Beginning the Editing Process: The editing process should actually begin in the camera. While still out in the field, you should take the time to view each of the pictures you have taken on the camera's LCD screen. This way you can immediately identify and delete any pictures that were not properly framed, focused or exposed. Performance of this step will save you much time when transferring the negatives to your computer and later on during the post-editing process.
Step 1. - Open the New Subject Folder: Remember, never edit the pictures in your Negative folders. Always create new folders for editing. See Step 2. under the Saving Pics tab.
Step 2. - Stitch All Panoramic Pictures: Review all of the pictures in the subject folder and make a list all of the picture titles (numbers assigned by the camera) that you shot with the purpose of creating a panoramic picture. Then, using whatever software you normally use to perform the 'stitching', create all of your panoramas. I am currently using Hugin - Panorama Sticher to perform this function. See the Software Tab for more information on this free program.
NOTE: When stitching JPEGs, you need to perform this step BEFORE making any individual adjustments of color, lighting, cropping, leveling, etc. to the pictures. Making some of these adjustments and altering pictures prior to creating the panorama may cause the process to fail. POSSIBLE EXCEPTION TO THE RULE: Editing RAW pictures. RAW conversion programs allow you to make changes pertaining to lighting and exposure to a single picture and then transfer those same changes to a group of similar images, such as those that would be part of a multi-picture panorama. You then need to convert the selected RAW images to JPEGs before you can begin the stitching process.
Step 3. - Eliminate/Delete Unsatisfactory Pictures: This process requires you to set aside your 'ego' and be very critical of each and every picture. Don't be afraid to DELETE. Remember, you always have the original negative in another folder if you decide at a later point that you want a deleted picture back. View each picture full-screen and delete all those that do not meet an acceptable criteria for focus, composure and exposure.
- If you took more than one shot of the same subject with slightly different settings in an effort to insure that you ended up with a good picture, review all of these (multiples) first using the Picture Comparison feature of your editing program, deleting those that are out of focus.
- Next, perform a quick review all of the remaining pictures to determine if they meet acceptable criteria for proper focus, composition and exposure, deleting those that don't.
NOTE: By performing these reviews you will have already deleted 20-30% of the pictures in your new subject folder that you won't need to spend time editing or waste space backing up.
This is where it can become tricky and time consuming. NOTE: Most of today's cameras offer you a choice of JPEG modes, each providing a different level of quality. I have found that choosing the mode with the highest quality will provide you with more than adequate pictures for posting and emailing as well as producing 8-1/2x11 prints, even after editing. This raises the question when shooting in both modes, "Do I need to save all pictures negatives shot in RAW mode?" The simple answer is NO.
It is at this juncture that I feel one should determine the possible end use of each picture, based upon its appeal and overall quality (composition, focus, etc.) Are you just going to post it on a blog, send it to Facebook, email it to friends and relatives, make a photo print, or enlarge it and print it out on canvas for posting on a wall or in a gallery. How you picture using it will help you determine what you need to edit and what "negative" files you need to keep. Here is what I do:
1. Select the first image in the folder to edit.
- If I'm only going to use it for posting to my blog site or sending copies to friends and relatives, I perform the edit using the JPEG negative, saving the edit to a new filename. (see "Step 6. - Editing JPEG Negatives" below) This preserves the original JPEG file as a master negative. I then DELETE the corresponding RAW negative.
- If it has the potential for a more professional use (is a portrait, has major under/over exposure problems, will require some major cropping) I perform the edit on the RAW negative, saving the edit to a new (JPG) filename. (see "Step 5. "Editing RAW Negatives" below) I then keep the original RAW file as the master negative and DELETE the corresponding JPEG negative.
2. Move on to the next image and repeat the process.
3. When I'm finished editing all of the pictures in the folder, I perform a simple filename sort of the folder. This places all of the "edited" images at the top and all of the "negatives" from which they were made at the bottom.
4. I then copy the remaining "negatives" to a new Negative folder in the same location as the original; and then delete the original.
5. Finally, I go back to the subject folder containing the edited pictures and delete the "negatives".
The end result of doing all this is: (1) you will have deleted another 50-70% of the images that were in your new subject folder and that were in the original negative folder; (2) you will be left with a subject folder containing only the edited master images for use on the web etc.; (3) you will have a much reduced negatives folder, with far less RAW negatives that need keeping, saving a ton of storage space. At at the same time will have retained the master RAW negatives you might need to make any necessary future editing changes. REMEMBER: All of these images are still on the SD card in your camera until you decide to reformat it. If you have a large capacity card (mine is 32GB) you can go quite a while before you need to erase it, just in case you think there might be a deleted picture you want to recover.
Step 5. Editing RAW Negatives: Depending upon what photo editing program you choose, the advanced editing of RAW images allows for creating different layers, histograms, masks, tone curves and isolated areas within the image.
- With a program that can edit RAW images, open the folder that contains your RAW negatives.
- Begin selecting pictures to 'develop' using a program that allows editing of RAW negatives (For purposes of explanation, I will be using PaintShop Photo Pro 4 (PSP4), though I am sure that the steps will be quite similar in other programs such a Photoshop or Lightroom).
- In PSP4, all RAW files are immediately opened in the RAW Lab. This is where you control the development of the photo within the program. This is different from editing a photo after it has been developed. RAW photos will contain 12 to 14 bit images which contains more information than the standard 8 bit jpeg image.
- Use all of the different settings i.e. Brightness, Saturation, Shadow, White Balance, Temperature, Tint, Highlight Recovery, and Noise Reduction to create the desired developed photo effect. After previewing, continue to make additional adjustments until the desired image is produced. By changing settings in this "development" process, many problems can be fixed and will not need to be altered in further “post” editing, leaving you with a 'cleaner' file.
- If you need to apply these same changes to other RAW image captures (such as a landscape series), there is usually a batch function that makes this very easy. Only RAW edits can be attached to other RAW images.
- Because RAW images are read only, you will now need to (convert) and save them to another format (JPEG or TIFF). When doing this I use the following convection to rename the newly edited file {E-original filename.extension}. Example: E-P1090680.JPG. This conversion to another format is required in order for additional adjustments and editing using PaintShop's full edit functions. This RAW conversion is achieved through the Convert Raw Feature, which is located in the Organizer. To convert a large number of photos, the batch processing function is the best as this will convert all the selected RAW files.
- When you have finished working on and converting your RAW negatives, copy all of the 'developed' .JPG files to a child folder with an appropriate identifying name. As you have all of your original RAW files in your master negative folder, these remaining RAW files (which contain all RAW editing information) now become master picture files.
- You are now ready to make any additional individual image adjustments to the JPEG images in the child folder, such as cropping, rotating, eliminating noise, changing the depth of field, cloning, saturation, hue, contrast, perspective correct and other corrections found in Step 5 below.
TIP: When performing editing on your pictures, always try to make the edits in the same order for each picture.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Wait until you have made all the edits before saving the file.
- Rotate: Flip or rotate the image if its orientation needs to be changed.
- Cropping: This should be accomplished before making any of the additional adjustments that follow. Crop the picture as needed to eliminate unwanted items, or to better emphasize the intended subject matter. Select Crop Board ICON from the Main Menu and crop as needed.
- Adjusting Colors (White Balance): This may not be necessary if you did a good job with the RAW edits prior to converting the image to a JPEG. With this menu selection you can change white balance & exposure values:
- Adjust Lighting - (Shadows, Contrast, Highlights and Color Saturation)
- Straightening: Determine if the horizon, buildings, etc. in the picture need straightening. Select a photo and then Edit|Rotate|Straighten by any Degree and adjust as needed.
- Adjusting Colors: This may not be necessary if you did a good job with the RAW edits prior to converting the image to a JPEG. With these menu selections you can any final color adjustment and enhancements.
- Adjust Colors - (RGB, Brightness, Contrast, Gamma, Hue, and Saturation)
- Adjust Levels - (Adjust color levels using a slider)
- Cloning: Cloning is a process which allows you to remove any unwanted items from a picture, such as dust spots, telephone wires, signs, etc., that detract from the main subject matter. It uses comples algorithms to replace the selected area with pixels from the area that surrounds it. Select the Clone and Heal ICON from the Main Menu. Sometimes a stand-alone cloning program will provide easier to achieve/better results. I recently purchased a new program called Inpaint 4 to perform this function on my images. Inpaint 4 Cloning Software.
- Sharpen/Blur: This should always be the last action performed in the editing process. This menu selection allows you to provide some sharpening to correct minor focus and blurring due to low light situations. If you will be needing a high resolution image for print, run a single pass of sharpening using (Unsharp Mask) at 50-75%. I usually set my default sharpening values to “Amount: 50, Radius: 1.0, Detail: 50″. Click here to learn more about this process ... Photo Sharpening.
Step 7. - Resize by Resampling: The reason this process should not start until AFTER completion of the editing process steps noted above is because it allows you to retain the completed, edited image as a 'master'. When downsizing for the web or email, re-sample the image to a desired target resolution (target resolution is typically 1024 pixels wide for horizontals and 500 pixels wide for verticals). NOTE: When re-sizing by a 'percentage', reduce the size by no more than 25% at a time. Use the unsharp mask in between each resize until the picture has reached the desired dimensions for the intended use. This helps keep the image closest to the original quality of sharpness. NOTE: Always check "Maintain Aspect Ratio". As a last step, use (Unsharp Mask) to run another pass of sharpening at 25-50%.
IMPORTANT FILE SAVING NOTES:
(1) When saving images for the web (or email), you should always choose “JPEG” as the file format.
(2) When resampling a single image, always use the 'Save As' selection to create a new image file with a new filename so you do not make any changes to the original image..
(3) If you have multiple files that you wish to resize, you can make the resampling changes to all the files at one time using a batch resize function. First, create a new folder in which to place all of the images and then save all of the resized images to the new folder. This way, when you are done with emailing or uploading to your web or blog site, you can simply delete the folder, leaving the original images (in their original folder) intact.
