. You need to start with an image in order to be able to go through all the steps to save the Action and create the Droplet. You can use a pre-existing Action but to create the Droplet you need to modify the Action and that can get complicated.

For this example, you are going to create an Action first, make sure it works, and then use it to create the Droplet.

Droplet-Creating the Action - How to use Photoshop Droplets and Actions to Automate Your Workflow

Launch the image into Photoshop

Step 2: Create the Action

Create an Action - How to use Photoshop Droplets and Actions to Automate Your Workflow

Dialogue box for creating a new Action in Photoshop.

If you already have an Action that you want to run, you can skip the process of recording a new one, but for this example, we are creating a new Action. First, you need to open the Actions panel. If yours is not visible, go to Window > Actions from the top menu.

Once the Actions panel is open, you need to make sure you are not in button mode (button mode has colorful boxes). If the list in the Actions panel is grey staggered boxes, you are in the right mode. At the top right corner, there is a small wing menu. Open that and choose New Action. You will then see the panel above.

For this Action, we are creating a motion effect using a radial blur. Call the Action dPS Radial Blur (or whatever makes sense to you) and then press the Record button to start recording the Action. You are on your way and you should see a red dot at the bottom of the Actions panel.

Step 3: Create the Radial Blur

Duplicate the image by selecting Duplicate Layer from the pull-down menu at the top of the layer panel (or use the keyboard shortcut Cmd/Ctrl+J).

Duplicate the image - How to use Photoshop Droplets and Actions to Automate Your Workflow

Create a duplicate layer.

The name of the duplicate layer is not important, but this is the layer to which you are going to apply the radial blur. Now, with the new layer selected go to the menu bar select Filter > Blur > Radial Blur. This will open the following dialogue box.

Radial Blur Dialogue - How to use Photoshop Droplets and Actions to Automate Your Workflow

Apply the radial blur.

The default method is spin and the default quality is good. Change these to zoom and best (as seen above). You need to apply a fair bit of blur for this effect, so anything higher than 70% will work. Your dialogue box should look like the image above.

Step 4: Create the Mask

For this effect, you will only be applying it to the outside edges of the image. To do this you are going to use a layer mask. To create the mask, select the layer you just applied the radial blur effect to and then click on the icon with the white rectangle with a dark circle in the center (third from the bottom left). This should create a white square next to the thumbnail of your active layer, that is your mask. The white mask means that your effect is still being applied or showing across the entire image.

Create the Mask - How to use Photoshop Droplets and Actions to Automate Your Workflow

Create a layer mask on the layer with the blur effect you just created.

Once you have created the mask you need to paint on it with black to selectively hide parts of the effect on this layer. Select the Brush Tool and choose a large brush with a soft edge to modify the mask. The size of the brush should be pretty big so that it covers a large portion of the center of your image. Use a really soft brush (hardness of about 15%).

Paint on the mask with black (make sure the mask is selected not the layer itself – square white brackets should be around the mask) over the center of the image to reveal the sharp part you want showing. Use the softness of the brush to make the transition from blur to sharpness gradual. Your mask should now look mostly white with a black dot in the middle.

The finished image - How to use Photoshop Droplets and Actions to Automate Your Workflow

This is the image after the steps have been completed.

Your image should look something like this effect. Your Actions panel has been recording all these steps in the background. Save your image in the format you want (JPG, PSD, TIF, etc.), the location should be your destination folder.

Step 5: Finish recording the Action

Go to your Actions panel and press the square box (stop button) at the bottom of the panel next to the red dot.

Action panel still recording - How to use Photoshop Droplets and Actions to Automate Your Workflow

Finishing the Action, press stop (square) next to the red dot

This stops the action from taking further steps. Your Action is now complete. If you delete the layer with the blur on it, you can test your action on the same image.

Simply go back to the Layer panel, delete the top layer with the mask. Go to the Actions panel and find the new Action with the label dPS Radial Blur, highlight it, and click the triangle pointing to the right on the bottom line of the panel. This will activate or run the action. If you have done it correctly you will get the same image again. Yeah!

Step 6: Making the Droplet

Okay, we are almost ready to create the Droplet, there are only a couple more steps involved. To make sure the Action works properly you need a fresh instance of Photoshop. So the first thing to do is to close Photoshop and relaunch it.

The steps to make the Droplet from this point on are quite simple. To create the Droplet, go to the menu bar to File > Automate > Create Droplet.

Creating the Droplet - How to use Photoshop Droplets and Actions to Automate Your Workflow

The Droplet dialogue box.

This is the last set of steps but they are important. First, pick a good location for your Droplet. Usually, a great spot is on your desktop. Click the “Choose…” button, select the desktop and a name for your Droplet (give it a meaningful name for you).

Under the Play heading, uncheck all the boxes (these will stop your droplet from processing) and select your new Action from the pull-down list. Set the destination as Folder and choose a destination for your images (it is usually convenient to put the folder on the desktop as well). Uncheck the Override Action “Save As” command.Press OK. The last thing to do is to create an empty folder (this will be the source folder where you put your images to be processed) in the same location as you put your Droplet (e.g. the desktop). Close and exit Photoshop.

I like having the source folder, Droplet and destination directory close to each other on the desktop. My arrangement looks like this:

Source folder, Droplet and destination folder

A typical layout for a Droplet on my desktop.

Step 7: Using your Droplet

You are now ready to use your Droplet. Simply put your images to be processed (try only a couple to test first) into the source folder (in this case it’s called To Be Processed). The images should be in the same format you chose previously. Make sure Photoshop is not running (sometimes this causes communication errors). From the desktop, highlight the source folder and drag it onto the Droplet.

Here’s what should happen: the Droplet launches, Photoshop starts, runs your action, and saves your images in the destination folder. Using the test image, it should look like this.

The finished test image after processing

Conclusion

Sometimes droplets are finicky to set up but once they work, they work really well. Each image is processed separately one at a time, so you can take a number of images, put them in your source folder and then just drop the folder on the droplet. This allows you to walk away from your computer for a while, grab a coffee, update your Facebook status (#Workinghard!), have a short nap and come back to a finished set of images.

Droplets can really help to simplify your workflow. The only word of caution is that if you are processing a large number of images with an Action that causes the finished image to get significantly larger, make sure you have sufficient hard disk space for the finished images. I have found if you run out of disk space, Photoshop will crash during a droplet operation.

Happy workflow! If you have used Droplets before please share your experience in the comments below, as well as if you have any questions.