Exercise 4: Editing

For this exercise I had to follow a particular sequence to edit the images from a shoot.  I used the shoot from My own workflow part 2.

1. The technical edit - remove images that are obviously faulty, like those out of focus shots.  You can do this by placing them in a folder or tagging them.  I chose to tag them with the number 1 using ViewNX software.  

2. The selects 

Make an initial selection from the remaining images that are technically ok that satisfy you creatively.  I used the star rating system to do this

3. The first selects

Work within these selects to choose the several best.  These will be called your first selects.  The remaining images are referred to as seconds.  I made some notes about what I liked about the remaining shots.  I reviewed those that were given a 3* or higher rating.  

4. Group and review

I took a break from editing for a few hours and then came back to it.  I reviewed the ones I had selected as my first selects and then looked at those I had rejected.  I was satisfied that I had made the correct choices.  

5. A final choice

I began with 90 images and have now refined this down to 15.  I chose the following 2 from my selects.  

I chose this landscape overlooking the marsh from a footbridge because it shows all the elements of the marsh in one.  The water, the fields, the birds and the man made elements of this environment. 

I like the slight under-exposure in this shot.  It gives an air of mystery to the shot and sweeps the viewer into the background with the sun is illuminating the distant fields.  

I grew up in the country and believe that animals deserve to have as much space as possible to roam around in.  By the canal and as part of the marsh area there are a number of horses kept on a small field owned by Thames Water.  They always look dejected and there was little grass for them to eat.  People always go down to feed them.  I though this shot of the horse behind the bars of the fence showed a certain sorrow especially when looking into his eye.  

I also thought that converting to black and white in processing would add more drama to the shot.  

This is a good and thorough process for editing a shoot.  It challenged me to be more decisive about my selects - something I wasn't before I started this part of the course.  It is easy to remove the images that are technically faulty but when it comes to applying your own creative judgement on your work it is significantly more challenging.  

My version of Lightroom hasn't arrived yet so once it does I might be able to do this more effectively than by using View NX.  

Editing

Editing is basically a selection process where we whittle down our images from a shoot to the best ones.

When we are out shooting we know from looking at the LCD display that some of our images are better than others.  In fact, I tend to delete some images - ones that are out of focus or have camera shake or where the subject has moved - along the way when I have time.

We tend to take several shots of the same subject improving as we go along perhaps by changing the angle etc.  I have found from my experience that it is not always possible to make editing choices as you shoot unless of course you have some obvious howlers.  Images I have taken that I thought looked pretty good have been eliminated from the first technical edit once I load the pictures onto my PC.

I also find it hard to select the final few images from a shoot.  I tend to want to include all those that have made their way to the final selection process.  Maybe this is because by nature I am a bit of a hoarder.  But maybe it is because I am a little lazy in my approach or haven't finely tuned my creative editing skills.

I think the help me improve my editing skills I need to re-visit the process I use.  It is suggested in our course notes that we use the following:

• Start with a purely technical edit removing those with outright mistakes and put aside images which are less well exposed.  This leaves us with a set of technically good images for a basis to start with. 
• Refinement - whittle down the set to a smaller group of good possibilities and then further refine till you are left with the very best images.  

A lot of this creative editing process is down to personal taste which is where maybe I lack a little confidence in my own ability as a photographer.  I need to be more decisive when it comes to my own work about what makes the final cut and what doesn't.  

• Process the final selects.  I have both Nikon's software and Lightroom for this.  

Exercise 3: Histogram

The aim of this exercise is to increase familiarity with the histogram by looking at the histogram of images you have taken.

Histograms can be viewed in camera after an image has been taken and also in image processing software.

If you shoot in raw the histogram is taken from a jpeg and not the raw file itself so you may see some changes when it is opened in Photoshop.

Low contrast

Low contrast average exposure shot

The histogram shows that the bulk of pixels are in the midrange of the brightness scale

 One stop under-exposed

The graph has moved to the left as there are more darks in this image

One stop over-exposed

The values have moved to the right as the image contains brighter pixels. It is also overexposed. 

Average contrast

Average exposure

The histogram shows a wide range of values across the scale

One stop under-exposed

The values have shifted to the left as there are more darker pixels in the shot. There is also an increase of white pixels. 

One stop over-exposed

There is still an increase is white pixels with the whites being out of the camera's dynamic range and a big shift from blacks on the left. 

High Contrast

Average exposure

The histogram shows a wide range of pixels across the scale with the majority of values in the left and right.

One stop underexposed

There are no white values with a big rise in the left as the image is underexposed. 

One stop over-exposed

There is a shift to the right with very few values in blacks. 

The histogram gives you an indication of whether the image you are shooting is within the camera's dynamic range and over or under exposed.  As there is no correct exposure for a shot you may wish to have your image underexposed - if you want blacks to be black or overexposed if you want white snow to be white.  Checking the histogram can help you achieve this.  

Histogram

A histogram is a useful indicator of how a picture looks technically.

The histogram shows the distribution of pixel values over a range.  Each pixel has a luminance (brightness) value ranging from 0-255 - Black to white.  The histogram shows how many pixels in our image are black, grey or white.

The Brightness Scale

Lighter images like snow scenes move the graph to the right and darker scenes to the left. 

Exercise 2: Your own workflow 2

The second part of this exercise has the same aim and structure as the first - devising a workflow for a specific shooting assignment.  The difference is that the assignment should be unstructured and open-ended.

The key elements for this workflow are:

• The number of images is unpredictable
• It lasts a sufficient amount of time that you would consider reviewing or partially editing your images during the shoot. 

The type of workflow is something I would be more familiar with as many of my shoots are unstructured.  I like street photography and visiting different places so most of my work is on an ad hoc basis.  

The workflow I used for this shoot is outlined below. I chose Sewardstone Marsh for this assignment as although it is something I have shot quite a few times, this shoot will probably be my last here as I am leaving the area in the coming weeks.  With this in mind I tried to capture what the marsh has to offer someone who has never seen it before. 

The workflow

• Preparation - check gear including batteries, memory cards, lenses and weather.  
• Camera settings - using WHIMS. 
• Shooting - I had a plan to shoot some of my favourite places but also capture parts I would normally overlook.  
• Edit and review images during the shoot to look at different angles - delete obvious 'bad' shots.  There was quite a lot of these as my shots included animals!
• Upload images - I had some 90 images on the memory card
• First technical check to remove obvious technically incorrect shots - deleted about 5
• Edit the remainder to produce a short list for the final selects - whittled down to 14
• Final selects
• Processing and retouching
• Naming and filing images
• Preparation for final output

These are the final images

Behind Bars

Sewardstone Marsh

I think like the first part of this exercise I benefited from the latter stages in the workflow.  I have always bee pretty good at preparing for a shoot.  I have learnt the hard way - I have gone out with a low battery and inadequate memory on my card!

I feel that a lot more preparation is required for a time limited assignment especially when you have a model for a specific period of time.  Open ended assignments are what I am used of and I found the first part of this exercise beneficial.  

From these exercises I have become more confident in my ability to shoot in varied assignments and also in my ability to make my final selects. 

Exercise 1: Your own workflow 1

For this exercise I had to devise and put into practice my own workflow for a specific short assignment.

This assignment had to be a portrait session.  The aim of this exercise was to take a number of varied images in a short period of time and edit them to select one of two images.  Therefore the assignment contains the following elements:

• Time-limited shoot
• On-the-spot development and improvement of composition
• A sequence of images, about 20 or more, where you are searching for an improvement in the way the subject appears (pose and facial expression)
• A separate session of picture selection, exercising creative judgement
• Processing the final image

My workflow tends to change depending on the type of shooting I am doing.  I find that when I am shooting landscapes I am a lot more organised than say shooting street photography.  In preparation for this assignment I considered the basic key actions for a workflow:

• Shooting
• Transferring images from memory card to hard drive
• Examination of the images in a browser
• Identification of selects, process and caption
• Save and archive all images

Furthermore I re-visited the sequence of actions to see which would be necessary for my shoot and thought about preparation, camera settings and shooting. 

My workflow for this assignment is as follows:

Preparation 

• Find a model and location, check weather and identify a time to shoot
• Make a short list of poses and shots I want to get
• Any special equipment required - tripod, reflectors, flash or props
• Check camera equipment.  Memory card and spare, battery fully charged
• Check hard drive for space

Camera settings

• Check the standard settings, using WHIMS

W: White balance check

H: Highlight warning turned on

I: ISO check

M: Mode check

S: Size - check image size and quality are correct 

• Any special setting adjustments required?

Shooting - delete obvious rejects as I go.  And zoom in to check for sharpness.

Uploading Images

Technical check  delete rejects and create shortlist for possible final selects

Final selects - identify final images for processing

Processing and retouching using ACR and Photoshop

Naming and saving (back up too) files

Final output - web gallery, email or print

The shoot

I found that the more prepared I was for the shoot the quicker I was able to work and complete the assignment.  Having a location in mind and the type of shots I wanted to achieve gave me the opportunity to get straight to work when my model was available.

I had about half an hour to get this shoot completed.  I had the camera on the tripod, flash set up and test shots taken before my model arrived.

I took about 40 pictures in total, some which I deleted straight away due to under-exposure, blur or model having their eyes shut.  I usually work deleting the obviously bad shots as I go.

I had a few possible poses in mind which I shot but I also found a couple more angles to shoot from which I had not previously thought of.

Once the shoot was over I had an idea of which were the best shots but I would of course have to see what they looked like on the PC before I could make any decisions.

When I loaded the images onto my PC I made the first technical edit.  I was left with 15 images.

After further editing I whittled the 15 down to 6 - 2 of which made it to the final selects and were processed.

After this I then named and filed the images.

  These are the final two images I chose from my shoot.

This shot shows the model in his surroundings telling more of a story about the person.  I felt it was important to capture an image not just of the subject but of the subject in his surroundings.   

The subject up close. 

I found the workflow I outlined for this assignment worked well and made for a smoother process from the pre-shoot to processing the images.

I feel that from now on where possible I will put more time into preparing for the shoot and be more decisive about my final selects.

Interestingly enough only the first image was one of the images I thought would make it to final selects before I had uploaded them to my PC.

Digital Workflow

The concept of a workflow in photography is relatively new and has been made possible by advances in digital technology from digital cameras to photographic software.

There are many more steps involved in photography from initially capturing the moment to print or web output.  To do this effectively you need to have an ordered sequence of actions that depend on the type of photography you are doing and they way in which you work.

Nowadays every aspect of photography, from the shoot to presenting the final image are wholly under the control of the photographer.  This gives you full creative control over your work.

It is very important to integrate the mechanical side of photography with the various procedures on your computer.  Software requires a specialised set of skills in order to achieve the most effective outcomes.

The various steps in a digital workflow could include the following:

• Preparation, checking equipment before the shoot like memory cards, batteries, equipment required tripod etc
• Camera settings - do the settings need to be changed for this specific shoot for example white balance for indoor shooting or ISO for low light situations. This could also include a check to make sure your standard settings are set. 
• Shooting
• Uploading images from the camera to the hard drive on your PC
• Technical check of the images including deletion of inadequate shots (camera blur etc)
• Ordering, numbering and naming of the saved images
• Editing of the technically correct images 
• Choice of final selects for processing
• Processing
• Retouching is required
• Caption and keyword the saved images
• Archive the images to a separate location
• Print or web upload for web gallery

To customise your own workflow you need to decide the order in which these actions should be performed.