In this week's blog were going to took a look at the Workflow I took to shooting a full session, importing my images, naming, and so on. The first thing I want to do when I’m uploading is load Adobe Bridge. Adobe Bridge is used to organize files by renaming a group of them at once, assigning colored labels or star ratings to files from the respective Adobe software suite, editing embedded or associated XMP and IPTC Information Interchange Model metadata, or sorting or categorizing them based on their metadata.
Once AB is open we’re going to find our folder. Now I have already shot and organized my work but for the sake of teaching this workflow I have created a folder on my desktop named “Camera” and we are going to pretend as if we are dragging and dropping our folder into AB. As you can see two of my images are here and the next step is simple. we're going to append our copyright information onto our images and then use a batch rename. Using a batch renamer the photographer can easily give the pictures meaningful names. A batch renamer can be used to quickly change the filenames to a style that suits the person who downloaded them.
So, I’ve renamed my files and selected the option to move the images. An important tip and trick to know is how to organize your photos. I’ve Created a Mock folder which will be available with additional files for you. You should always have a folder with the Year followed by the type of images such as “portraits.” in them and then the client which can be identified by their first and last name. inside that folder is where we keep our raw files and workflow from Photoshop.
Now, the next step is something that I personally do on my own. you don’t necessarily have to do this, but I enjoy doing it because it’s part of my editing process that I’ve created. In Adobe bridge, you’re able to open a file in Camera Raw and make some adjustments. I personally prefer to open Adobe Lightroom, which imports my images from my raw folder and edits them there. It’s a lot easier and quicker because you have more options than Camera Raw inside Adobe Bridge. The first thing we’re gonna do is open Adobe Lightroom, once Adobe Lightroom is open we’re gonna make sure we’re in the library where we’re going to hit import in the bottom left corner.
Normally if your camera or SD card is plugged into Adobe Lightroom it will automatically pull your files up but since we aren’t doing that we’re going to look for the folder that has our raw in it. You can see that I’ve selected the two images from my raw folder which was created in our organized folder from year, portraits, and to client. The next thing we’re gonna do is head over to develop and I like to look at a before and after of my image as I’m working on it so I hit the two “Y’s” at the bottom left of the corner underneath my first image and it shows before and after. so on the right, I’ve already gone ahead and edited my image to my favored color, exposure, and so on. Once done, right, click and open as a smart object in Photoshop and we’ll go over why we open our files In Photoshop as a smart object.
So, as you can see, now, our images are uploaded into Photoshop. It’s turned into a smart object and we’re ready to start editing. now the reason we turn an image into a smart object is because we want to make sure we add adjustment layers. We aren’t adding them onto the image, which makes it impossible to edit them later so what we do is add smart objects to our image which creates a layer, or mask, making it easier to edit your images in particular parts of that image without destroying the entire thing.
One thing I like to make sure that I have correct before I upload an image or edit is make sure my color settings are correct. this is the very first thing I do before I open anything or import anything so I’m gonna go ahead and show what we have and what that looks like. So we’re going go to edit, color setting. This should bring us to our color settings. The reason we change our color settings is because our working space is the same as when we take pictures on our camera, your camera should be set to Adobe RGB which in relative terms when you edit you should also be editing in the same color space. I didn’t come up with this formula particularly but it is what I was taught and what I’ve used since then, and it’s helped me when it comes to editing, printing, and so on.
Once you mimic the color setting, go ahead and click OK. we’re going to set up our image for editing. In the final step, we create two folders for our image editing. The first folder is for global adjustments such as color, lighting, exposure, and more. The second folder is for local adjustments that target specific parts of the image that need correction. For example, we can create a folder for scarf, hair, and skin, where we make color balance, saturation, and other adjustments.
We arrange the local folder on top of the global folder to ensure that our edits are visible and sit on top of the global adjustments. At the bottom of the folders, we have our DB layer for Dodge and Burn edits and a retouching layer. To explain global and local adjustments further, think of the sun and a building as our global adjustment. We can adjust the way the light looks on the building using the curve layer. However, there may be specific areas on the building that we want to be a little darker or lighter. For these areas, we create a local adjustment using levels or another curse level adjustment. We then convert these adjustments into a mask and paint over them to apply the changes only to the parts that need correction.
That’s all for this first part. We will pick up in the second part later, Thank You.