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Digital Workflow – Part 2

Posted by Nina Grennon on July 19, 2010 in Photography, Workflow

Now when the images are stored and renamed, it is time for the digital darkroom retouching.

Again, I look at the pictures first in Lightroom, and choose the ones I want to edit slightly further. Depending on the image, I start by looking at the exposure compensation, followed by using curves to reset the black point. If needed, I adjust color saturation. The color and white balance are adjusted by an individual image.

Then the image is resized and finally slightly sharpened by using Unsharp Mask filter on Photoshop. Personally, I do like PS’s sharpening tools better compared to Lightroom, and especially Lightroom’s sharpening at the image export causes occasionally unwanted results.
My unsharpening process consists of two phases in most cases. First round of sharpening is at the amount of 150, with radius 0.6, no threshold. The second round at the amount of 300-500, again with the same radius of 0.6, and still with threshold set at 0.
However, these are good averages how I retouch pictures – every picture is still different, and one set of settings can’t be applied to all of them.

Regularly I have to upsize my pictures, e.g., for stock purposes, and this is done by using interpolation in Photoshop. I always increase the resolution in the increments of 110%.

This concludes a brief description of my digital workflow. I consider it rather smooth and straightforward – my images are nowadays retouched quickly and efficiently.

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Digital Workflow – Part 1

Posted by Nina Grennon on July 14, 2010 in Photography, Workflow
Digital workflow is one of those topics in the photography where professionals have their own preferences, and I tend to believe there are as many workflows as photographers.
My workflow depends on situation whether it is fast-paced photojournalism assignment, or documentary project or commercial shoot where I can have more time to  work on the pictures. At the end of the day, all the pictures end up going through the similar process.
Let’s look at the photojournalism side first. When working under the tight deadline, I usually shoot either fine JPEG or JPEG+RAW. There is no way, I would have time to work on the pictures on the field so I do everything I can to get perfect shots on the spot. It is actually very frustrating to look at the pictures afterwards and think “I wish I had stepped two steps left, knelt down a bit – done this or that differently…”

I shoot 99% of my pictures in Manual mode – aperture/shutter priorities tend to create problems when conditions change quickly, or light is tricky. Instead, when I know my gear and what I am doing, it is easy to adjust settings on the fly.

After shooting, I upload the pictures to the laptop, browse them through on Lightroom, rename, add the IPTC data, do quick editing such as cropping, some very basic adjustments… and off they go to the editor. I easily shoot 150-200 pictures even on a brief assignment but usually submit only a few images to the desk. I save RAW files for later use, and for further editing.

When I am working on slower-paced assignments, I shoot only RAW. After the shooting, I copy all my raw files into a certain location where they will transferred to another disk and files stay untouched – this is the backup copy of the unedited, untouched RAW data.
Then I copy the files to a specific folder by using Lightroom. This directory structure is always backed up on two separate disks. When I am browsing the files on Lightroom, I delete really bad ones right away, and after this I rename all the pictures.

My photos are stored by shooting year and date – for example pictures taken on July 14, 2010 will be stored in folder “2010″ as a subfolder “07-14-2010-XXXXXXXX” where XXXXXXX refers to the client’s name, location or any other indicator of the subject of the pictures.
My files are named as “description_date_original-file-number”. For example raw file “IMG_2314.CR2″, taken on July 14, 2010 in Hatcher Pass would be “hatcherpass_07-14-2010_2314″. This way I can still link the file to the original, untouched file if needed.

Now my files are organized, and it is time to get into some basic editing. My editing workflow is rather straight-forward since I shoot every single picture with the goal of getting a perfect image. It absolutely irritates me when someone says “it can be fixed with Photoshop”. Our professionalism comes from the fact that we can create attractive, touching images with our skills, not by altering them.
Part 2 of this Digital Workflow story will cover some of my most common editing practices – stay tuned!

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Gear & Gagdets

Posted by Nina Grennon on July 8, 2010 in Gear, Photography

More than often people ask me questions like what kind of camera should I get, what gear do I have …… and as I can be a real nerd occasionally, I do enjoy these discussions.

However, what comes to the favorite cameras – this is something where all of us photographers have own opinion. One likes Canon, another loves Nikon – and they all take great pictures. I am a Canon girl, have always been faithful for this brand. Except that my first SLR back in late 80′s/early 90′s was a Yashica. And I still have it and a couple of lenses; it did awesome job and still works just fine…

Today my tools of choice are Canon 1DMkIII, IV & 7D bodies. Lens-wise I prefer the L-series and the collections includes 16-35mm, 24-70mm, 70-200mm, 100-400mm and 400mm, as well as a non-L 50mm macro lens with the life-size converter. When extra light is needed I use either Speedlite 580EX II, or an older 550EX.

Seconic Flashmate light meter helps me to adjust the camera settings for the shootings if needed.

The digital darkroom consists of Mac computing system and Adobe software. MacBook Pro is an awesome workhorse on the field, and iMac’s big screen makes it easy to work at my desk. Adobe Lightroom 3.0 and PhotoShop CS5 create the unbeatable environment for picture editing.

I carry quite a bit extra gear on the field with me. One of the favorite pieces is my carbon fiber Gitzo tripod that I got after someone stole my Manfrotto a couple of years ago in Seattle. And the latest and greatest piece in the toy box will be a solar panel charger that I am hopefully testing this coming weekend. So updates to follow!

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Rain… and new ideas

Posted by Nina Grennon on July 4, 2010 in Photography

Sometimes even the best plan for great pictures may not work out. But still we photographers take our gear and go out, day after day and look for the perfect shot.

Yesterday I packed the field gear and my faithful four-legged photo assistant and headed to Hatcher Pass, some 50 miles north of Anchorage. The plan was to shoot some landscapes as well as find beavers. Unfortunately the gods of wether didn’t agree with me but we got soaked, and didn’t see any single beaver. I am coming into a conclusion that also beavers dislike the grey weather.

Despite the unsuccessful photo hike, Alaska’s endless wilderness is an awesome source of inspiration. Even though soaking wet, me and my dog had a blast, and after an hour of hiking, my head is again full of new ideas.
Tomorrow is always a new day for pictures!

Hatcher Pass through iPhone’s lens:

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Test pic

Posted by Nina Grennon on July 3, 2010 in Photography

Testing a photo upload from iPhone. This is my another photo assistant – the sleepy one who usually hangs out with me, and enjoys the snacks along the way.

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Getting Online

Posted by Nina Grennon on July 3, 2010 in Photography

After website updates, getting connected at Facebook and Twitter, it is finally time to get the PhotoBlog up and running too. Stay tuned for the updates from the field, photo news and shooting reports.

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