AA30470C Cover

An Extension to
Cover
PhotoCourse Digital Photography Textbooks

Digital Photography
Workflow
AA30470C

Dennis P. Curtin
http : / / w w w . ShortCourses. c o m
http://www.PhotoCourse.com

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Digital Photography Workflow

ShortCourses and PhotoCourse Publishing Programs

S
hort Courses and its sister site PhotoCourse.com, are the leading
publishers of digital photography books, textbooks, and easy to follow
guides to specific cameras.

Classroom Discounts
PhotoCourse and ShortCourses books are used in hundreds of schools, adult
and community education programs, and in major camera company and
government departments. If you are an instructor, special pricing is available
for classroom use.
• For details on using our texts in the classroom, visit our textbook
Web site at www.photocourse.com or call us at 781-631-8520, Boston, Mas-
sachusetts USA time.
• For camera guides and other digital photography books, visit the Short
Courses bookstore at www.shortcourses.com/bookstore/book.htm.
If you find any errors in this book, would like to make suggestions for im-
provements, or just want to let me know what you think—I welcome your
feedback, even though I’m not always able to respond personally.

Contact/Feedback Information
ShortCourses.com
16 Preston Beach Road
Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945
E-mail: [email protected]

Copyright Notice
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© Copyright 2011 by Dennis P. Curtin. All rights reserved. Printed in the
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United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States
document on how Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication, or the resources to which
copyright law protects it links, may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or
photographers and
other artists.
stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission
of the publisher.

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Web Sites
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ShortCourses.com.
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 Contents

Contents
Cover 1
ShortCourses and PhotoCourse
Publishing Programs 2
Digital Workflow—An Overview 5
Image Formats 6
In-Camera Image Storage Devices 10
Transferring Images 12
Storing Images—On Your System 15
Storing Images—On the Road 18
How Photos Are Stored in your
Camera and Computer 19
Organizing Your Photo Files 22
Date Formats 22
Image Managers 23
Evaluating Your Images—Basics 28
Evaluating Your Images—Histograms 31
Photo-editing—Global Editing 35
Photo-editing—Local Editing 41

Extensions
Understanding Copyright 2
Visit ShortCourses.com 2
Visit PhotoCourse.com 2
Scanning 5
RAW vs JPEG Image Quality 6
The Effects of Compression 7
RGB Color 8
Color Depth and File Sizes 8
Dragging and Dropping Files and Folders 12
Exploring Folders 20
You Have Asset Management 24
Color management 27
Image Sizes 28
Adjusting an Image’s Tonal Range 28
Adjust Huehh, Saturation and Lightness 29
Sharpening an Image 30
Understanding Histograms 32
Highlight Warnings 32
Editing can be used to Improve Images 35
Editing Can be Used to Change Pictures 35
Adjusting Perspective 41

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Digital Photography Workflow

Digital Workflow

C
A snow fence lines up apturing a digital photograph is just one step in a multi-step process
almost perfectly with
the horizon at the called the digital workflow. Every photographer personalizes their
Washington Monument workflow to some extent, but all include checking equipment before
in Washington, D.C. starting out, and the post-capture steps of transferring pictures from the
camera; reviewing, organizing, and ranking the images; then adjusting, shar-
ing and archiving them. Many of the steps in this workflow have traditionally
been performed using a variety of applications including those that do image
management, RAW image conversion, and photo-editing. However, truly
innovative applications including Apple’s Aperture and Adobe’s Lightroom
are reshaping the playing field. These programs integrate into a single ap-
plication almost all of the steps in the digital workflow so post capture digital
photography is easier, faster, and more efficient. These programs also make
working with RAW files as easy as working with JPEGs so there’s no reason
not to use this high-quality image format. In this chapter we’ll explore the
steps in the digital workflow from getting ready through to organizing and
editing images on your computer. The emphasis is on Adobe’s Lightroom,
mainly because it runs on both Macs and PCs. Apple’s Aperture is a highly
regarded program and shares many of the same goals and features.

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 Digital Workflow—An Overview

Digital Workflow—An Overview

If you have ever performed the same task over and over again, the chances
are that you developed a routine, a series of steps that eliminated variations
and problems from the process. In digital photography we call this routine
the workflow. Creativity is confined to the capture and editing steps in a rou-
tine that is otherwise highly structured. Although each photographer person-
alizes their workflow to meet their own needs, all include some variation of
the following steps—each of which can be broken down farther into a number
of substeps. The exciting thing about Aperture and Lightroom is that they
handle all of these steps, providing an end-to-end workflow solution.

Step 1. Capturing photographs

http://www.photocourse.com/itext/scan/scan.pdf
When you pick up your camera at the start of a session, the first workflow-re-
lated steps include checking that the lens is clean, the battery is charged, the
Click for a PDF memory card is in the camera and has enough storage capacity for the num-
extension on scanning ber of photos you plan to shoot, and all settings are the way you want them.
images into a digital
format.
Step 2. Storing & organizing photographs
PHOTO-EDITING
After capturing images, you transfer them to a computer for more permanent
There are now two
kinds of photo edi-
storage. As you do so, you need to transfer and store them in an organized
tors: manner so you can quickly find images later. The latest image management
• Pixel editing soft-
programs provide a number of tools that make this easier such as the ability
ware adjusts images to rank images, add keywords, and sort images by a number of criteria.
at the pixel level. In
so doing it changes
the original data and Step 3. Editing photographs
changes can’t be
undone later. With photos in a digital format, you can edit and manipulate them with a
• Parametric im-
photo-editing program. In some cases you improve an image by eliminating
age editing software or reducing its flaws, adjusting its exposure, colors and sharpness. In other
does not alter pixels. cases, you adjust an image for a specific purpose, perhaps to make it smaller
Instead it records
changes as sets of
for e-mailing or posting on a Web site. The latest programs such as Apple’s
instructions or pa- Aperture and Adobe’s Lightroom make improving your images much easier
rameters. Software and all changes are non-destructive so they can be undone at any time.
that adjusts images
in this way such as
Lightroom, Adobe
Camera Raw (ACR),
Step 4. Sharing photographs
Aperture, Bibble, and Once an image is the way you want it, you’ll find that there are many ways to
Capture One—allow
you to undo any and
display and share it. These include printing it (on almost anything from fine
all changes at any art paper to coffee mugs), inserting it into a document, posting it on a photo
point. sharing Web site or a blog, e-mailing it, including it in a printed book or a
slide show that plays on a computer or TV, or displaying it in a digital photo
frame.

Step 5. Archiving and backing up photographs

When you have photos for which you have no immediate use but want to
save, or important photos you don’t want to loose, you can copy them to opti-
cal discs (CD/DVD/Blu-Ray) or even another hard disk. If you then delete the
images from the hard disk on your main system the remaining files are re-
Many Web sites let you ferred to as archive files. If you also keep them on the main system the dupli-
design your own photo cates are called back up copies. When you back up files, make sure you store
book and have it printed them so the same accident can’t happen to both the original and backup.
and bound in portrait or
landscape mode. Some events to avoid are broken water pipes, fires, floods and earthquakes.

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Digital Photography Workflow

Image Formats

One of the most important workflow related decisions you make when cap-
http://www.photocourse.com/itext/RAW/
turing images is which image file format to use. All cameras let you use the
Click to explore the
popular JPEG format but many also let you use a higher-quality RAW format.
differences between A very few cameras also offer alternate formats including DNG and TIFF.
JPEG and RAW formats.

Formats
STORAGE When offered a choice of image formats to use, here are some things that
CAPACITY might help you select the best one for your needs.
The number of new
images you can • JPEG is the default format used by almost every digital camera ever made.
store at the current Named after its developer, the Joint Photographic Experts Group (and
settings is usu-
ally displayed on the
pronounced “jay-peg”) this format often lets you specify both the image size
camera’s monitor or (in pixels) and how much the image file is compressed. When you capture an
control panel. image in this format a processing chip in your camera manipulates it based
on the camera settings you used, and then compresses it to reduce its size.
The changes made to the image cannot be undone later because it’s the final,
altered image that is saved in the image file. Some of the original image data
is lost for good. Because you can’t easily add pixels and retain image quality,
or remove the effects of compression after the fact, it’s usually best to use the
largest available image size and the least compression available. If you have
to reduce either, you can do so later using a photo-editing program. The only
problem with this approach is a small one; higher quality images have larger
file sizes.
• RAW is a format that’s available on many high-end cameras including all
SLRs. One of Ansel Adam’s better know expressions, drawn from his early
RAW FORMATS experiences as a concert pianist, was “The negative is the score, the print is
There are so many the performance.” In digital photography, the image file is your score and the
RAW file formats best possible score is a RAW image file. These files contain all of the image
in the marketplace data captured by the camera’s image sensor without it being processed or
that it’s becoming a
major problem. Here adjusted in any way by the camera. This lets you move the images to the com-
are just some of the puter and interpret this data the way you want to instead of having the cam-
RAW filename exten- era do it for you. When you want total control over exposure, white balance,
sions that indicate
different and incom- and other settings, this is the format to use because only four camera settings
patible formats. permanently affect a RAW image—the aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and
• Nikon—NEF focus. Other camera settings are saved as metadata and affect the appearance
• Olympus—ORF of the thumbnail or preview images but not the RAW image itself.
• Fuji—RAF
• Sony—SRF With many cameras you can capture RAW images by themselves or with a
• Canon—CR2 companion JPEG image that gives you an identical high quality RAW file and
• Pentax—PEF
• Generic—DNG a smaller, more easily distributable JPEG file. Both images have the same
names, but different extensions. The latest applications such as Lightroom
have made working with RAW images so easy this is no longer really useful
and the duplicate JPEG images just take up room. In case storage space is
limited, some cameras offer more than one size for RAW images so you can
retain the advantages of the RAW format while capturing smaller images that
have smaller file sizes.
One thing to keep in mind is that RAW images are not always noticeably bet-
ter. Where they shine is when you have exposure or white balance problems.
Because RAW images have dramatically more information to work with, you
can open up shadow areas, recover lost details in highlights, and make fine
adjustments to colors.

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 Image Formats

• DNG (Digital Negative). Camera companies have introduced many dif-

ferent, and frequently changing, raw file formats. By some estimates there
are hundreds of such formats with more coming—some of them specific to
a single camera model. On top of this, manufacturers are often pointlessly
secretive about their specifications so there are almost always RAW files your
software can’t read—at least until someone reverse engineers the formats so
they can support them. This lag time and inconvenience can be laid at the
The DNG logo.
doorstep of the camera companies. These proprietary RAW files are at risk
over time since companies come and go and their interest in maintaining a
particular format waxes and wanes. One solution to this growing problem is
an Adobe format called the Digital Negative (.DNG). This publicly defined
and openly shared format for RAW files is an attempt to ensure that you will
be able to access your image files in the future. If your camera doesn’t capture
images in this format, and very few of them do, you can convert them to DNG
using a program such as Photoshop or Lightroom. When you do so, you can
even choose to store the original RAW image inside its DNG file so you can
extract it at some future date should you need it. The DNG format is support-
ed by Photoshop and other Adobe products, some other software companies,
and a few camera companies, but currently none of the major ones. As with
all things in computing, only time will tell if the format becomes more widely
accepted or gradually fades away.
• TIFF (tagged image file format) is a format that’s often used to exchange
http://www.photocourse.com/itext/compression/
files between applications and computer platforms. It’s supported by virtually
all image-editing and page-layout applications. Only a few cameras let you
Click to see the effects capture images in this format but when they do TIFF files tend to be larger
of compression.
than RAW images.

File compression
Image files are huge compared to many other types of computer files. For
example, RAW files captured by a 21 Megapixel camera can range up to 30 or
even more Megabytes. As resolutions continue to increase, so will file sizes.
To make image files smaller and more manageable, digital cameras use a
process called compression. During compression, data that is duplicated or
that has little value is eliminated or saved in a shorter form to reduce a file’s
size. For example, if large areas of the sky are the same shade of blue, only
the value for one pixel needs to be saved along with the locations of the other
pixels with the same color. When the image is then opened and displayed by
any application, the compression process is reversed more or less depending
on which form of compression was used—lossless or lossy.
• Lossless compression compresses an image so when it is uncompressed,
as it is when you open it, its image quality matches the original source—noth-
ing is lost. Although lossless compression sounds ideal, it doesn’t provide
much compression so files remain quite large. For this reason, lossless com-
pression is only used by the highest quality image formats—namely TIFF and
Here, two versions of
the same image. The RAW.
image on top is the
original JPEG. The one • Lossy compression (rhymes with “bossy”) can dramatically reduce file
on the bottom shows sizes. However, this process degrades images to some degree and the more
what happens after they’re compressed, the more degraded they become. In many situations,
it’s saved a few times
at the lowest quality such as posting images on the Web or making small to medium sized prints,
setting. Art courtesy of the image degradation isn’t obvious. However, if you enlarge an image
webweaver.nu. enough, it will show. The most common lossy file format is JPEG and many
cameras let you specify how much images in this format are compressed.
For example, many cameras let you choose Fine (1:4 so files are 1/4th their

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Digital Photography Workflow

original size), Normal (1:8), and Basic (1:16) compression. This is a useful
COLOR DEPTH feature because there is a trade-off between compression and image quality.
When discussing Less compression gives you better images so you can make larger prints, but
color depth, photog-
raphers refer just to
you need more storage space for the larger files.
the bits per color or
the total number of
bits, and both forms Color depth
of reference mean
the same thing. For
When you look around a room or landscape you are able to distinguish mil-
example, if you say lions of colors. A digital image can approximate this color realism, but how
“8 bit images” or “24 well it does so depends on your camera and the settings you choose. The
bit images,” people
will know you are
number of colors in an image is referred to its color depth and is determined
talking about JPEGs by the number of bits used to store each of a pixel’s three colors—red, green,
and not RAW images. and blue. JPEG images use 8 bits per color. To calculate how many different
colors can be captured or displayed, you raise the number 2 to the power of
the number of bits used to store them. For example:
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• For each color 8-bits captures 256 levels of brightness because 28 = 256.
• For all three colors combined there are 24 bits (8 per color times 3), and the
Click to see how all
colors can be formed total number of colors is over 16 million (224 = 16,777,216).
from red, green and
blue. RAW images have greater color depth and that gives smoother gradations
of tones and more colors to work with as you make adjustments. How many
more colors is astronomical. RAW images are initially captured by the sensor
in an analog form and then an analog to digital converter converts them to
10, 12 or 14 bits per color.
• For each color 14-bits captures 65,536 levels of a brightness (214 = 65,536).
• For all three colors there are 42 bits (14 per color times 3), and the total
number of colors is over 4 trillion (242 = 4,398,046,511,104).
These extra colors are not actually used by display screens, printers, or most
other devices, but are there to give exceptionally fine gradations when editing
and adjusting images into their final form.
Here’s a table that summarizes these color depth facts.

Name Bits per Total Formula Number of colors

color bits of colors
JPEG 8 24 224 16,777,216
10 30 2 30
1,073,741,824
RAW 12 36 236 68,719,476,736
14 42 242 4,398,o46,511,104

Choosing a format
When choosing between JPEG and RAW formats, there some advantages to
using RAW:
• Any compression used is lossless.
http://www.photocourse.com/itext/pixels/pixels1.pdf
• Images in this format are as easy to process as JPEGs when you use the lat-
est programs such as Aperture and Lightroom.
Click for a PDF
extension on pixels and • RAW lets you decide on most camera settings after you’ve taken a picture,
read Part 4 on color not before. For example, when you shoot a JPEG image under fluorescent
depth and file sizes. lights, the camera adjusts the image to remove the yellow-green tint. Any
changes you make later are on top of this initial change. If you shoot the im-
age in RAW format, the camera just captures the image as is and you decide
what white balance setting to use later. You can even create different versions

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 Image Formats

of an image, each with its own white balance.

• RAW images can be processed again at a later date when new and improved
applications become available. Your original image isn’t permanently altered
by the current generation of photo-editing applications even if they don’t
support non-destructive editing.
• You can generate alternate versions of the same RAW image. For example,
many photographers will adjust highlight and shadow areas and save these
versions separately. Using a photo-editing program, they then combine the
two images as layers and by selectively erasing parts of the top image layer let
areas of the lower image layer show through so all areas have a perfect expo-
sure. The latest versions of Photoshop have even automated this process.
Admittedly, there are drawbacks to using RAW images.
• RAW files are quite large. If you use this format a great deal you may need
more memory cards or cards with more storage capacity, and computer pro-
cessing times may be slightly longer.
• When shooting images, you may have to wait longer between shots, or shoot
fewer images continuously, because the buffer gets filled more quickly and
the camera is tied up longer processing the last image you took, and moving
it from the buffer to the memory card.
• Since RAW images aren’t processed in the camera, you have to process
them on the computer and export them in a usable format when you want
to e-mail them, post them on a Web site, print them, or import them into
another program to create a slide show or publication. When you are done
shooting for the day, there is still work to do.
• Since each camera company has defined its own proprietary RAW format,
operating systems and even photo-editing programs are unable to recognize
some of these files. For this reason camera manufacturers always supply a
program to process RAW images along with their cameras. Whether you’ll
still be able to open these image files with the software available in 10, 20 or
more years is an unanswered question.

RAW images used to

be hard to work with
because they required
some extra processing
steps. The latest
photo-editing programs
such as Aperture and
Lightroom make them
as easy to work with as
JPEG images.

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Digital Photography Workflow

In-Camera Image Storage Devices

With traditional cameras, the film both records and stores the image. With
digital cameras, separate devices perform these two functions. The image
is captured by the image sensor, then transferred to an in-camera storage
device designed for temporary storage. At some point you transfer the images
to a computer, erase the device, and reuse it.
Almost all but the cheapest digital cameras use some form of removable
storage device, almost always flash memory cards. The number of images
A few cameras, like that you can store during a shooting session depends on a variety of factors
this Nikon SLR, accept including:
more than one card.
Sometimes the card • The number of storage devices you have and the capacity of each (expressed
slots are for the same in Megabytes or Gigabytes—a Gigabyte is 1000 times larger than a Mega-
kind of card and
sometimes for different byte).
kinds.
• The resolution or image file format used to capture images.
• The amount of compression used.
Once your storage devices are full you have to move image files to a comput-
er, quit taking pictures, or erase some existing images to make room for new
ones. How much storage capacity you need depends on the factors mentioned
above and how prolific you are when photographing.
Over the past few years a variety of flash memory cards and other in-camera
storage devices have come and gone. At the moment there are two types in
widespread use—Compact Flash (CF) and Secure Digital (SD). These cards
store your image files on flash chips that are similar to the RAM chips used
inside your computer but there is one important difference. Your photo-
graphs are retained indefinitely without any power to the card. These chips
are packaged inside a case equipped with electrical connectors and it’s this
Pretec makes a 100 sealed unit that is called a card. Flash memory cards consume little power,
Gigabyte CompactFlash take up little space, and are very rugged. They are also very convenient; you
card with a speed of can carry a number of them and change them as needed. The only problem is
233x.
that the various types aren’t interchangeable. Once you have a sizable invest-
ment in memory cards, you are locked into using only cameras that support
that format, or you are forced to buy a new set of cards. There are adapters
for computers but not for cameras.
• CompactFlash (CF) cards are about the size of a matchbook and the most
common card used in digital SLR cameras.
• Secure Digital (SD) cards are smaller and thinner than CompactFlash
cards and are the most widely used cards—especially in smaller point-and-
Not too long ago the
shoot cameras. SDHC cards support higher storage capacities and SDXC
very popular Sony (eXtended Capacity) even more—up to 2 Terrabytes.
Mavica stored images
on a floppy disk. • MultiMedia (MMC) cards, falling out of favor, are used in a few pocket
cameras. MMC Plus cards support higher storage capacities.

Most cameras store

images on a removable
memory card that
slides into a slot on the
camera. Courtesy of
Gepe (www.gepe.com).

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 In-Camera Image Storage Devices

• Memory Stick™ cards use a proprietary format from Sony Corporation

and are used almost exclusively in Sony products.
• xD Picture cards are small and used by Olympus and Fuji, the companies
that developed the format.
All of these cards have multiple versions and there is no reason to think that
will change as capacities and speeds increase.
Over the past few years the capacity and speed of these cards has jumped dra-
matically, and cameras have adapted as best they can, but usually more slow-
ly. The result is that some newer cards won’t work on some cameras or card
readers. It takes a while for the hardware to catch up. When you buy large
capacity or very fast cards, be sure they are compatible with your system.
A very good freeware
image recovery program One thing to consider when buying a card is its speed, often specified as an
is PC Inspector,
available from www. “X” number. Cards with higher X-speed ratings are designed to perform
convar.com faster but X-speed ratings vary among manufacturers. Some refer to the X-
speed as the read speed while others refer to the write speed or data transfer
speed. In digital photography the write speed, which tends to be slower than
TIP the reading speed, is most important because it determines how long it takes
to store an image on the card.
When you buy new
memory cards, Using the X-speed rating you can also calculate the transfer rate, the speed at
be sure they are
supported by your
which files are transferred to or from the card. A 1x card can transfer data at
system. To achieve 150 Kilobytes per second, so you multiple this number times the speed rating
maximum transfer to calculate the transfer rate. For example, a 266x card will transfer 39,900
speeds the camera,
cards, readers, and
Kilobytes per second (266 x 150 Kilobytes = 39,900). Divide the result by
the computer system 1000 to determine the transfer rate in Megabytes/per second (39,900/1000
must support the = 39.9). If the manufacturer gives only the transfer speed, you can calculate
technical standards
being used. The
the X-speed rating by dividing it by 150 Kilobytes per second.
latest standards are
rarely supported
Manufacturers charge a premium for the largest capacity and fastest cards.
by products that Unless you are missing shots while shooting continuously or dropping frames
have already been in movies because your camera can’t move images from the buffer fast
produced. If any part
of the chain predates
enough, you may be better off investing elsewhere in your system, especially
the introduction of a since any bottleneck may be in your camera, card reader or computer and not
new standard, you the card.
won’t see maximum
transfer speeds. Every camera that accepts memory cards has a Format command listed
somewhere in its menus. Formatting a card the first time you use it in a
camera ensures the card will be accurately written to and read in that specific
camera. You may also find that formatting fixes a card that has developed
problems. Some cameras let you perform a low level format that restores the
basic architecture of data storage on the memory card. Normally you use this
setting when the speed of the card has dropped. Signs that this ha happened
include a slower continuous shooting speed, dropped movie frames during
recording or playback, or longer image storage or playback problems.
When you have more Just be aware that the Format command erases all of the images stored on
than one card, a case a card. Should you ever do this by mistake, there is digital image recovery
protects your spares.
Courtesy of Gepe (www. software available but it won’t work on a disk you have low level formatted.
gepe.com). To find this software, Google “digital photo recovery.”

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Digital Photography Workflow

Transferring Images

Storage in the camera is only meant to be temporary. When you want to use
or edit the images, or make room for new ones, you transfer the images on
the card to the computer.
Almost all digital cameras come with software that will transfer your im-
ages for you as do newer photo-editing and image management programs.
As useful as these tools are, you should also know how to use your operating
Card readers are system’s tools. Here are some reasons why:
often connected to a
computer’s USB port, • Availability. Operating system tools are on every computer of the same
or may even be built in.
Cards inserted into a type, anywhere in the world.
slot are treated just as
if they were removable • Change. If you change applications, what you have learned about operating
hard disk drives. Cards system tools remains useful. What you have learned about the old application
vary in size and have may not.
different connections so
many readers now have • Control. Many programs have a mind of their own and rename and store
a variety of slots.
Photo courtesy of PQI files in a manner you may not choose were you given the choice. Operating
atpqi1st.com. system tools let you use your own file management system.
Regardless of how you transfer the files, you have to choose whether to move
or copy them.
• If you move files from the camera’s card, they are first copied to the
computer and then deleted from the storage device. If anything goes wrong
during the transfer you may loose image files.
• If you copy files, they are not automatically deleted from the card. You
either have to do that using your computer or one of the camera’s commands.
If a card is smaller Although deleting the images after the transfer is an extra step, this proce-
than a slot, or if your
notebook has an dure is safer than moving files because if anything goes wrong you still have
ExpressCard Slot you the original images on the card.
can usually find an
adapter that mates your To transfer files you have to connect the camera or memory card to the com-
card to the slot. Here puter or other device and there are a variety of ways to do this.
is Delkin’s adapter that
lets you read CF cards
in an Expresscard slot.
Some adapters accept Card readers and slots
a variety of cards One of the most common ways to transfer images to a computer is using a
Courtesy of Delkin.
card reader or card slot that accepts your card with or without an adapter.
Card slots are increasingly being built into computers, printers, and even TV
sets. If your system doesn’t have one, there are inexpensive card readers that
http://www.photocourse.com/itext/folders5/
will plug into a USB or ExpressCard port.
Click for an animation
on dragging and
dropping files.

Some home printers,

print kiosks in public
locations, and even TV
sets have slots that
accept cards directly
from your camera so
you can view or print
images without a
computer. Courtesy of
Kodak.

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 Transferring Images

Cable connections
Another popular way to transfer photos is by way of cables. The most popu-
lar connections at the moment are USB 2.0 and the newer USB 3.0 that’s 10
times faster.
Almost all cameras
come with a USB cable
that connects it to a
computer or printer.
Courtesy of Canon at
www.powershot.com.

FIREWIRE—RIP
Apple, the biggest
supporter of Firewire,
has left it off some of
its latest notebooks
signaling its demise
as a way to trans-
fer files. Its been
replaced by USB.

Cable connections on
the back of Apple’s
Mac Mini with two USB
and one Firewire (IEEE
1394) connector circled
in red. Courtesy of
Apple at www.apple.
com.

Sandisk makes an SD
card that folds to reveal
a USB connector so it
can be used without a
card slot or card reader.

A dock lets you easily

connect a camera to
a printer or computer
and even charge the
camera’s batteries.
Unfortunately, docks
are camera-model
specific so if you buy
another camera you’ll
need another way to
make your connections.
Courtesy of Kodak at
www.kodak.com.

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Digital Photography Workflow

USB cables have a

standard plug at the
computer end but those
on the other end vary.
To make connections
you can use an adapter
kit like this one from
Phillips.

A newer high-speed
connection is Intel’s
Light Peak that
uses light instead of
electricity to transfer Wireless connections
files.
One of the latest trends is using wireless connections between your camera
and your computer or printers, and between your camera and a network so
you can immediately share your photos using e-mail, photo sharing sites, or
photo blogs. There are a variety of approaches:
• WiFi connects cameras to WiFi networks in homes and public hot spots.
It is built into a few cameras and can be purchased separately for others. It’s
reasonable to assume we will see this become increasingly common. When
shooting within range of your home network or a public hot spot, you can
upload photos to your system or a photo sharing Web site directly from the
camera.
Eye-Fi makes an SD
card that not only stores
Camera phones often send photos over the operator’s network but you are at
photos but also includes their mercy when it comes to pricing. Luckily, some camera phones also let
WiFi so you can send you connect to WiFi networks so you can cut your transfer costs.
them wirelessly.
One group trying to ensure network devices work together is the Digital Liv-
ing Network Alliance (DLNA). Hardware adopting their standards, including
entertainment devices, can communicate with each other over a home WiFi
Logo found on products network.
approved by the Digital
Living Network Alliance • Bluetooth, although much slower than WiFi, works well as a way to
(DLNA). replace some of the cables hanging off your desktop, Bluetooth is finding a
home in photography mainly in camera phones and the occasional digital
camera. Photo kiosks are often equipped with Bluetooth so you can beam
your photos to the printer. There are also adapter cards and USB adapters
that let you add Bluetooth capability to a computer that doesn’t already have
it.
• Infrared connects line-of-sight devices where the infrared beam isn’t
blocked. This has made periodic and brief appearances in digital photography
but has never become widespread.
• TransferJet, developed by Sony and supported by all of the major digi-
Sony and others make
WiFi enabled digital tal camera companies, quickly transfers very large files just by touching the
cameras so you can transmitting device with the receiving device. For example, simply touching a
upload photos and computer or TV with a digital camera displays the camera’s images or movies
videos to Web sites
through any public hot on the larger screen. TransferJet may replace the connectors currently used
spot. to exchange files among a wide variety of consumer electronics devices.

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 Storing Images—On Your System

Storing Images—On Your System

When you transfer images to your computer where they can be organized, ed-
ited and shared, it’s usually to a hard drive. From there you may then copy or
move them to other hard drives or optical discs so you have both and original
and backup copies.

Hard drives
Small portable drives
that plug into a USB Hard drives have become so inexpensive, and their storage capacity so great,
port are great at home that you can have an almost endless supply of hard disk space on which to
and on the road.
Courtesy of Toshiba.
store images. Currently, affordable drives have capacities up to 1.5 Terra-
bytes—enough room to hold more than 99 thousand 15 Megabyte images.
If these were film images at 50-cents a picture, you’ve have a small box of
images worth almost $50-thousand dollars! One way to think of this amazing
capacity is by how long it would take you to fill a drive. If you shot a hundred
15 Megabyte photos a day, you could shoot for 22 months before filling a 1
Terrabyte drive. And forget backing up these drives to optical discs. It would
take 20 dual layer Blu-Ray, 212 DVDs, and over 1400 CD discs. Even tape
External enclosures
are available that hold
backups have fallen far behind. The only affordable backup for entire librar-
up to four drives. Here ies of photos is another hard drive–either an internal drive or an external
one from Drobo.com drive that plugs into a computer’s USB port. Although still much more ex-
is shown open (left)
and closed (right). If
pensive, an up and coming drive is the solid state drive (SSD) that stores data
you group the drives on flash cards instead of a rotating disk. These drives are light, durable, and
together into a RAID very fast and prices will decrease and capacities increase as the technology
configuration (Random
Array of Inexpensive
improves.
Devices) they not only
store information but
automatically back it Optical discs
up. If one drive fails,
it can be replaced and
Other than hard drives, the only other widely available storage device is the
the damaged files are optical drive that writes (stores) and reads one of four kinds of optical discs—
then automatically CD, DVD+, DVD- or Blu-Ray. These discs are frequently used to backup
reconstructed from
the remaining drives.
important images to protect them, share them with others, and even to store
Courtesy of Drobo.com. slide shows that can be played back on a computer or TV set. (When an opti-
cal disc device is attached to the TV it’s called a player or recorder. When
attached to a computer it’s called a drive or writer.) The main types of optical
discs are summarized in the following table:

Type Sides/Layers Capacity Formats

CD Single side, 700MB CD-R (record-
single layer able) and CD
RW (reusable)
DVD+ Single side, 4.7GB DVD+R (re-
single layer cordable) and
DVD+RW (re-
Double-side 8.75GB writeable)
Double layer 8.5GB
DVD- Double side 8.75GB DVD-R (record-
able and DVD-
Double layer 8.5GB RW rewriteable)
A hard disk drive (top)
uses a spinning platter Blu-Ray Single layer 25GB BD-R (record-
and a moving read/ able) and BD-
write head to store Double layer 50GB RE rewriteable)
images. A solid-state
drive (bottom) uses • Optical drives come in both internal versions that are mounted inside a
flash memory chips and computer and external versions that are plugged into a USB port.
has no moving parts.
Courtesy of Intel.

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Digital Photography Workflow

• All optical discs are available in single-sided versions and some in double-
layer or double-sided versions.
• All discs are available in recordable (one-time) and rewriteable versions that
can be reused. Discs that can’t be erased and rewritten are ideal for archival
storage because the information on them can’t be deleted or overwritten.
• Optical discs are relatively new forms of storage. How long they will last
Optical discs are less before data is lost through deterioration isn’t yet known with any certainty.
expensive when you Most tests use accelerated aging that may or may not accurately reflect the fu-
buy them in bulk and
use envelopes to store ture or your storage conditions. The consensus seems to be that they will last
them in drawers. a few decades if manufactured and stored properly. Given the uncertainty,
the best thing you can do is buy only name brands and store them in acid-free
envelopes in a cool dark place such as a drawer or album. Discs that use a
gold, rather than a silver recording layer, are generally considered to last lon-
ger. One company ran a light fastness test that showed that gold discs could
withstand sunlight for only 100 continuous hours without damage. Discs
with the widely used cyanine dye began to deteriorate after only 20 hours and
An external optical failed at 65 hours.
drive. Courtesy of
LaCie. • Initially you could select DVD+ (plus) or DVD- (dash) formats. Since the
formats are incompatible, the industry solved the problem by having you pay
for both in the form of a multiformat or dual DVD drive.
• Writing speeds, which are determined by the drive, are specified in X-
speeds just as memory cards are. The value of 1X depends on the type of
drive.
• CD 1x is 150 Kilobytes per second (0.15 Megabytes)
• DVD 1x is 1,352 Kilobytes per second (1.35 Megabytes)
• Blu-Ray 1x is 4,500 Kilobytes per second (4.5 Megabytes)
There are many
notebook computers In some cases, the manufacturer of an optical drive will provide three X-
that have built-in optical speeds on the box or in the specifications. A sequence such as 32x10x40x
disc drives.
indicates the write, rewrite and read speeds of the drive.

Burning software
DISK VS DISC
To copy files to an optical disc, you need authoring or burning software.
Hard disks are This software is readily available—for example, the latest Windows and Mac
spelled with a “k”
and optical discs with operating systems let you burn a CD or DVD directly from the operating sys-
a “c.” tem. In addition, there are programs from Nero, Roxio and others designed
specifically for this task. The ability to burn optical discs is often integrated
into other applications. For examples, Apple’s iPhoto and Aperture and
Adobe’s Lightroom all let you select images and burn them to a CD or DVD,
and maybe a Blu-Ray disc by the time you read this, without leaving the ap-
plication. Many applications also let you create a slide show of your images
and burn the show to a disc in a format that can be played on the computer or
displayed on a TV.

Labeling optical discs

When you burn a disc, you or your software can add a title that will be dis-
played by your computer when you access the disc in a drive on your system.
Discs with a gold
recording layer outlast The title will also be used by image management software to keep track of
those with silver or your images. For example, when using an image management program, if you
aluminum. Courtesy of double-click the thumbnail of an image that isn’t currently on-line, the name
Delkin.com.

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 Storing Images—On Your System

you assigned the disc on which it is stored may be displayed and you may be
prompted to insert that disc.
You can add your own descriptive title such as Florida Trip Disc, or let the
program automatically assign one based on the current date and time. For
example, the number 100412_0849 indicates the disc was burned in the year
2010 (10) on May (04) 12 (12) at 8:49 AM.
Even when a disc is labeled when burned, you still need to physically label it.
Generally, the information should be on the disc itself, not on an envelope or
insert. It’s too easy for these to get separated from the disc. One way to label
a disc is with a permanent marker pen that writes on the non-recording side
When copying images of the disc with ink that won’t rub off with use. For longevity reasons, the best
between devices, USB
flash drives come in choice is a pen that uses water-based inks. Some marker pens use solvent-
very handy. You plug based inks and should be avoided. You can easily identify the pens not to use
one into a computer’s by their solvent odor. These solvents can attack the protective covering of the
USB port and copy
files to it. You then disc, even when you write just on the label side. Over a long period of time,
plug it into any other possibly measured in decades, this can affect the data.
computer and copy the
files from it. Here are For a more professional look, you can buy press-on labels that you print with
some whimsical Star an ink jet printer and stick onto the surface of the disc. One major problem
War figure drives from
Mimoco.com. is alignment because once the label sticks, it’s stuck. Unlike life, there are
no second chances. To help you get it right the first time there are alignment
gadgets that center the label as you press it onto the disc. When using these
labels, apply them after recording the disc. If you apply one first and it’s
slightly off-center, it may affect the recording process.
Most optical disc burning applications include software you use to lay out
and print labels and even jewel case inserts. This software usually includes a
number of backgrounds from which to choose (or lets you use your own pho-
Neato makes an tos as backgrounds), and text boxes into which you type your text. You don’t
applicator that centers
a label on a disc so the
have to be technically proficient or very artistic to get a decent design.
label goes on right the
first time. Courtesy of
Should you ever decide to ramp up your distribution efforts, the next step is
neato.com. a label printer. These printers print on special discs that have a water per-
meable coating on one side. If a disc doesn’t have this special layer, the ink
beads up on the surface of the disc and flakes off when dry. Ink jet printable
discs are produced by several major companies and are available from office
supply and on-line retailers. A number of photo printers from Epson and
others have added optical disc trays so you can print labels directly onto these
printable discs. When you insert a disc into the printer’s disc tray it’s carried
Drives using Lightscribe through the printer’s straight-through paper path. There are also printers
technology can label
Lightscribe discs as they
designed for the sole task of printing labels on discs and there are even robots
are burned. Courtesy of available that will insert one disc after another into the printer so you can
Lightscribe.com. print a quantity of discs unattended.
If you ever need large quantities of a single disc, you may want to have them
professionally duplicated and the labels silk-screened. You can also give your
own discs a professional and personal appearance. Just have a supply of
blank discs silk screened with professional graphics, leaving a space to write
in specific information such as the discs’s name or title.

The Epson Discproducer

that burns and prints
labels on optical discs.

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Digital Photography Workflow

Storing Images—On the Road

Storing images at home is easy. It’s on the road that problems arise. With
traditional cameras, you just stuff the bag with film and shoot till it runs out.
Then you go buy some more. With a digital camera you’ll eventually reach
the point where your memory cards are all full and you have to move images
to another storage device and erase your cards so you can reuse them. This is
Some iPods can both especially true when you capture high-resolution images or use file formats
store and display
photos.
such as RAW or TIFF that give you the best image quality but create huge
files—30 Megabytes, or more in some cases. Here are your alternatives on an
extended photo shoot or expedition:
• Find a place to burn optical discs for you. This will now be done by
most photo stores but they are often clueless so double-check that everything
has been copied correctly.
• Buy more or larger memory cards. This is a common solution but it
can be expensive if your trip is long or you are a prolific shooter. Also, putting
a large number of photos on one card increases the risk of loosing images.
• Carry a notebook or even smaller netbook computer. Not only may
you already have one of these, but its large screen and ability to run your
choice of applications provides you with a mobile version of the typical desk-
Netbook computers top system. If you attach a portable hard drive to the notebook’s USB port,
are smaller lighter and you can just plug it into any other system’s USB port when you return home.
easier to carry than
notebooks. They have
You can then transfer the files or edit the images right on the portable drive.
fairly large hard drives However, a notebook computer isn’t always the ideal portable device because
you can use for image of its size, weight, short battery life, and long start-up time. On a car trip it’s
storage on trips and
you can also connect
perfect, especially with a voltage inverter so you can power it from the car’s
additional hard or battery. On hiking or canoe trips it’s difficult or impossible. On trips across
optical disc drives to a national borders you may need voltage adapters or converters.
USB port to dramatically
increase storage. • Buy a portable storage device based on a hard or optical drive. Some of
these devices have card slots or connect directly to the camera. When you get
back to the computer you use for storing, editing, printing, and distributing
images, you copy or move the images from the portable storage device to that
system. Many portable storage devices, including some models of Apple’s
iPod, also let you use them as a hard drive. This is separate from their func-
tion of displaying images on the device’s LCD monitor or on a connected TV.
Some devices also let you print directly to a printer without using a computer
and combine digital photos, digital videos, and MP3 music. With a device
such as this you’ll be able to create slide shows with special transitions, pans,
and accompanying music and play them back anywhere. If you consider one
The Epson P-7000 is a of these devices, be sure it can handle the image formats you use. RAW and
portable storage and
viewing device with a other non-JPEG formats are often not supported.
160 Gigabyte hard drive
and a 4 inch screen. • Use file transfer. You can upload your images to an on-line photo service,
but be sure they store the original image, not just a reduced and manipulated
version. A service named GoToMyPC is widely used by people to access and
operate their home or office computer from other computers anywhere in the
world, even those in libraries and cyber-cafes. If you subscribe to this service
you can also transfer files and folders between PCs, or an attached memory
card or camera, simply by dragging and dropping between screens. There are
also other peer-to-peer file transfer systems available.

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 How Photos Are Stored in your Camera and Computer

How Photos Are Stored in your Camera and Computer

The photos you take are stored as files on your camera’s storage device fol-
DCF
lowing rules spelled out in a variety of standards adopted by camera com-
DCF (Design Rule for panies. These standards assure that files and storage devices can be moved
Camera File System)
defines the entire among cameras and other digital imaging hardware and software. Since file
file system of digital storage and organization are so important you should understand how drives,
cameras including folders, and files relate to one another. When someone takes up digital pho-
the naming and or-
ganization of folders, tography without having mastered these few simple concepts, they may not
file naming methods, be able to locate the photos they want to use, or know how to organize their
characters allowed images so working with them is fast and easy.
in filenames, and file
formats.

FOLDERS
You may encounter
the interchange-
able terms directory
and folder. When
computers were
used primarily by
professionals, the
term directory was
used. As computers
A new hard disk drive (1), like an empty file drawer, has no files nor organization.
became more wide-
Dividing a hard disk into folders (2) is like dividing a file drawer with hanging
spread, the more
folders. Nesting subfolders inside folders (3) is like putting manila file folders into
user-friendly folder
the hanging folders. Files, including images, can be stored in any of the folders or
was introduced. In
subfolders (4)—or even in the drawer outside of the folders, called the drive’s root
photo sharing you’ll
directory.
also find the names
albums and galleries
used for the same
things. Drives
Almost all computers have more than one drive. To tell them apart, they are
assigned letters or names such as Macintosh HD, and icons are used to iden-
tify their type. For example, the now defunct floppy disk drive was assigned
both drive A and B and those drive letters now go unused. The hard drive that
the computer looks to for the operating system when you turn it on is drive
C. Additional drives vary from computer to computer but often include other
hard drives, or optical drives. When you attach your camera, a card reader,
or even a digital picture frame to the computer, these too become drives.
Many devices are recognized automatically when you plug them in, but a few
require you to install small programs called drivers so the computer knows
Apple’s Macintosh Hard they are there.
drive icon.

Folders
Folders are used to organize files on a drive. Imagine working in a photo
stock agency where you’re told to find photos of “Yosemite” only to discover
that all of the photos the agency ever acquired are stored in unorganized
boxes. You have to pick through everything to gather together what you
want. Contrast this with an agency that uses a well-organized file cabinet
with labeled hanging folders grouping related images together. For example,
there might be a hanging folder labeled California National Parks. If a
further breakdown is needed, labeled manila folders are inserted into any

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Digital Photography Workflow

of the hanging folders—basically, folders within folders. There might be one

http://www.photocourse.com/itext/G-folders/
labelled Yosemite containing images of the park. With everything labelled
Click for a group of and organized, it’s easy to locate the images you need. The same is true of
movies on folders. your memory cards and drives on your computer system. Both are equivalent
to the empty file cabinet—plenty of storage space but no organization. The
organization you need to find things on the camera’s memory device (which
we discuss here) is created by the camera, but on your computer, you have to
create it yourself (as you will see later).
If you use operating system tools or applications to look at a storage device
in the camera or card reader, you will find it is listed like the other drives on
your system. If it contains more than one folder, the one photographers care
about is named DCIM (for Digital Camera IMages). If you delete this folder,
the camera will recreate it (but not any images it contained). The purpose
of this folder, called the image root directory, is to keep together all of the
images you capture with the camera. If you use the same card with other
devices, there may also be other folders on the same card holding MP3 music
or other files.
As you take pictures, your camera automatically creates and names subfold-
ers within the DCIM folder to hold them (like placing manila folders in a
hanging folder). The first three characters in a folder’s name, called the direc-
tory number, are numbers between 100 and 999. The next five characters are
known as free characters and can be any uppercase alphanumeric characters
chosen by the camera manufacturer. When a new folder is created, as one is
when the current folder is full, it is given a number one digit higher than the
previous folder. Some cameras allow you to create and name your own fold-
ers, or select among folders the camera creates. This lets you route new im-
ages into a specific folder and also play back images from just selected folders
rather than the entire card.

Filenames
When an image is saved, the camera assigns it a filename and stores it in
the current folder. Filenames have two parts, an 8-character filename and
a 3-character extension. Think of them as first and last names. The name is
unique to each file, and the extension, separated from the name by a period,
identifies the file’s format. For example, a JPG extension means it’s a JPEG
Image files have an 8-
character name followed
image file, TIF means it’s a TIFF image file, CR2 means it’s a Canon RAW file
by a period and a 3- and NEF means it’s a Nikon RAW file.
character extension.
Extensions play another important role. An extension can be associated with
a program on your system so if you double-click a file, the associated pro-
gram opens and then it in turn opens the file you clicked. Also, when you use
an application program’s File > Open command it often lists only those files
having extensions that it can open. (You can list other file types but it usually
requires an additional step or two.) If you change the extension, your system
may no longer know what to do with the file.
The first four characters in an image file’s name, called free characters, can
only be uppercase letters A–Z or an underscore. The last four characters are
digits between 0001 and 9999 and are called the file number. Canon uses
the first four free characters IMG_ followed by the file number, Nikon uses
DSC_, and Sony uses DSC0. Once transferred to your computer, or some-
times while transferring them, you can rename images with more descriptive
names.

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 How Photos Are Stored in your Camera and Computer

Trees
One way to illustrate the organization of folders on a drive is to display them
as a tree. In this view, all folders that branch off from the drive are listed. If
any of these folders contain subfolders, those subfolders are shown indented
under the folder that contains them. When using a tree, you can expand and
collapse the entire tree or any branch. This allows you to alternate between a
summary of the computer’s contents, and details of each drive or folder.

Paths
With files stored in folders on a disk, you specify a path to get to them. For
example, if a file named IMG_4692.JPG is in a subfolder named 146CANON
that’s in a folder named DCIM on drive H, the path to that file is H:\DCIM\
A tree displayed by
146CANON\IMG_4692.JPG. The key elements of a path—the drive, folder,
Windows Explorer subfolder, and filename—are separated by backslashes (\). You might be
indicates drives and more familiar with paths from your Web browser that uses a similar ap-
folders with icons and
labels. The - and +
proach using slashes. For example, the URL...
signs indicate if a drive
or folder is expanded
http://www.shortcourses.com/index.html
(-) to show subfolders,
or collapsed (+) to hide
... is a path to a specific page on the Web. Normally you don’t type in paths,
them. you click drives or folders to open them. However, many programs display
paths on the screen as a navigational aide and so it’s easy to confirm the ac-
tual location of the file on your system.

Here is the path to the

file IMG_4692.JPG in
subfolder 146CANON
that’s in the DCIM folder
on drive H. The drive,
folder, subfolder, and
filename are separated
by backslashes.

Here is the path to an

image as displayed
in Lightroom when
exporting an image.

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Digital Photography Workflow

Organizing Your Photo Files

When you move your images from your camera to your computer and then
to an optical disc, you need to do so in an organized way. It doesn’t take long
to be overrun with images; and all of them with meaningless names to boot.
Luckily, with some planning, and the right tools and knowledge, you can
work with thousands of images without getting lost.
Before transferring images from your camera to your computer, you should
develop a system that lets you quickly find them later. Folders are the heart
of any image management system. The best way to organize images on your
computer is to create one or more folders for images and then subfolders that
meaningfully identify the images stored in them. The thing to keep in mind
is that your organization is not about storing images, but about finding them.
Ask yourself, where you’d most likely look for pictures of interest a year from
now, long after you’ve forgotten where you stored them.
There are a variety of ways to organize and name folders depending on what
kind of photos you take or how you use them.
• A chronological organization uses folders named with dates in the
format yyyy-mm-dd. For example, a folder named 2010–02–10 would con-
tain photos taken or downloaded on February 10, 2010. When using dates,
Here is a tree from the
Lightroom Library that be sure to add zeros to single digit months and days or the folders won’t
shows two projects— sort into a perfect chronological order. You can use hyphens or underscores
one on Manchester- between elements, and although they are allowable, some people avoid using
Essex Woods and one
on Monarch Butterflies. spaces.
• A subject organization uses folders named after subjects, events, proj-
ects, or experiences. For example, a folder named Christmas 2010 would
contain images of that day. Emilys Birthday 2010 would contain images of
the birthday party.
DATE FORMATS These two approaches aren’t mutually exclusive. For example, if you organize
Shorthand ways of images chronologically, you can add a comment after the date that indicates
ordering and sepa- the subject or project. Although duplicating images should be avoided as
rating days, months,
and years vary from much as possible, you can also create a chronological system, and then copy
country to country. selected images to separate subject or project folders. The chronological
However, sorting on folders act as an archive of original images, and the subject or project folders
the computer works
best when dates are become the versions you edit, print, or distribute. This system has the advan-
in the format yyyy- tage that you never actually edit your original photos. The drawback is that
mm-dd. you can have different versions of the same image in more than one folder.
As you’ll soon see, the latest image management programs give you the same
advantages using collections or albums (based on the same concept as iTunes
playlists). When combined with non-destructive editing you never need more
than one master copy of any photo on your system, because each master can
have many variations.
Once you have developed an organizational system that works for you, you
need to decide what folders and files should be copied or moved to optical
discs or a hard drive for backup or long term archival storage.
The tools you use to create folders, and view, transfer, and manage images
include those that come with your computer as part of the operating system.
However, image management applications are better because they store
thumbnails, descriptions, rankings and keywords in a database so you can
even locate images that are stored on optical discs in a drawer. We’ll explore
these tools in the sections that follow.

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 Image Managers

Image Managers

If you’ve set up your folders systematically, it’s not hard to locate images
TIP taken on a certain date or during a certain period. However, you need to see
A thumbnail image the actual images to choose the specific ones that interest you. You can do
is actually created so with any program that displays your images as small thumbnails. View-
at the time you take
a picture. In a JPEG ing thumbnails is so important this feature has been integrated into oper-
image it is stored ating systems and almost every digital camera and photography program.
in the image file as However, thumbnails are only one resource offered by programs designed
metadata and goes
anywhere it goes. specifically to manage large collections of images. These image manage-
ment applications not only let you view thumbnail images and information
about the images, they permanently store this information in a database,
often called a library or catalog. What is a database? In one respect it’s just
a rigidly organized collection of facts. You interact with databases every day
without even knowing it. For example, when you use Google to search for the
phrase “digital cameras,” you are searching Google’s database for Web pages
in which that phrase appears. Another familiar database is iTunes’ Library
where songs and information about them are stored.
Although you never see that actual database it is a table, much like a spread-
Windows Live Photo sheet, with one row or record for each image in the catalog. Each record
Gallery is a free
program that lets you
contains a number of columns or fields that contain specific facts about the
manage your digital image. Typical fields might be the date the picture was taken, the camera
photos on Windows PCs. used to take it, the size of the image in pixels, and the name of the file. The
record for each image has the same fields, and this is what makes the data-
base so powerful. You can sort the table based on the contents of any field.
For example, you can sort it by the date pictures were taken, by their size, or
format. You can also search the database by specifying what field to search in
and what data, called a criteria, to find. For example you can search the date
fields for pictures taken or modified on a certain date. Any images that con-
Apple Macs have tain the specified data in the specified fields are listed. Databases also let you
the iLife suite of view the information in different ways. You can have it display just thumb-
applications installed nails; or thumbnails, filenames, and image sizes. Another view might include
including iPhoto and
iMovie. the Exif information so you can see what shutter speeds or lens focal lengths
were used for each image.

Lightroom creates a
record for each of the
images in its database
called the Library. You
then use Lightroom to
view this data, including
thumbnails and Exif
information, in a variety
of ways.

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Digital Photography Workflow

In an image database
there is a record (red
row) for each image and
a number of fields (blue
column).

Many image management applications also catalog other kinds of files such
http://www.photocourse.com/itext/assets/
as movies, sounds, and the like. For this reason, these programs are called by
Click for a movie on
the more inclusive name asset managers—each file on your system from a
Portfolio, an asset Word document to a digital image being an asset.
manager from Extensis.
Database-backed image managers are used to manage small and large col-
lections of images. Their features only grow in importance as the number
of photos on your system increases. Here are some of their most important
features.

Catalogs
The database in which image information is stored is often called a catalog.
Once a photo has been added to the catalog, all of the image management
and editing tools can be used on it. Some early applications forced you to
copy the original image files into the catalog so the catalog could never be
larger than the drive it was stored on, and as the catalog got larger it got
slower. Newer applications let you copy or move photos into their catalogs
if you want, but also let you reference photos anywhere on your system and
even those stored off-line. For example, you can take an optical disc or exter-
nal hard drive out of a drawer, add its contents to your catalog, and return it
to the drawer. You can then view thumbnails and even larger previews of the
images even though they are no longer on the system—called off-line. This is
because you are actually viewing thumbnails and previews stored in the data-
base when the images were added to the catalog. Each thumbnail or preview
in the catalog is linked to its full-size image or points to it. If you double-click
a thumbnail or preview of an image that’s still on the system, the image opens
full-size. If you double-click a thumbnail or preview of an image that is on an
optical disc or backup hard disk drive that’s in a drawer, some programs give
you the name of the disc on which it’s stored and prompt you to insert the
disc or connect the drive.
If your catalog ever gets too large or too slow you can create more than one
catalog—perhaps one for professional work and another for personal. How-
ever, you can’t work on both catalogs at the same time so this approach has
limits.

Tracking
Photographers often like to move photos around, rename them, and delete
them. If you do this from within the image manager the program keeps track
of the images of and accurately reflects the changes.

In Lightroom you can Watched folders

mark images with keep
or reject flags, stars, You can specify that certain folders be watched so when you copy or move
and color labels and files into these folders without using the image manager to do so, they are
then display only those
images having the automatically added to the catalog. The contents of the folder and the catalog
rankings you assigned. are synchronized.

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 Image Managers

Sorting
You can sort your images in a number of ways including by the date they were
taken, their filenames or extensions, and the date they were imported into the
database. Sorts can be in ascending or descending order.

Ranking
Most of the photos we take turn out to be disappointing so we usually focus
on just a few photos. For this reason programs let you assign a ranking to
images. The best might get a 5-star ranking while the next best 4-stars and so
on. Variations of this are to mark images with pick or reject flags or with color
labels to which you can attach meanings. Once ranked in one of these ways,
you can display only those photos that match the specified criteria.

Keywording
You can assign keywords to images or groups of images to make it easier to
find them later. Keywords can refer to such things as the location, subject,
people, and so on. If you are consistent with keywording, you will be able
to easily search for and display all of the photos of “Emily” that you took in
“Santa Barbara” over the years.

The Sort menu choices

Filters
in Adobe’s Lightroom. When you have a large number of photos in your catalog, you may only want
to work with a small subset. To determine which images are displayed, you
can use filters. For example, you can tell the program to only display pictures
taken this week, this month, or on any given day. You can also display just
those that have a five star rank or all photos that have been assigned any rank
up to a certain level. Filters vary from program to program but all serve the
same function—filtering out photos that don’t interest you so you can zero in
on the ones that do.

Metadata
The header is an area of When you take a picture, the camera stores information about it along with
the file separated from the image data. You can also add additional information using some cameras
the image data.
and photo-editing or image management applications. The more information
you have to work with, the easier it will be to find an image later.
• Exif (Exchangeable Image File Format) is a specification that spells out
how information about a JPEG image is stored in the same file as the image.
This information, including a thumbnail image, describes the camera settings
at the time the picture was taken, and even the image’s location if the cam-
era supports GPS (Global Positioning System). Digital cameras record this
information as metadata in an area of the image file called the header. This
information isn’t just for managing images, it can also be used by some print-
ers to give you better results. Basically, any camera control set to auto at the
time the image was taken can be manipulated by the printer or other device
to improve results. Those set to one of the camera’s manual choices is consid-
ered to be a deliberate choice and is not manipulated.
Metadata can sometimes be lost if a file is opened and then saved in another
file format. (Or even lost when using the camera’s own rotate, crop, or other
commands that write to the disk.) However, most applications now preserve
Exif metadata is this information, although camera companies sometimes store secret meta-
displayed for a selected data that can be lost.
file in Lightroom.

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Digital Photography Workflow

• IPTC. Using an image management application, you can often attach infor-
METADATA?
mation to an image such as keywords, a copyright notice, or a caption. The
Metadata is data problem is that when you send the image to someone else, that information
about data. In digital
photography it’s is usually not sent along because it’s stored on your computer in the data-
information inserted base and is not part of the image file as Exif information is. (As you will see
into the header of an shortly, one solution to this problem is the xmp file.) To solve this problem,
image file that de-
scribes the contents the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) defines a format
of the file, where it for exchanging such information. Programs that support this standard let you
came from, and what add, edit, and view information about an image and it’s embedded in the file
to do with it. You
are already familiar just as Exif information is.
with two examples,
an image file’s name
and the date it was Previews
created. Other meta-
data includes the When reviewing your images in detail, you’ll generally find thumbnail images
Exif data created by too small and full-sized images too slow to open and edit. For this reason im-
most digital cameras age management programs will normally generate full-screen preview images
that records such
data as what camera that are then stored in the database. These need only be as large as the screen
was used, what the to be useful. In fact, on some applications you are normally viewing and edit-
exposure was, and ing a preview image. You only see the original image when you enlarge the
whether a flash was
used. preview past the size where it fills the screen. Since the preview is so much
smaller than the original image this increases the application’s response time.

Collections
One rule of all databases is that an image should only be stored once. When
you need the same image to appear in a number of projects, you don’t create
duplicates. Instead, you create collections, sometimes called albums or proj-
ects, of related images. The same image can appear in any number of such
collections even though there is only one copy of the image on the system. (If
you are familiar with the iPod, this is exactly how playlists work.) When you
assign an image to a collection, the program just copies its thumbnail and in-
formation about it and adds a link to the full-size image. For example, if you
have an image that you want to use in both a book and a calendar, you would
create collections for each of these projects and add the image to both.

Stacks
Stacks are sets of related photos such as a series captured in continuous
mode or using autoexposure bracketing. You can collapse a stack so only the
image you specify as representative of the stack is displayed, or expand the
stack when you want to view and compare all of its images. Stacks reduce
the clutter on your screen because you don’t have to scroll through all of
the stacked images unless you choose to. Although you can manually stack
selected images some applications use metadata, such as how close together
photos were taken, to automatically organize some images into stacks.

Light table
NON-DESTRUC- When working on a project such as a slide show, Web site, or publication,
TIVE EDITING there comes a point when you’d like to see the photos you’ve taken arranged
more like they will appear in the finished work. Film photographers did this
Non-destructive
editing means that
by arranging slides on a light table so they could experiment with combina-
at any point you can tions that would create a particular visual effect. In an image management
undo any changes program an area of the screen provides the digital equivalent; a freeform
you have made to an
image.
digital canvas on which you can place, align, resize and group images in an
unconstrained way.

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 Image Managers

Exporting
With RAW images or non-destructive editing the original file is never
changed. Your edits are applied to a copy of the image when you export it
in another format, to a different folder or disk, or to a file with a different
filename. When you do so you can also resize the image, attach a color space,
specify a file format and the amount of compression.

XMP
Applications using non-destructive editing store your edits in the database
and reapply them to an image whenever you reopen its file. When you send
one of your edited images to someone, or copy/move it to another system, the
edits are left behind in the database. If you want to share the edits along with
the image, programs such as Lightroom use Adobe’s Extensible Metadata
Platform (XMP) to embed editing metadata into the image file itself or in a
separate “sidecar” file with the same filename as the image but the extension
xmp. The metadata can include the list of editing changes you have made to
the image as well as Exif and IPTC metadata. Other applications that support
XMP can access and use the metadata so you can see the editing changes on
other systems. However, if you share the image file without its accompanying
XMP file, the recipient can’t see your edits.

Archiving
When you are finished with photos but want to save them, you should be able
to archive them along with their metadata. Ideally you can easily select the
images and burn them to an optical disc or copy them to a backup hard drive,
and they remain listed in the catalog so you can see their thumbnails, pre-
views and metadata. If you select an image that’s off-line you may be prompt-
ed to insert the disc on which it’s stored.
If you want offsite backup, so the same accident can’t affect your originals
and your backups, backup Web sites may be the answer. Once you subscribe
IPTC metadata is
displayed for a selected
to one of these services when you change or add files, they are backed up in
file in Lightroom. the background while you work on other projects. The only problem with
this form of backup is that it can be very slow even with a fast Internet con-
nection. However, after the initial backup of all important files, only new or
changed files are backed up so it goes much faster.
aa30470c cover

Cover An Extension to
PhotoCourse Digital Photography Textbooks

Using all of the features—the workflow

Color Management
AA30470C

When a photographer returns from a shoot, his or her goal is to process

images as quickly as possible. Here are some of the workflow steps many
photographers might follow in a program such as Lightroom.
1. Add the photos to the catalog.
2. Select all of the images and add a copyright notice to each.
Dennis P. Curtin
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urse.Com 1
3. Select all of the images and add keywords.
4. Scroll through the images and rank them using stars, colors, or pick/reject
http://www.photocourse.com/itext/colormgt/colormgt.pdf
flags. Delete the rejects
Click for a PDF 5. Edit images, export them in the desired format and share them.
extension on color
management so you
know why your screen
should be adjusted for
best results.

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Digital Photography Workflow

Evaluating Your Images—Basics

When you open an image on the computer, you really get to see it for the
CHANGES first time. The display on the camera’s monitor is so small, captured images
Without you even be- are hard to evaluate. So what do you look for when deciding if the image you
ing aware of it, your are looking at can be improved? In this section we’ll get you started. As you
camera is making
changes to your JPEG
learn to identify characteristics that can be improved, you’ll also discover
images that cannot there is frequently more than one way to adjust them. Many people start with
be undone. These in- a photo-editing program’s automatic adjustments because they are so easy
clude such things as
sharpness, white bal-
to use. However, it won’t be long before you find yourself migrating to more
ance, and contrast. powerful tools that take more practice, but which give results that make the
If you want to adjust extra effort worthwhile.
these yourself, use
the camera’s RAW To properly evaluate images your system should be color managed, as we
format if it has one.
discuss later. At times you should also enlarge images to 100% (sometimes
called 1:1 or Actual Size) or use a digital loupe to zoom in to examine details.
As you examine your images, here are some things to look for.

Evaluating image size and orientation

The initial size and orientation of an image is determined by what the camera
captured. There are situations in which you may want to change these charac-
teristics.
• Resizing can be done in two ways. The first is done by changing the num-
http://www.photocourse.com/itext/pixels/pixels1.pdf
ber of pixels in the image, called its pixel dimensions, through a procedure
called resampling. This process adds or removes pixels to make the image
Click for a PDF larger or smaller. You might want to do this to reduce the size of images you
extension on pixels and
read Part 5 on changing will be sending by e-mail or posting on the Web. You might also want to
image sizes. increase the size of the image when making large prints. However, increas-
ing the number of pixels in an image doesn’t always make the image better.
In fact it usually has the opposite effect. You can also change the size of the
image without changing the number of pixels it contains, called its document
size by specifying the pixels per inch. You normally do this when making a
print or exporting an image to another application.
• Cropping removes distracting or unimportant parts of an image. You
might also want to crop if the image has to fit into a specific design such as a
newsletter or greeting card.
• Rotating an image may be necessary if you turned the camera vertically to
capture a picture, or if the horizon line is tilted.

Evaluating the tonal range

Cropping (top) is one Dynamic range in music is the range between the faintest and loudest sounds
way to emphasize the
key parts of an image that can be reproduced without distortion. In photography the dynamic
range, called the tonal range or contrast, indicates the range of brightness in
or make it fit a format,
perhaps in a magazine an image between pure white and pure black. There are two ways to evaluate
layout.
the tonal range of an image—visually and using a histogram (discussed in the
next section). You should use both approaches because they are not mutually
exclusive. For example, you can analyze an image visually and then learn why
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it’s the way it is by checking its histogram.
Visually, images that use the full tonal range look rich and crisp, with vibrant
Click for a movie on
adjusting tonal ranges. colors and smooth transitions in tones. Those that don’t use the full range

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 Evaluating Your Images—Basics

lack contrast, often looking flat and dull. Details may be missing in highlight
and shadow areas or the image may be too dark or light. In these cases you
may want to adjust or expand the image’s tonal range.

One way to evaluate Evaluating colors

the tonal range is with
a histogram that charts The human eye perceives color in terms of three characteristics—hue, satura-
the various levels of tion and brightness and there is even a color model based on these character-
brightness in the image.
istics, called HSB. The color monitor uses a different color model called RGB
because images are displayed using varying amounts of red, green, and blue
light. When evaluating images, you can think in terms of these two models—
one to evaluate colors and the other to look for color casts.
To evaluate colors in an image, think of them in terms of hue, saturation, and
brightness because these three aspects can be adjusted.
• Hue is unique in one respect, it is the actual color, as measured by its wave-
length, while the other two characteristics (saturation and lightness) modify
the hue in some way. The hue can be red-orange, yellow-green, blue-purple;
or any intermediate color between those pairs.
• Saturation, sometimes called chroma, is the strength or purity of the
color. If you adjust saturation through its entire range, colors go from rich
and vibrant to dark gray.
Hues can be arranged • Lightness, also called luminance or brightness, is the relative lightness or
on a color circle or
wheel. darkness of the color. Brightness is reduced by adding black to the color mix
and increased by adding white. If you adjust brightness through its entire
range, colors go from white to black. This is the only one of the three color
attributes that gray scale images have.
As you decrease
saturation (top), colors
become muddier and
finally gray. As you
decrease lightness
(bottom), colors
become darker and
eventually black.

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Click for a movie

on adjusting hue,
saturation and
brightness.

A color cast is usually caused when one or more of the three color compo-
NEUTRALS nents (red, green or blue) are too high or low over the entire image. This can
A neutral color has be caused by not setting white balance correctly, by photographing a scene
equal amounts of illuminated by more than one type of light source, or even photographing
red, green, and blue
and appears as a a subject picking up reflections from a colored surface. Color casts are very
shade of gray. noticeable when shooting during sunrises and sunsets—but there we usu-
ally like the effects. It’s easiest to identify a color cast by looking at areas that
should be neutral white or gray. If these areas have any colors mixed in, the

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Digital Photography Workflow

image has a color cast that you should remove. Pure white areas should have
R, G, and B settings of 255. Gray areas should have R, G, and B settings that
are equal; for example, 128, 128, and 128 for middle gray. Pure black areas
should have R, G, and B settings of 0. Regardless of which neutral tone you
are examining, if one or more of the RGB values is higher or lower than the
others, these tones won’t be neutral and will have a color cast.

As you point
Evaluating details
Lightroom’s white When examining an image, look for small imperfections that can be re-
balance selector tool
at a pixel in an image,
touched. The camera’s image sensor may have dust on its surface that shows
the pixel’s color mix is up on the image as dark spots. A portrait subject might have a small blemish
displayed. If you click that will be very noticeable when you enlarge the image. There may be reflec-
that pixel, it and all like
it will become neutral.
tions, or even telephone wires you want to remove. Small areas may benefit
by being made a little lighter or darker than their surroundings. Portrait
subjects taken with flash may have red-eye that needs to be removed.

Evaluating sharpness
The apparent sharpness of an image depends a great deal on how much
contrast there is along edges and lines. If an image looks soft, it can often be
improved by sharpening, a process (technically called unsharp masking) that
adds contrast along lines and edges. Many photographers sharpen almost
every image at least a little, ignoring this aspect only for images such as fog
scenes that are deliberately soft.
Sharpening (right)
increases the contrast
between light and dark
areas to make the
edges appear sharper.

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Click for a movie on

sharpening an image.

Evaluating noise
If you used a long shutter speed or high ISO setting to take a photo, it may
contain noise. Look in dark areas for randomly colored pixels that look like
grain.

Global vs local editing

You may have noticed that some of the adjustments discussed in this section
affect the entire image and others affect just specific areas. These are referred
Noise can significantly
degrade smooth tones. to as global and local adjustments and are discussed in sections that follow.

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 Evaluating Your Images—Histograms

Evaluating Your Images—Histograms

Most serious photo-editing programs let you use a histogram as a guide when
editing your images. However, since most image corrections can be diag-
nosed by looking at a histogram, it helps to look at it while still in a position
to reshoot the image. It’s for this reason that many cameras let you display
There are two kinds histograms on the monitor in playback mode or while reviewing an image
of histograms. Most you have just taken. A few cameras even let you see a histogram as you are
cameras show one
of the gray scale
composing an image so you can use it as a guide when adjusting the camera
brightness levels. A settings you’ll use to capture the picture.
few display an RGB
histogram showing the
brightness of each of Evaluating histograms
the three colors, red,
green, and blue. As you’ve seen, each pixel in an image can be set to any of 256 levels of
brightness from pure black (0) to pure white (255) and a histogram graphs
which of those levels of brightness are in the image and how they are distrib-
uted. The horizontal axis of a histogram represents the range of brightness
from 0 (shadows) on the left to 255 (highlights) on the right. Think of it as a
line with 256 spaces on which to stack pixels of the same brightness. Since
these are the only values that can be captured by the camera, the horizontal
line also represents the image’s maximum potential tonal range or contrast.

The vertical axis represents the number of pixels with each of the 256 bright-
ness values. The higher the line coming up from the horizontal axis, the more
pixels there are at that level of brightness.
To read the histogram, you look at the distribution of pixels. Here are some
things to look for.
• Many photos look best when there are some pixels at every position because
these images are using the entire tonal range.
• In many images, pixels are grouped together and occupy only a part of the
available tonal range. These images lack contrast because the difference
between the brightest and darkest areas isn’t as great as it could be. How-
ever, this can be fixed in your photo-editing program by using commands
that spread the pixels so they cover the entire available tonal range so photos
that appear dull and washed out become bright and vibrant. These controls
allow you to adjust the shadow, midtone, and highlight areas independently
without affecting the other areas of the image. This lets you lighten or darken
selected areas of your images without loosing detail, perhaps to bring out de-
tails in shadows and highlights. The only pixels that can’t be adjusted in this
way are those that have been “clipped” to pure white or black.

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Digital Photography Workflow

When adjusting the histogram at the time you are taking photos, here are
some things to keep in mind:
• If the histogram shows most pixels toward the left (darker) side of the
graph, use exposure compensation (discussed in the next chapter) to add
exposure.
• If the histogram shows most pixels toward the right (lighter) side of the
graph, use exposure compensation to reduce exposure.
The original image (top)
is flat and its histogram
indicates only part of
the tonal range is being
used. A photo-editing
program was then used
to expand the tonal
range (bottom). You
can see the change in
both the image and in
the histogram.

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Click to explore
histograms.

Highlight warning
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One thing you want to avoid is overexposing highlights so they become so
Click to explore how bright, or “clipped”, they loose details. To help you avoid this many cameras
overexposed highlights
blink.
display a highlight warning when you review or compose your images. Areas
that are so overexposed they have no detail blink or are outlined in color.

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 Evaluating Your Images—Histograms

Clipped pixels
When a histogram shows pixels at the extreme ends of the range, in the 0 and
255 positions, it means details in those tones are lost or “clipped” in your im-
age. These extremes should be reserved for specular highlights (reflections)
and small dark shadows. When large areas lack detail an image suffers.
In the top image
you can tell from the
histogram that some
of the highlight pixels
are pure white and
hence clipped. There is
nothing you can do later
to display details in the
area of these pixels.
However, if you reshoot
the scene at a different
exposure you can shift
the pixels to the left
and avoid the clipping
(bottom).

To avoid clipping and better place the tonal values in subsequent shots,
you use exposure compensation. Increasing exposure shifts pixels to the
highlight, or right end of the histogram. Decreasing exposure shifts them
the other way. Unless you are deliberately trying to get pure whites or pure
blacks, you should shift the pixels if any are being clipped. You can then ad-
just the tone of these pixels in your photo-editing program while still retain-
ing details.

This series of photos was taken one stop apart using exposure compensation. As the
exposure increased, pixels on the histogram shifted right. You can tell from the way
the fan blades blur that the shutter speed was changed to change the exposure. In
the image where it was faster, the image is darker and the blades are frozen. As
slower speeds were used to increase the exposure, the images get lighter and the
blades more blurred.

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Digital Photography Workflow

Sample histograms
The way a histogram looks depends on the scene you’re shooting and how
you expose it. There’s no such thing as a good or bad histogram other than
one that shows unwanted clipping. Whether a particular histogram is good
or bad depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If fact, you may prefer
to trust your visual reaction to the image more than the very numeric image
data provided by a histogram. However, even if you never use a histogram,
you can learn about digital photography by understanding what a histogram
can show about an image. Following are some histograms from good images
along with a brief summary of what each histogram reveals.

In this well exposed

portrait there is a
fairly even distribution
of values in both the
shadow and highlight
areas of the image.
There are no pure
blacks in the image as
shown by the gap at the
far left end of the scale.

This brown moth on

a gray card has most
of its values in the
midrange. That’s why
there are a number
of high vertical lines
grouped in the middle of
the horizontal axis.

This high-key fog scene

has most of its values
toward the highlight end
of the scale. There are
no really dark values in
the image. The image
uses only a little more
than half the camera’s
dynamic range. The distinct vertical line to the left of
middle gray shows how many pixels
there are in the uniformly gray frame
border added in a photo-editing
program.

This low-key scene

has the majority of its
values in the shadow
area with another large
grouping around middle
gray. There are wide
levels of brightness that
have only a few pixels.

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 Photo-editing—Global Editing

Photo-editing—Global Editing

In 1932 a group of young photographers including Ansel Adams and Edward

Weston started a group they called f/64 to champion straight photography
over the heavily manipulated pictorial photographs so in vogue at the time.
The movement grew and when Edward Steiglitz published the work of an-
The Lightroom History other straight photographer, Paul Strand, in his magazine Camera Work he
Panel in the Develop wrote “... The work is brutally direct. Devoid of flim-flam; devoid of trickery
module.
and any ‘ism’; devoid of any attempt to mystify an ignorant public, includ-
ing the photographers themselves. These photographs are the direct expres-
sion of today...” This movement became known as “straight photography”
and there are still echoes of the arguments it generated. The pictorialists of
today are those who use Photoshop to heavily manipulate their images so
they fall out of the field of photography and into the realm of the graphic arts.
There is an entire industry of these people offering newsletters, Web sites,
workshops, conventions, videos, books, and magazines, all devoted to ma-
nipulating images in this way. On the other hand, straight photographers try
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to have their photos accurately represent the world as it is. It’s helpful to un-
Click for a movie on
derstand these arguments because Apple’s Aperture and Adobe’s Lightroom
improving a photo. are really tools for straight photography and straight photographers and it
helps you to put them in a historic context.
Straight photography doesn’t mean you don’t try to improve an image, in fact
it’s the rare image direct from a digital camera that doesn’t need some tweak-
ing. However Photoshop has become so complex, and has so many graphic
arts features, that there was a need for programs that were more photo-
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graphic in philosophy. Serious amateurs needed one that was more intuitive
and easier to learn. Professionals needed one that would allow them to work
Click for a movie on faster and more efficiently—especially when dealing with a large number of
changing a photo images. Thus were born Aperture and Lightroom, programs that emphasize
into something quite
different. global procedures that affect the entire image.
One interesting aspect of Lightroom and Aperture is that any changes you
make don’t alter the original pixels in your image so you can undo any edit
THE GOOD OLD at any time. This non-destructive editing is accomplished by storing a list
DAYS? of your edits in the database along with the image itself. When you open the
In the days of film, image in Lightroom, it uses that stored list to reapply the edits so they are
control over prints used when you display, print, or export the image. In essence these programs
in the darkroom was
limited. You could treat your images as digital negatives or masters and preserves them as such.
control contrast by If you ever want to return an image to its original form, you do so with a click
your choice of paper of the mouse.
and contrast filters.
You could make local Lightroom and Aperture are designed to make working with RAW images as
changes by dodging
to lighten areas or easy as working with JPEGs. You can display, zoom, adjust, add keywords,
burning to darken print, and create Web page layouts using both formats without intermediate
them. When mak- format conversions. Both programs also let you work in the same way with
ing color prints you
could adjust color other image formats including TIFF and Photoshop’s native PSD.
balance using filters.
Before getting too
carried away with The anatomy of Lightroom
the things you can
now do, keep in mind When you first start Lightroom, you’ll notice it’s divided into sections.
that almost all of
the greatest pho- 1. The menu at the top of the screen offers access to commands. The com-
tos in the history of mands change as you change modules.
photography were
made with these few 2. The module picker in the top right of the screen is where you select
adjustments. Library so you can import, organize and select photos for editing, Develop so
you can perform image adjustments, Slideshow so you can create slideshows
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Digital Photography Workflow

SAVING WORK
One of the best
things about Aper-
ture and Lightroom is
the way they retain
your workspace
when you end a
session. There is no
need to save your
work. It’s all saved
automatically and
the next time you
start the application
everything is the way
it was when you quit.
If you were edit-
ing 100 photos for
a book, they are all
right there. There is
no need to open each
of the images before
you get started.

for on-screen viewing and exporting as PDF files, Print so you can set up your
printouts, and Web so you can create Flash or HTML web galleries. On the
left side of the screen is an identity plate and progress monitor.
3. The Library Filter bar, displayed only in Grid view, lets you find photos
by specifying text such as keywords; attributes such as star ratings, color
In grid view dragging labels, and flags; or metadata fields such as the camera or lens used.
the thumbnail slider
adjusts the size of the 4. Image display area in the center of the screen is where selected images
images. are displayed in all modules.
5, 6. Panels to the left and right of the image display area contain tools,
layouts, and information you use when working with images. The available
panels change as you change modules so you always have access to just those
tools you need for the immediate task. In most situations panels on the left
contain content and preset browsers, while panels on the right contain the
tools you need for the current task. Clicking a panel’s header collapses and
expands it.
7. The toolbar has buttons you can click and these perform different func-
tions in different modules. You can display and hide this toolbar by pressing
T. In the Library and Develop modules clicking the drop-down arrow on the
right end of the toolbar lets you specify which buttons are displayed.
8. The filmstrip at the bottom of the screen shows the photos in the se-
lected folder, collection, quick collection, or keyword set and they remain
displayed when you change modules. Unless photos are in the filmstrip, they
In compare view cannot be accessed from the other modules. The only way to change which
Ctrl-clicking images images are displayed is to return to the Library and make the change there.
displays two or them
for comparison. In
Immediately above the filmstrip is a tool strip.
survey view the same
technique lets you
compare 2 or more
images.

The library module

The first time you use Lightroom, you open the Library and import photos
from drives on your system or directly from a camera or memory card. You

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 Photo-editing—Global Editing

have the choice of leaving the original images where they are (as you might
when importing from folders on your system) or moving them into a folder
Icons you click to you specify.
change the content area
to grid, loupe, compare • The image display area has four modes between which you switch by
or survey views.
clicking buttons on the toolbar (below): grid for thumbnails, loupe for full
screen or zoomed display of an image, compare with two images side by side,
and survey to compare one image against any number of others. In grid view
thumbnails can be set to various sizes from extra small to extra large.

• The toolbar in the library module has buttons that change the view in the
image display area, stars to rank photos, pick and reject flags, and rotate but-
Buttons in the navigator tons. Any or all of these tools can be hidden or displayed.
panel let you specify the
size of the image you • Filmstrip buttons above the thumbnails change the view in the content
are editing. area, navigate through images, and turn filters for stars, flags and colors on
and off. Photos that don’t meet the criteria are filtered out and not displayed.
• Navigator panel lets you scroll around zoomed images.
• Catalog panel lets you specify if all photos are listed or just those in the
quick collection or previous import.
• Folders panel is where folders of imported photos are listed.
• Collections panel lets you gather together related photos for a project.
• Histogram panel shows the distribution of tones in the selected image and
a few of the camera settings used to capture it. You can adjust the displayed
tonal range with sliders or by dragging the histogram itself.

Left and right panels in

• Quick Develop panel lets you make adjustments to your images. The
the Library module. choices are described in the section on “The Develop Module.”
• Keywording panel lets you add keywords to selected photos.
• Keyword List panel is where you click keywords you have assigned to im-
ages so just images with the selected keywords are displayed.
• Metadata panel lists Exif and IPTC metadata for the selected image and
lets you enter additional IPTC metadata.
• Sync lets you select one image, then select others. When you then click the
Sync Settings or Sync Metadata button the edits or metadata in the first im-
age are copied to the others.
The metadata browser.

The develop module

The histogram is a good For a complete discussion of all Lightroom features, you need a book devoted
way to locate the white to the program. However, here are the procedures listed in Lightroom’s Basic
and black points and
adjust the tonal range. editing section—the ones almost every photographer thinks about for almost

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Digital Photography Workflow

every image.
• Navigator panel lets you specify the size of the image and scroll around
images larger than the screen display.
• Presets panel lists stored settings you can apply to images. You can create
and save your own presets and they are added to the list.
• Snapshots panel lets you name and save a photo at any point in the editing
process so you can return to that version just by clicking its name.
• History panel lists changes you made to images so you can undo them.
Presets, either those
that come with the • Histogram panel shows the distribution of tones in the image.
program or those you
create and save yourself • Local editing tool strip (see next section).
can be applied to all
selected images with a • Basic panel contains sliders you use to adjust the colors and other charac-
click of the mouse. teristics of your images. (This section is discussed in more detail shortly.)
• Tone Curve panel adjusts the tones in the image: highlights, lights, darks,
and shadows.
• HSL/ Color /Grayscale panel adjusts hue, saturation and luminance;
colors; and the grayscale mix.
• Split Toning adjusts hue and saturation independently in highlights and
shadows.
• Detail has controls to sharpen, smooth and de-noise an image.
• Vignetting adjusts lens vignetting and applies a vignette (dark or light
corners and edges) to a cropped photo.
• Camera Calibration lets you calibrate your own cameras if you find that
Lightroom’s generic profile doesn’t meet your needs.

Tool strip for local editing

Although Lightroom is primarily a tool for global adjustments, it does include
the following essential tools for local adjustments. The buttons for each are
displayed just below the Histogram panel on a tool strip.

• Crop overlay tool crops and rotates an image.

• Spot Removal tool repairs a selected area of a photo using a sample from
another area.
• Red Eye Correction tool removes red-eye from flash portraits
• Graduated Filter tool applies exposure, clarity, brightness, and other
tonal adjustments gradually as you drag across an image.
• Adjustment Brush tool locally adjusts exposure, brightness, contrast,
saturation, clarity, sharpness, color and softens skin by painting the correc-
Lightroom’s white
tions with a brush.
balance selector tool
shows the colors of the
Developing images
pixels that it points to.
Most of the changes you make to an image are done using the Basic section
in the Develop module so it’s worth a closer look. Here are what each of the

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 Photo-editing—Global Editing

controls does.
• Treatment Color/Grayscale converts the selected photos to grayscale or
color.
• White balance selector tool (the eyedropper icon) lets you click a
neutral pixel in the photo to remove color tints throughout an image. As
you move the eyedropper around the image it enlarges the pixels under and
around it and displays the center pixel’s RGB values so you can find a neutral
pixel to click.
• White balance, temp and tint can be adjusted so that white or neutral
gray areas don’t have a color tint. Temp adjusts the color from blue to yellow,
while Tint adjusts from green to magenta. The WB drop-down menu lets you
select from a standard selection of white balance presets. The default is As
Shot.
The Lightroom Basic
Panel in the Develop • Tone’s Auto button sets the sliders to maximize the image’s tonal scale and
module. minimize highlight and shadow clipping.
ALT-DRAGGING • Exposure adjusts the tonal range or contrast of the image by changing the
While dragging the
white point to brighten or darken an image. The white point is where tones
Exposure and Blacks become pure white with no detail (255). As you adjust, watch the histogram.
sliders to adjust the
tonal range, you • Recovery lets you restore detail in bright highlights without darkening the
can see the levels rest of an image.
where black or white
details begin to • Fill light lightens shadow areas without lightening other areas.
emerge in the image
if you Alt+drag the • Blacks adjusts the tonal range by changing the black point to brighten or
sliders.
darken an image. The black point is where tones become pure black with no
detail (0). As you adjust, watch the histogram.
• Brightness adjusts the midtones (sometimes called gamma) to lighten or
darken the overall image without affecting the black and white tones and the
details they contain. By default, the Brightness slider has a value of +50.
• Contrast adjusts the white and black points simultaneously to adjust con-
trast in the image.
• Clarity adds depth by increasing local contrast.
• Vibrance adjusts the saturation of primary colors while leaving skin tones
and other secondary shades unaffected. This allows you to boost saturation
without unrealistic hue shifts.
• Saturation adjusts the saturation of all colors in the image.

Other modules
In addition to the Library and Develop modules discussed above, Lightroom
also has modules devoted to displaying or distributing your images in various
formats.
• Slideshow creates slideshows you can display on the screen, or export as
PDFs.
Web gallery templates
are listed by name and • Print lets you lay out and print selected images using templates.
when you point to one a
preview is displayed in • Web lets you create HTML or Flash galleries using templates supplied with
the Preview panel. Lightroom.

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Digital Photography Workflow

Exporting
When working on images in Lightroom, your changes do not permanently
affect the image. However, changes are made permanent on versions of the
image that you export. At the time you export images, here are just some of
the choices you can specify after selecting the images:
• Export Location specifies in which folder the image will be saved.
• File Naming lets you specify unique names to the exported images.
• File Settings specify a format (JPEG, PSD, TIFF, DNG or Original), color
space (sRGB, AdobeRGB and ProPhoto RGB), and quality (0–100) for the
exported image.
• Image Sizing specifies how large the exported images will be. For exam-
ple, Constrain Maximum Size lets you resize and image by specifying that the
width or height is not to exceed a specified number of pixels.
• Output sharpening specifies if sharpening will be performed and if so,
what kind.
• Metadata specifies what information is embedded in the images.
• Post Processing lets you see an exported image in Explorer or Finder,
open them in another application, or go to an export action folder.

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 Photo-editing—Local Editing

Photo-editing—Local Editing

Local editing lets you change selected areas of an image. Although programs
such as Aperture and Lightroom focus on global changes, they also integrate
The tool strip in essential local editing tools such as those used to remove spots and red-eye
Lightroom’s Develop
module lists icons for
and adjust exposure. However, to make many local changes you have to
tools used in local export a photo to Photoshop or similar program. When you do so you can
editing. All other tools specify its format. For example, when exporting an image to Photoshop, you
are for global editing.
would probably export it in Photoshop’s native format, PSD. It is then this
PSD file that you edit and when finished, reimport into Lightroom.
When using a program such as Photoshop here are some of the things you
can do to an image that you can’t do in Aperture or Lightroom.
• Selecting. If you first select an area of the image, you can edit just that area
without affecting other areas. You can also delete selected areas, perhaps to
remove a background.
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• Masking confines adjustments to selected areas of an image. Unlike a
Click for a movie on selection, a mask is a grayscale image just as your images are. This means
changing perspective in you can edit one just like you edit images; using brushes, erasers, fills, filters,
a photo. and almost every other tool and technique you have learned. Having all of
these tools at your disposal means you can create more complex selections
than you can with just selection tools. Because masks make precise selections
possible, they lie at the heart of compositing—the creation of a new image by
piecing together parts of other images. You can either cut and paste selected
areas or make some areas transparent so layers below show through. Once
you master a few basic tools, the possibilities are endless.
• Compositing. You can copy or move selected parts from one photo and
paste them into another to create a composite image.
• Adding text to images is usually the realm of graphic designers, more so
than photographers. However, you should be able to so to create title slides
for your slide shows, add copyright notices to your images, or just invent
ways to combine text and images in creative ways.
• Layers. When you first open a digital photo, it has only one layer—the
background layer containing the image. Any changes you make to this layer
become part of the image and permanently change its pixels. To avoid per-
manent changes, you add additional layers and make your changes on those
layers. It’s as if you were covering an original photo with sheets of glass on
which you drew, painted, made adjustments that affected the image below,
entered text, or added fills.
• Blending modes determine how a color you apply with a tool interacts
with the colors you paint over or how the colors on one layer interact with
colors on the layers below.

Photoshop’s toolbox • Transformations let you scale, rotate, skew, distort and add perspective
contains many of the to selections.
tools used to make
local adjustments. • Effects let you add drop shadows to text, bevel the edges of an image, or
These include healing, add a frame. You can also combine effects, using first one and then another.
dodging, burning,
cloning, and painting For example, you may soften a portrait to make it look more romantic, vi-
tools. gnette it, and then add a frame around it.

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Digital Photography Workflow

• Animated GIFS can be created by layering images on top of each other.

When then saved as an animated GIF and posted on a Web site, the images
play back like frames in a movie.
• Stitching panoramas from a series of side by side images lets you create
seamless panoramas that capture a broad sweep of the landscape.

The background of
the monster has been
selected and removed
(top), a new photo
opened (middle) and
then the monster copied
in (right) to create a
composite image.

The background of the

original image (left)
has been selected and
removed (right).

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