Tech Blog

[#1]

Now that you have set you camera to shoot RAW (right?), let's explore what a digital workflow is and how you can leverage Google's free photo editing software, Picasa.

A digital workflow simply means what you do with your shots after snapping them and they are still sitting on your camera's memory card. Taking the photos is only half the job. Getting them off the camera, archived, processed and outputted into a format that can be used is the other half. From my experience this is the part a lot of people skip because either they are not comfortable with these steps, or simply because viewing and sharing the pictures on the camera is good enough.

1 Before even copying your shots from the memory card to your computer, you should create a sound archiving system. Something simple that easy to stick to, makes it easy to find your shots five years later and simplifies backing up your photos. In your computer's pictures-folder created one master directory for your images entitled "Photos" (or whatever you find appropriate). This is where you put all your pictures, both the ones you take and the ones Aunt Wilma gave you from her 60th birthday.

2 Within your new "Photos" master folder create a series of sub-folders named 2007, 2008, 2009 for however long back you have digital images. Within those folders create 12 sub-folders, one for each month: January, February, etc. I find this the simplest and easiest way to organize my photos: in what month and what year were they taken. To further organize your photos you can create more intuitive folder names within the specific month. Say, you came back from Hawaii in March this year, then you can archive all your Hawaii vacation shots here "Photos/2009/March/Hawaii".

↑ My folder structure. 

3 With the files safely stored away you can start processing your images (RAW or JPG) using your favorite photo editor.

4 Once processed you can then output JPGs tailored in size and compression for sharing on facebook, via email or prints. Now let's look @ Google Picasa and how it fits in with the step three and four of the suggested work flow.

Go get your photos (import)

Because Picasa functions like a database (not physically moving your files, just creating reference points to them) you must first tell Picasa where the files are. Thankfully, Picasa has made importing your photos a breeze. Simply archive your photos off the camera in folders that the program 'monitors' (typically your default pictures-folder) and Picasa automatically pulls them in for you to view.

↑ Because Picasa functions as database, you can fine-tune which folders it automatically imports pictures from.

↓ If accidentally hitting delete, Picasa doesn't give you the option of just removing the photo from it's folder. Instead it simply asks you if you want to delete the image from the hard drive altogether. Yikes! So be careful. Working within the database I find myself getting confused from time to time where the images are actually located. By right-clicking on an image you always have the option of letting Picasa show you where it's stored. 

Let the fun begin (edits)

To be honest, I think of editing as being fun. This is where you get to look at your images and see how well they match up to the vision you had when taking them. It is kinda cool when you think of it: you get to decide how the images should look be it b/w, saturated, cropped, color tinted, etc. You are the King (or Queen) over your images.

↓ Simply double click on an image to start editing it.

↑ Edit options.

Picasa offers a pretty full set of edit controls from fully automatic options (including the Google-popular: I'm Feeling Lucky) to manual edits of highlights, blacks, color temperature, etc. Like other photo editing software, Picasa also includes a number of preset edits from straightforward b/w conversion to the more funky 'film grain' and 'tint'.

Unfortunately, Picasa does not allow you to batch process images. In batch processing you 'bake' a group of  images using the 'recipe' from just one image. Say on your Hawaii trip you took a bunch of photos from a boating tour. Chances are most of the images will have the same lighting conditions, meaning you can process them in the same manner. In software that does allow this option, it is a real lifesaver if you have a large number of very similar photos to process. Mind you batch processing is also possible for JPGs if you haven't made the leap to RAW yet. It works exactly the same way, and is just a big time-saver.

I have to say that the undo-button is nicely implemented in Picasa. All the edits you make are saved in an .ini database file and can at any point be undone. You have the option of either undoing the previous action or 'resetting' the entire image back to its original state.

↑ Choose "Undo all" for images that have been edited but not yet saved. "Revert" will reverse any edits and saves and take the file back to its original state.

Time to harvest (export)

It is time to harvest your diligent work of archiving, importing and editing. This is one of the beauties of working with RAW. You edit the image as you see fit, maybe even going for two or three different looks, then export in the JPG-size that suits your need for sharing on facebook, emailing or printing.

Got questions about digital workflow, or do you have experience with other photo editing software? Share your insight or questions below in a comment.

↓ Result of Picasa edit.

For the technically interested: Picasa is a free photo editing software by Google. Besides being able to 'translate' your RAW files to JPG files it offers a wide palette of features, such as online photo sharing, make your own collage or build your own slideshow. Pretty nifty stuff. If you're so lucky you just got a new camera Picasa may not support the RAW files from it yet. In that case you can safely convert your RAW files from the camera manufacturer's proprietary format to Adobe's open standard format Digital Negative (DNG) and you should be good to go in Picasa. 

Message Edited by ElizabethS on 07-25-2009 11:58 PM

Message Edited by Laura on 08-21-2009 10:56 AM

[#2]

Picasa over iPhoto? I haven't really used either. I've been wondering about Lightroom vs Aperture 2 ... what are your thoughts?

[#3]

@trishussey: I have only used iPhoto sparringly as well, but chose to write on Picasa as it's free for both Mac and PC users.

LR/Aperture debate. I did contemplate switching to Aperture the same time I switched from PC to Mac, but because LR is platform agnostic, I could use my old PC license key on my new Mac. Pretty sweet! Since then I haven't looked back. LR is pretty much the 'perfect' photo editing software for me especially with the improvements of local edits in LR2.  

Maybe there are some Aperture users out there (Graham, are you reading this?) who can give their weigh-in on the program?

[#4]

Great post (again).

Thoughts on image tagging?

My archive structure is similar to yours up to the Month part. I create a new directory for each 'date' images are taken..ie 2009 will have a directory 2009-jun-10, and another 2009-jun-11...etc.

But, rather than subdivide the images by subject (Hawaii, etc), I use the tagging features of my software, Photoshop Album initially, now Adobe Lightroom. Each image has a number of tags associated with it to better describe it and find it using the application search functions. Tags like Dogs, House, Vacation, Trees..etc.

Drawbacks? Tagging doesn't seem to be standardized yet. To my knowledge, I can't import my Flickr images and tags into Lightroom...or photoshop..

Thoughts?

[#5]

@bgrier: good call. Tagging was left out from the digital work flow. As you point out it is definitely a good idea to tag your images when you open them in your photo editor/organizer.

I have to double check, but I am fairly certain that any tagging done in Lightroom will carry forward to Adobe Photoshop. I am not sure about tagging across different software platform (say, from iPhoto to LR).

Speaking of iPhoto and tagging, the feature mentioned in "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" ad with facial tagging sounds pretty cool!

[#6]

Now if someone could come up with a standardized image tagging protocol (and industry buy in to it , similar to the one used in MP3, then the image management process would be that much cleaner.

And yeah, that Facial tagging would be great to test...And apply to other generic tags too...'landscape, flowers, mountains, trees, dogs, etc

[#7]

I'm with bgrier.
I tag my images as I import them into LR2, with a global tag (ie: 'Thailand'), then when I am sorting through the image files, I tag them again into more specific categories (ie: Chiang Mai) . Once I have them sorted and tagged the way that makes sense to me, I create a Collection in LR2 and drag those tagged photos in. Lightroom also allows me to store photos in several collections, if that makes sense to me.

After I have tagged the photos in a way that allows me to locate them easily, I then move to the editing phase. I only edit the images that I think are worthy of printing or publishing, and let the others sit. Lightroom will clearly show me which images have been edited and which are still in their original format.

BTW, I have both Lightroom and Aperture, figuring that they best way to see what works best for me is to try both. The programs work pretty similarly, but my preference leaned towards LR2, and I've stuck with it.