Help hurricane victims by donating to the American Red Cross.

From Ollie's Web Site

Workflow

Somehow these sections all seem to start with a definition, so let's try one for the term, "workflow."

Workflow, at its most basic, is a procedure. A typical workflow is for moving image files from the camera to a hard drive, "developing" the images, i.e., applying conversions from RAW to TIFF or JPEG, storing the images in some kind of organized manner and, finally, printing them.

Here is Roger Cavanagh's C1 workflow.

Here is Michael Reichmann approach.

First Approximation

A first approximation of my workflow, then, is:

1. Copy image files from the camera. I use a card reader (Lexar's USB 2.0 Multi-card Reader) and Breeze System's Downloader Pro to put the pictures into a date hierarchy within a capture directory.
2. After checking that the download worked, delete the images from the memory card and return to camera bag.
3. Cull the images with Breeze System's BreezeBrowser to cull obvious losers.
4. Use Phase One's CaptureOne (C1) to develop the raw images, storing them as TIFFs or JPEGs in a folder called Develops under the original capture directory.
5. Organize, categorize and index the files with iMatch.
6. Print the pictures with qimage.

Seems simple enough, but there are lots of details within each step. Let's examine those at more length:

Copy Images

Copying images is pretty simple. First I insert the card into the card reader (I use a Lexar USB2 card reader which handles a variety of card types, including Smart Media and Compact Flash cards), and start Downloader Pro. Downloader Pro shows the card's contents, where it will download them to and what it will name the files. Both these latter parameters are set in preferences.

Pressing "Download" initiates the copy process. Pressing "BreezeBrowser" lets you check the downloads in Breezebrowser. Finally, pressing "Delete" deletes the files from the card. Note: as a safety facotr, Downloader Pro will only delete files that it detects on the hard drive, so you can't accidentally delete files before downloading them.

Click here for more information about how I use it.

Cull Images

If you are like me, you take many shots to get the image you want. Good editing means throwing away all of the mediocre pictures.

Point BreezeBrowser at the capture sub-directory and look critically at all the images. Unless that underexposed and blurred shot is your only image of your great aunt Jenny, push the delete key. After you have gone through them once, look again at all the pictures and delete some more.

You are doing yourself a favor (many fewer images to have to work on), as well as your audience who really doesn't want to see all 45 shots of your dog sleeping on the couch.

Develop Images in Capture One

[Phase One] created a really good raw image processor in Capture One. Click here for more on my workflow with C1.

Filing images

Keeping track of images is a major task, especially with the quantity of distinct files generated in digital photography. Image management software is crucial to this step.

Photools IMatch is the image management software I use. See the website for an exhaustive list of features, but the ones I like are:

• automatic updating to include newly downloaded files.
• dynamic categorization of images.
• easy transfer of images to other programs (drag and drop works well with Photoshop CS2 and qImage.
• easy move or copy of files that maintains links in database.

Here are my notes about iMatch useage.

Printing with qImage

Look at the my qImage page. There's an article about sharpening and qImage there, as well as user notes.