Alvin returns as my photographic Life coach

Its more than a year since I sort out my cartoon ultra-ego., Alvin, as a personal trainer to help me reduce my mucking around in photo editing software and social media. Potentially avoid wasting a lot of time.

So how did I do? Social media is definitely cutback (largely because of frustrations rather than conscious effort). My attempts to reduce my burgeoning harem of photographic software mistresses hasn't gone so well. What I have found is a hybrid solution of using the tools that are best suited my projects at the time was far more satisfactory than trying to adopt a strict workflow and a single software application. Having a range of tools suits my creativity, providing I know how to use them, then I don't have too!

PS I seldom use Lightroom (its version 4.4) any more, just occasionally to find an old image.

Getting up to some Mischief

My disdain for workshop or trainers that just teach their “work flow” as the ultimate (perhaps only) way to use software and carry out various photographic or artistic tasks is continuing to grow. Such attitudes are a guarantee to remove originality, innovation and individual expression. Those that religiously follow the “work flow” rules end up producing much the same work over and over again and whilst it can be good, even excellent it is soon an avalanche of sameness, blunting our interest. If you don’t believe take a look at someone scanning their social media. they thumbs or fingers are barely allow more that 2 second to view any image. Swipe. swipe, swipe….

I favour a lightly slow more honest evaluation of the tools, workspace and characteristics of the material. You still need some instruction in the basics but ability comes more quickly if you just play with the media and tools. Its not unlike many of the early craft guilds (which included painters, or newspapers in the old days when they had staff photographers). Here you where probably apprenticed to a master and they expected you to grind the pigments, mix the inks, wash the brushes and even sweep out the work shop. You got to handle all the media and saw how it was used and eventually you where guided into doing it yourself. Some apprentices adhered to the methods of their master but fortunately for us enough students experiments and expanded on what they had learnt and their masters where wise enough to encourage them. I believe the same approach needs to apply in using the modern tools or art and photography. The masters, can be those guru photographers and the You Tube Stars, you no longer need to be in their workshop but the familiarity with the workspace and the tools is still down to us, the “modern apprentices”.

I’ve told you all this because I want to resume short blog posts about the work space in software and the key tools to use, so that you can understand the steps in the work flows you are taught but also have enough confidence to experiment and try something of your own. I happened upon the Mischief sketching software whilst looking at ways to prepare some composition/notan sketches. It was a it was a real relaxation, simple to use and powerful at the same time, no work flow required. There is a free version which is perfect to get started with, and is what I am using here, If you an make a mark with a pencil on paper you good to go.

The Mischief work space is a single screen and it normally starts in full screen mode. There is the normal windows style menus bar with drop down menu items that run all the programs function. The more commonly used are also shown in a vertical tool bar (normally over on the right). One very unique aspect of this work surface is the “canvas” you work on is that it is truly infinitely. You can scroll off the edge of the screen or zoom out to reveal more canvas. This an incredibly liberating feature. Start by drawing something that runs off the page, pan across a bit and keep drawing. The last two icons are for the the undo (another feature without a limit) and redo. All the tools and functions have keyboard short cuts, if you prefer those (look under help).

The next important set of tools are found in the brush panel (normally down on the lower left). The free version only has three brushes (aka pens) and they only have simple controls on size and opacity but this has been cleverly used to create a faint lines (pencil) for rough sketching a solid line (ink pen) and a thicker chisel style semi transparent line (Marker pen) These three pen will give you a decent sketching experience. probably the thing you will want to change most is the pen size, which uses the [ and ] brackets (for thinner & thinker) r the little slider pull out by clicking on the second bottom tab. the opacity can also be controlled by the number keys (again see the shortcut keys under the help menu.

The final on screen panel is the colour picker, normally on the upper left. Compared with many other packages this is a very simple format, but it does allow select for Colour (the slider under the colour square, Tone, the vertical position and Intensity, the horizontal position on the colour square. Unlike the paid version, the free version doesn’t have the ability to save your own swatch of colour, but size the canvas can be of infinite size you can place a small swtach of colours directly on just visible edge of the canvas, then return to that with the eyedropper to pick one of the few colours you have selected. So for simple composition sketch with 5 grey tone I have just used an approx 25% grey 50% grey, 75% grey & Black, using the white of the canvas as my 5th tone. You can either erase this later or just pan so that it is not displayed on the screen when you export a picture.

A really unique feature of this program (I haven’t seen another implement such a simple idea) is the ability to change the canvas opacity. This basically changes the canvas into tracing paper. By putting a suitable photo full screen and loading mischief over the top of it and either using the Window> Activate Window Opacity function from the menu or just use the slider on the side of the vertical tool bar. Moving the slider closer to 0% makes the canvas more translucent. You can trace lines of colour in the basic tonal shapes.

You really either need a Wacom style tablet of a touch screen with a pen, to get the natural feel of drawing. I have used it with the touch screen on my HP spectre and the touch mode on my old Bamboo tablet, but It is definitely wasn’t as good and trying to use the mouse is a little too fiddly. If you haven’t ever draw3 on a computer screen before the free version of the program is worth a trial. I’m already moving onto the Pro version (mainly to get layers & pins, more about those later hopefully. In the meantime never be afraid to experiment with your own “working methods” and occasionally just have a good “play”.

Daily Photo becomes a diagram

My daily photo today tries to explain my idea of photoflow being more important to the creative and originals, who need to know ways to do the craft. Not a step by step procedure within a rigid workflow (which tends to have all the output looking the same) but alas makes difficult to learn software at least a little attractive. I still like to idea explained to me by Misho Baranovic, a great local mobile photographer, the workflow is in fact simple just SHOT, EDIT & SHARE [the edit bit being optional]

I have written quiet a bit about workspaces, photoflow and workflow, and my views are getting stronger. It is important to understand the steps, what tools are available and how to use them. There may well be an apprenticeship period where you learn by copying and following strict recipes. However there will be a time when you need to open your creative wings and fly over new territory, if you have mastered your media you will have a wonderful journey.

Of course there are other organizational aspects, like culling, flagging, keywording, backups that are also important to the long term management of any photo collection, but they need not get in the way of creativity, or taking a daily photo.

Three Flowers, Three Processing options

I’m not a fan of the idea of a rigid workflow. I understand this is a good way to train new folk in complex process, software. However in a traditional artist workshop (and I’m willing to bet in early darkrooms). You did an “apprenticeship”, where you used all the tools and techniques under the wise watchful eyes of a mentor. You mixed the colours or chemicals prepared the canvas or plates and did countless copies, sketches, contact prints… You basically learnt how the all the media and tools worked. After much practice you could branch out on your own, confidently knowing how things worked. This is not the case today, especially with digital photography.

 

So here are a few of my experiments with different software and approaches. The red hibiscus is a straight HDR, with really restrained tone mapping straight from the RAW using Aftershot Pro2, The second, sunny yellow hibiscus, was a great JPEG, but I took the RAW file into lightroom and reduced the luminance of the blue channel (darkening the the sky) very minor tonal tweaks and into OnOne to get a big softy vignette. The Third was badly under-exposed and taken under incandescent light to horribly yellow colour cast, but it was the photo I choose as the daily photo, so I had to try and repair it. I like the White Balance tools for RAW files in lightroom (although I seldom use them) but that was my first stop, with a lens calibration as well and a little lift to the exposure and corresponding balancing of detail and noise I had a reasonable image, which I took over into OnOne enhance to remove some extraneous leaves and complexity on the edge, then Into OnOne Effects to blur some of the background flowers and stems some more, this requires masking and layers, a very light sunshine glow filter, and this time a blenched out margin vignette. Perhaps still a fussy image but way improved. Changes I would not have been able to pull off working on the underexposed and colour cast jpeg, especially if I had a fixed workflow formula and had not experiments with all these tools before.

Be brave don’t always follow that workflow

Thinking about PhotoFlow, rather than WorkFlow

It would seem everything on the Net that is photography oriented will at some time try to sell the perfect workflow. I’m not a fan because these formalised workflows soon become constraints that limit what you can do. In other words I see a rigorous workflow as anti-creativity.
I much prefer the idea the physical flow of the photo  has a lot more to do with being able to work flexibility. (I know it is not truly physical but a spatial workspace is a good analogy). For start I have several mistresses (photosoftware  like Picasa, Lightroom, AfterShot & OnOne) on all of my computers and they don’t exactly play together well. Next I am progressively changing how I organise my photos. There is still an archive of everything (less the photos I cull on import). I now have four places (separate folders on network drives) where I save and work on photos, The most important is Portfolio which is the place I store my best photos, they are not necessarily shared on the net. I have become increasing convinced you need to save your favourite photos in their fully processed view. The three other grouping are PhotoScrapbook, VideoScrapbook & Family are more work places and photos can come and go. If these get post processed the sidecar gets sent to the archive. In all these workspaces I use albums to group the photos (Rather than folder location on the disk).   Finally I have two different ways I share via the Net, the obvious social network places (to open up the image to anyone), and more importantly “private” sharing (where I can select those to share with and only them).
My workflow is still essentially a simple Shot, Edit & Share but I also see it as simple steps to move working photos into a suitable workspace.

Where are we going?

For many years the emphasis in digital photography revolve around the work flow. It began as a way to simplify the learning of complex software like photoshop and lightroom on a computer, but softened into a more generic shoot, edit and share. At roughly the same time social media became big and what drew a lot of views was those digital photos being shared. These two themes dominated developments in the photocentric internet world for most of the past decade. Then cloud computing raised its head and after a few train wrecks, and then the voracious gobbling up of promising startups by the social media and bigger computing and/or internet groups. The theme for this years is definitely one place to store all your photos. I suspect all the contenders are aiming for that sweat spot at the intersection of all these themes. Yet from my perspective all of these offerings have at least one shortcoming which disappoints, since most are essentially free perhaps complaining is not being reasonable. However my photos are mine and I want to look after them. I want to do a range of tasks and I want to be confident that the images are only shared when and where I want. I think it is time to leave the work flow, cloud and social media constraints and refocus on tasks that need to be done. These are methods and skills, some equipment/ hardware, some software. Using these processes and tools that can be learned and mastered in the manner of any true artisan. Then again I might be in the minority, I cringe to think most folk are happy to push the shutter button, click on autofix or the make zany filter and flood the world with wasted bandwidth.

Learning Workspace & Tools rather than Workflow

I have never been a fan of the idea of “the” workflow to control how you work on images. At least for a creative person this approach will guarantee that your work looks just like almost everyone else’s. Instead I prefer to think a better way to "learn" your own style and skills should be a self exploration of the workspace and the tools available.
I'm actually falling back on the way an artist might be expected to learn to sketch. Some of that instruction might be how to hold the pencil but most of the time will be dedicated to seeing the subject and making the appropriate marks on the page, sometimes using a HB pencil sometimes sometimes much softer like a 4B or charcoal and other times maybe coloured like a watercolour wash or crayons. To this end I began a series of simple post where I described the workspace available in common software (specifically software I have used). This was a lot like opening the page of your sketch book or perhaps a setting up a ready primed canvas and getting out your pencils, pens and/or paints. However once you are familiar with the workspace it is time to find out what tools are available and what they can do.
What I am going to tackle next is an exploration of tool types, by tool type. Not trying to cover everything  but definitely those which I consider the important photo editing tools. This is somewhat like using different media in the sketching but I will be focussing on specific tasks that most photographers and/o artists will commonly encounter. I have picked a dozen common tasks and the tools to do them and divided these into three groups

Basic Tools	Flourish Tools	Special Tasks
White Balance	Sharpening/Smoothing	Noise Reduction
Exposures	Selective Refinements	Red Eye Reduction
Tonal Enhancement	Layers, Masks, Gradients	Lens Corrections
Straighten	Filters, Presets
Crop

You probably don't need to learn all of them or even learn them in the order given. They are just a set of tools I think are important to learn. They are not a comprehensive list of tools to answer every possible modification of a digital photo. I intend to discuss each tool, one at a time, and generally one tool in one or just a couple of software package at a time. I don't intend to explain every possible option for each tools but I want to start you on the journey of learn new tools and which tools can be used for which tasks. I particularly want to leave you with a desire to experiment with those new tools and skills.
So next time you have a photo you think has potential, look at which task/tool is likely to deliver that improvement and start to experiment with just that tool. Shift the sliders both ways. Look at the extremes. Perhaps even try the same image in a different package or the same tool on an on-line service. Like any artist you should become skilled at making your mark in the way you feel comfortable.  You could wait for me to discuss that tools (you might have a long wait) but If you aren't comfortable yet just set aside some time to experiment with the tool, try every which way. The big advantage with digital images is it will cost you little more than your time.

There are dozens of expensive books that follow elaborate workflows but I don't think you can beat learning how to use one tool at a time on a task that is important to creating/enhancing your own image.

Once you know the way in which you want to use the tools and you find yourself doing the same tasks time and time again, then  this is the time to considered work flow, But it should be something that suits you and enhances your creativity.

Its about Workspace, not Workflow

Something has been niggling me recently about many of the changes in digital photo management. Its not the move to store everything in the cloud, or the move to lite apps, auto “Awesomeness” versus subscription services. Ok this trends are not thrilling. I realised what it was when I read Matt Kloskowski’s recent post for lightroom killer tips about the difference between managed and referenced photo organizers.Then it hit me I have always resisted as soon as a software suppliers or “experts” starts talking about “the” workflow, because I know that means they want me to follow a set prescription and they want to take total control. As a creative I want to be in control of my work.

This is not the way an artist wants to works. Certainly they need skill to use their tools and media, which will include knowledge of how to use those tools and media to make the marks, forms and create well made images and object. The procedures and layout of their work places are likely be highly personalized. I suddenly realised the issues that are bothering me, at least the artist side, is about workspace not really the workflow. Providing I am able to assemble the tools I need into the space (both physical and computer based) I have at my disposal, I should then be able to craft photos and images in my own special ways. What’s more as an artist I want to be able to do that in a manner that maintains the integrity of the medium. Further I realise that often it does require a quiet space and time to reflect to bring out the fullest potential of an image. So I am starting with the spaces and computer hardware I have been using and rethinking how, when and why they are connected and where and when I should be using each. Next I need to reassemble the tools to best suit my more creative workspace.

ABC of my photo flow

I have been quietly reviewing several aspect of my digital photography, including the physical aspects my photo management, what I do and what I have to carry as I travel around (a couple of trips are coming up). So I thought I might share some of this here.

A for Aquire

This is the step where I first take the photo and then transfer it to some other storage device (typically a laptop or net book computer) . I have two options here either by removing the card from the camera, or connecting a cable. Wireless or Net based transfer could be used here as well but I'm lagging behind the times a little in that regard.
 

B for Backup

This is the step I think a lot of photographers over look but it may be the most important. At the same time (or very soon after) you transfer your images from the card or camera you should also make a backup copy (doing this automatically is best). At my office I have a Netgear Stora (a duplicate drive raid system) that is set to automatically backup everything from the local user drives on my network. So loading photos into my picture folder, for example, automatically creates two copies on the stora. When travelling I usually have a small USB backpack style hard drive and I manually copy any photos uploaded to it. Whilst I have gone from a single copy on my camera/SD cards to two copes on harddrives, travelling is a higher risk time for this style of storage, so just in case I carry a couple of empty USB keys in my camera bag to make sure I have additional backups of any "keepers". These backups copies are short term and can be cleaned out once the photo sets go into archive collections.

 

C for Collection

My Primary Copy/Collection, the long term access and storage location, the true archives, are updated regularly usually monthly, but sometimes after special trips or events. I have an permanently running external hard drive connected to my LAN and which contains a master PhotoARCH folder, this is shared between my all my computers, and under that folder are subfolders for each year, then subfolders for each month and finally sub folder for each day.  I have found archiving by date is the easiest way to organized my new digital photos. At the same time I update the archive I also make external copies to optical media (eg DVDs). In the past I made two copies of the DVDs and stored one off site. Recently I did some sums and it is now actually cheaper (a set of 50 DVDs for $24 means the long term cost of storage is around $0.11/MB whereas a 3TB drive for $120 means storage is $0.04/MB) to use a large external hard drive just loaded with your photos and sitting on the shelf, compared with the same storage sitting on DVDs taking up the whole shelf (3TB is equal to approximately 670 DVDs). So now I have two external drives for my archives, one on-line (just on my network) all the time and the other on my shelf. I still make a DVD set to store off-site each month.
If you are a fan of the 3-2-1 approach to backup you will notice that this system incorporates those principles (3 copies, two media and some physical separation between the copies.) I prefer to call it my A-B-C.

Many Mistresses but Master of None

For the past couple of years, I have been dithering over which is the “best” photo management software to use. I have been a big fan of Picasa since I first downloaded it but I also have had the software supplied with my cameras (all good but unfortunately not universally appealing) I’ve also got Windows Live Photo Gallery running it on a few computers, and I have Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop Elements on my “photography” computer  (I have never actually got enthusiastic enough to outlay on the cost of Photoshop). On my old laptop I still have an original version of Corel Photobook (which I still like).  I also have Corel Painter, with a Wacom tablet and  CorelDraw Creative suite X6, (mainly for its illustration capabilities) and its Corel Photo-Paint is a favorite for “special” editing needs, especially its smart carver & clip mask. Then there is a whole menagerie of special tools (picturenaut, autostitch, mosaic creator,geosetter, noiseware and not to forget paint.NET), Just in case I also have Portable Gimp and XnView on my USB Portable apps key and adobe photoshop express and aviary apps on my android phone. I have a great collection of photo utilities but I suspect they are getting the better of me, I often find myself following one processing path only to realize I might have been better going a different route.

The two packages picasa and lightroom are my definitely favorites because they are both non-destructive editing systems. They leave the original untouched, and instead of adjusting the pixels in the image itself, they store the process that is used to edit the photo and can reproduce the exact same result again whenever the photo is viewed or printed.. Picasa is great in its easy of loading new photos and scanning through load of photos its fast and has nice basic editing tools (cropping,straightening and “light” exposure controls. Windows Live Photo gallery is also fast but it not transparent in how it edits photos and where it puts the originals, it is not as obviously non-destructive and has fallen from favour. I’m also a fraction worried (ok quiet worried) that google will strangle the life out of a nice mature package like picasa as they rebadge and social network it into just a google photo product . The new Lightroom is really a better way to edit RAW files and has a more serious editing features, However it is really slow to load in a lot of RAW photos, painfully slow even in the 64 bit version. Thus I tend to load everything into picasa, review it and tag what I like and only take a small subset into Lightroom. My biggest hassle is remembering, did I do the adjustments in Lightroom or Picasa or both! The really annoying issue is that neither program can (or deliberately wants to) see the adjustment they other has made. Or was it a special edit in Corel Photo-Paint or a final cleanup in noiseware?  Keeping track of all the foibles of this many mistresses is not as easy as it might appear, but it would be nice if they at least talk to each other, and stop the gossip of who’s prettier or a better housekeeper.

So am I going to settle down and just choose one system, one workflow and ignore the rest. I doubt it, vive la différence.

My comfort 3 step travel dance

I have again been suffering a bit of disobedience from my laptop, refusing to wake up. It has become terminally slow a waking up if it wakes at all. I assume it is a Vista thing. Something I’m not really stressed about, because it means I don’t have to check on email etc. However it does take me outside my comfort zone of taking photos and managing them as I travel. It would seem I have become very confortable with “the Picasa 3 step”, and without my laptop (and thus my version of my Picasa database) that dance is a little difficult.
I must admit I have been a bit skeptical of the elaborate digital photo workflows, generally originating from the USA. I suspect much of their origin lies in the complexity to understand photoshop and apple centric expectations (ie there are way too many mouse clicks man!). If you like those workflows use them but understanding what you want to do and doing that quickly and efficiently is the real aim. Still there is a lot to be said for being so familiar with the flow that it is a habit that lives in you comfort zone and does not feel like a chore.
So here is my comfort zone Picasa 3 steps, when travelling
1 Import into Picasa. This is simplicity itself, I just slide in my SD card and get Picasa running, and then press the import button up at the top of the screen, or as I prefer the short cut keys <Ctrl><m>.
2 Weed & Star, I like to scan through my photos and look at them for the first time on a bigger screen (my laptop is not a “calibrated” screen but I am used to it). I usually star, or use the short cut keys <Ctrl><8>, any really good images as soon as I see them. I also get rid of the “total duds”, the unfocused, overexposed, the accidental photos of my feet, duplicates and the just straight “bad”. The short cut to delete forever is <Ctrl><Del>.There might be one of two marginally blurred or underexposed that I decide to keep but I am learning to more be brutal in the weeding.
I once upon a time used to do my “tagging” at this time but it can be too time consuming and hinders the like/dislike selection process. I also avoid doing a lot of image tweaking (exposure, white balance, colour saturation, red eye, cropping) because this also eats up time and diverts attention away from image selection/ranking and is better done on my larger desktop screen that is calibrated.
A really quick way to see an image full screen is to hover the mouse point over a thumbnail image, then with your other hand press and hold <Ctrl><Alt>. The image will instantly be full screen and releasing the <Ctrl><Alt> keys will restore the normal thumbnail display.
3. Backup to my backpack disc. Sometimes I use the Picasa backup, it can be found under tools on the drop down menus, which has the advantage of Picasa then knowing what and what has not been backed up, but just copying the latest directories, via drag and drop out in windows, works just as well.
Whilst on things Picasa, there is a pleasant surprise for Picasa Web Album users, Google have rejigged its quotas for free accounts, Photos less than 800x600 pixels and videos less than 15 minutes in duration no longer count towards your 1GB quota. As I deliberately keep my blog images small (It makes the blog display faster and also tiny images are a little less desirable for people to steal) I went from about 60% to 28% of my quota without having to do anything.

Modern Photo Shoebox :: Digital Camera to CD

Back in the days of film, or even slides, photos that didn't make it into an album, or frame, disappeared into a shoebox. there was seldom any order or logic, negatives, prints and maybe if your were lucky a few notes might be penciled on the back. Well its not a lot different with digital pictures only the shoebox is now a CD, or set of CDs (maybe even a DVD) and probably they are no better organized than the old shoe box

So I thought it might be interesting discussing the various ways you can build and collate your collection of digital images, both with and without a plan to keep them organized. 

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As I go I will update links from here to related stories, but you can also just watch the blog for them to appear in no particular order.