Glenn, Lightroom can help you cut that time down, but Kodachrome slides were a lot easier. The colors on the slides were the colors in projection and there was no tweaking. Now I go out and shoot 250 images in a few hours and bring them back to the laptop, for hours of editing. Drives the wife crazy on vacations... Regards, Bob S.
On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 1:51 PM, D. Glenn Arthur Jr. <dgl...@panix.com> wrote: > At the family Christmas party, my brother's father-in-law (there's > gotta be a shorter way to say that) asked about my photography and > whether I did it for money, and I commented that if I were any good > at the _marketing_, I'd do it for money. He asked me to round up > a sampling of my work and he'd see whether he could do anything > to help with the marketing angle. So I've been going through a lot > of my recent-ish backlog, picking out portfolio-worthy shots to edit > into shape. (When I go back home, I'll fire up the scanner; here > at Mom's house, I'm going by what I have on hand on CF cards, CD, > and cluttering up my laptop's hard drive.) > > The first step, of course, is to decide which photos are worth > spending any time on. I'm also trying to get some of these folders > of photos moved off onto CD to free up space on the laptop. So I'm > going through lots of images, deciding which to copy (well, hard-link) > to the "possible portfolio candidates" folder to take a closer look > at later and maybe fire up GIMP on. > > And it strikes me that when I'm going through a collection of photos > where I tried different angles and lighting on the same subject, or > where I shot lots of frames of some event, that culling the duds and > picking out which of the good shots to consider redundant ... was a > whole lot easier when I was sorting through a stack of 4x6 glossy > proofs that I could easily shuffle, look at in twos and threes next > to each other, etc. I haven't found an approach yet that feels > anywhere near as smooth or natural on the computer. > > And that's even before we get into the whole business with corrections > and adjustments the folks at the lab did for me when I was paying > somebody to develop and print. (OTOH, an awful lot of film from the > last couple of years before I got the *istD is still in the freezer > waiting for me to be able to afford to have somebody develop and print > it, so even though digital is a lot more work, I'm actually _seeing_ > what I've shot instead of tossing it in the freezer to hopefully see > someday.) > > At the aforementioned Christmas party, folks saw me shooting with a > Fancy Camera (i.e. not a P&S, and with a big ol' flash unit stuck on > the shoe), and asked when they'd see the pictures. So I made an > effort to winnow that evening's shots and tweak (crop/levels/etc.) > the good ones in time to hand a CD to my brother two days later when > I knew he'd be stopping by. I didn't keep close track, but it was > something like 16 hours of editing for one party worth (three or > four hours) of mostly casual shooting[*]. > > I'm sure I'll get faster at this as I go on. But I suspect that > choosing a subject, composing the shot, working out lighting, and > operating the camera will all continue to count as The Easy Part. > (Maybe I need to team up with somebody who doesn't like taking > photos but loves editing them, and whose aesthetic closely resembles > mine.) In the meantime, I guess I ought to crawl through the > mailing list archives for advice on digital workflow and tools that > I skipped over before. > > Anyhow, I just felt a need to whine about how long this instant > technology is taking me. Now to get back to editing instead of > whining for a while ... > > -- Glenn > > [*] I did go into Serious Photographer mode to try to capture the > smokestack on the cardboard-box "hotel" my nepphew made out of the > box a gigantic flat-screen television had come in -- my brother > stuck a humidifier inside so the mist would come out the chimney > and look like smoke. > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
