A pretty common question I get when I meet with potential clients is regarding processing images. They want to know what is involved, and why it takes so long.
Most people shoot in .jpg format. Professional photographers shoot in RAW format. This means that after shooting the images have to be finished processing by the computer. This can be done with Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop’s Camera Raw. I am sure there are other programs but these are the two most popular ones. The white balance (color of the light), exposure and contrast can be adjusted. Creative editing can then be applied through Photoshop.
My process is to go through the images with a photo organizer tool, mark the ones I am going to process, sort those into a separate folder, and then open that folder in Adobe Bridge. Then I open an image from each scene, adjust the settings and save it as a preset. At that point I can apply the preset to each group of images as a batch, getting them to a basic level. After that I individually open each image.
Some images will be just right from the general preset but most will require a little more fidgeting with. I don’t have an exact method for choosing but here is where I’ll select images to be more creatively edited. The image above is an example of a preset that I loaded and then tweaked with a little further.
Typically, I spend two to three hours processing for every hour I spend shooting. Hope this very condensed overview of the procedure is helpful!
by Jessica
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