At this years Photoshop World in Washington DC, I presented Concert Photography: From Capture to Client and mentioned that part of my processing workflow had changed since the release of Lightroom 4. These changes were not in the workbook since the workbook was produced before Lightroom 4 was released. So here is a blog post that covers the entire post production workflow including how and why I set up the folders and the steps I take when editing my images.
The first thing that you need to know is that I usually work on really tight deadlines and try to spend as little time as humanly possible in front of the computer. Here is the overview of my workflow.
The first step is to set up the folders on my hard drive where the images will be in stored. Now, I keep all my images sorted by the shoot name and the date. Since most of my shoots are concerts, I name everything by the artist and the date. For example, when shooting Jackie Greene at the Belly Up Tavern on March 3rd, the files will be stored in the JackieGreene_332012 folder. After I create the main folder, I create three sub folders, Raw Files, Picks, and Lightroom. When I import the images, they go into the Raw sub folder.
The folder Structure looks like this:
Macbook Pro > Pictures > Artist_Date >
- Raw Files
- Picks
- Lightroom
I use Photo Mechanic to “Ingest” the images from the memory card to the Raw sub folder and add IPTC data using the Photo Mechanic IPTC Stationary Pad on ingest.
I then do a sort in Photo Mechanic to get rid of the really bad shots, those that are out of focus, and the ones that just look boring. If I shot a lot of sequences, I will use this sort to just pick the best 1 or 2 from the sequence. The idea here is to make the work in Lightroom quicker by reducing the number of images that I have to deal with.
In Photo Mechanic I do the following:
- Double click on the first image in the contact sheet to open the preview window
- Press F for full view
- Left and right arrows scroll through images
- Select keepers by pressing the #1 key
- Close Preview
- Change sort to Color Class which groups the keepers together
- Select the keepers and click File> Copy/Move photos
- Choose the Picks sub folder inside the Artist_Date folder
- Copy the images so that the Raw Folder still contains all the images, and the Picks Folder contains copies of the keepers
Now it is time for Lightroom. The first thing is to set up Lightroom so that when it opens, it asked you to pick a catalog or create a new catalog. In the preferences, just make sure that the Default Catalog is set to: Prompt me when starting Lightroom
Now when Lightoom launches, you will be prompted to create a new catalog or open an existing catalog. I create a new catalog in the Lightroom sub folder of the Artist_Date folder and name it the same as the Artist_Date. I now import the images that are in the Picks sub folder. This leaves me with the images that I want to sort / edit in Lightroom, in their own catalog.
Now I take a little longer and go through these images to get the ones that will make the final cut. The number of images selected depends on the client. It could be as many as a hundred or more for archival purposes when shooting for a venue or as few as 4 or 5 of the best. I create a collection with these images and edit them, then I can make the final decision on which images make it to the client.
I select the first image and in the develop module I adjust the sharpening and noise reduction. These can be changed later depending on the actual image, but these seem to be good starting points for me.
I then enable Lens correction and add a -25 Post-Crop vignette in the effect panel. Then without leaving the first image, I click Edit>Select All then click Sync so that all these images have the previous settings applied to them. You can also create a preset with these settings so that you can apply them to any image or set of images with a click. Now the real editing begins.
Here is the order that I edit my images in
Which as you can see is opposite to the order that the tools are listed in Lightroom. I find that if I start with Clarity, it will determine how the rest of the editing will go. I push the Clarity slider to 100 and then start to back off until it has the look I like, then I work my way through the blacks, whites, shadows, highlights, exposure and contrast. Then I crop the image if needed.
So there it is… that’s my Lightroom workflow. I’ll add the Photoshop and Nik steps in a later post.
Cheers for the post Alan. Even though I have and use Lightroom I still don’t make full use of it so seeing this workflow is really handy; thanks for the tips.
Glyn
Thanks for sharing. Our LR4 workflows are pretty similar, but you’ve still given me a few new things to try. Cheers! ~Russ
Thanks for posting this Alan. I’m particularly interested as I’m about to start using PhotoMechanic this season, and integrate it with LR as you’ve shown here. Though I’ve been using LR for the last 3 years I’m still confused about whether to create catalogues for each shoot or not. Currently I just create one for each year.
I also create one per year. I’ve read on numerous sites that LR is more than capable of dealing with a year’s photos without any noticeable performance degradation. So I plan to continue this way until someone proves me wrong.
While there is no specific number of images (according to Adobe) There is the practical limit of what your computer can handle.
I shoot on average 3 shows a week with anywhere from 500 to 1000 images per show depending on how many acts. So lets say 750 images on average. Thats 3 x 750 per week x 52 weeks = 117,000 just in the concert and event category.
I find that if I try to sort 100,000 images in a single Catalog it runs way to slow especially with the images spread out over 2 large drive arrays.
Yeah, I can definitely see why you might run into some performance issues, particularly with your data spread out across multiple drives. But I would also venture to say that you’re probably somewhat of an “outlier,” statistically speaking. Have you found this to be true?
What I have found, is by having a good file system I am not reliant on Lightroom to find images.
What I mean by that is I can go to a drive and see the folder names and find the band and show I am looking for, then open the lightroom catalog of that show and find / process / export the needed images without having to search through a huge number of files in Lightroom.
This also means that i don’t have to upgrade everything each time a new release comes out, but can upgrade the catalogs as needed.
Makes sense. Thanks for the insight.
What I meant by “outlier” is the total number of images you typically deal with in a given year. Have you found that your volumes are a bit high relative to other photographers?
That might be true… 🙂
but with resolutions getting bigger and file sizes getting bigger….. I think having smaller more specialized catalogs are a better idea.
Hi Alan – thanks for the post! (Huge fan of your concert photography book)
I’m curious: how similar are the settings from concert to concert? Are the differences in settings primarily when you shoot at different venues / lighting rigs, or are there other big drivers? (Just wondering to what extent you are in practice covered by a handful of presets, versus having to tweak things from one show to the next.)
Thanks in advance,
ilya
Hi Alan, I love your work! Your concert images are awesome and after looking at your photos, I cringe when I look at mine…
I have a question. When you’re editing in lightroom, do u change the Camera Calibration>Profile to other modes, like Camera Standard, Protrait etc, or do you leave it to default? (Adobe Standard)?
Hi Alan,
Fascinating stuff. I’d be interested to learn how you get from LR to PS. Do you export to jpg first, or for each image do you right click > Edit in Photoshop then save as jpg, tif or psd?
It’s this part of the process I have had trouble nailing down.
Thanks for sharing.