Digital Workflow, part 3

Bamburgh Castle
Originally uploaded by thefatcat44

Now your images are on your hard drive and you are faced with hundreds of shots - many very similar to each other due to the joy of 'free' digital shooting - you have a problem.

Thsi problem faces all digital photographers - what should I keep and what should I delete? Which images are worth keeping just in case but aren't really worth spending a lot of time working on for display?

It can be an overwhelming task and as such is often just left undone, your hard drive gradually filling up with unlooked at rubbish, the good shots drowning in a sea of mediocrity, lost forever.

This is where the tools within Lightroom 2 really show their power. Lightroom has been designed to make sorting your images as easy and quick as possible.

I have developed a routine which is fast and helps me focus on those images that are worth developing. It gets rid of the dross and those images which are so similar in exposure they can hardly be told apart. Here's how I do it.

At the bottom of the LR screen, just above the filmstrip where all your just uploaded images are displayed, is a set of tools beside the word 'Filter'.

The first set are flags, of which there are three. 'Picks', 'Unflagged' and 'Rejected'. I click on the first image in the filmstrip and then press the 'E' key (this turns on 'Loupe View' which shows just one large image at a time in the central area of the screen) then I click on the 'picks' and 'unflagged' icons. Nothing will happen at this stage.

I then press ctrl, shift and tab at once - this hides all the toolbars and makes the image large on your screen.

Then I press the 'L' key twice - this 'dims the lights' - your screen will go black except for the image you are viewing - it helps get rid of on-screen distractions and lets you focus on each image in turn.

Then I look at the image. If I want to keep it I press the 'P' key (marking it as a pick). I also press a number on the keyboard from 1 to 5. I use 3 to mark an image to keep but one that may get deleted later - a 'keep it just in case' image. I press 4 if I feel it is a really good image and I will probably develop it for display and use. I only mark an image as 5 star when I have developed it later and it is one of my absolute best images - it has to be very good to get 5 stars. Once I have graded the image in this way I press the right pointing arrow key to move to the next image in the filmstrip.

If I don't want the image, if it is blurred, poorly exposed or composed, or I have another image which is identical but better in some way, I press the 'X' key. The image will disappear and the next image in the filmstrip will be displayed. However, don't worry, it has not been deleted from the hard drive at this point so you can go back to it if you have made a mistake.

If you have several images taken as bracketed shots or very similar in composition you cam use the left and right arrow keys to flick between them to make your choice as to which one(s) to mark as 'picks' or 'rejects'. If you want to see two images side by side press the 'L' key once to light up the display again to reveal LR (and press ctrl, shift and tab to bring back the toolbars) then holding the shift key down select two image syou want to look at side by side in the filmstrip and then click the 'XY' icon just above the filmstrip - this will show them side by side and clicking the 'XY' icon several times will cycle through a series of clever display options to help you compare them.

Once you have gone through all your images, marking them as picks or rejects, click the 'rejected' flag and click the unflagged and picks flags (so that now only the rejected flag is active). This will show on the filmstrip all the rejected photos only. You can now click the first image in the filmstrip, hold the shift key down and click the last photo and right click on an image and select 'delete'. You will be asked if you wish to just remove the images from LR or delete the original files frm the hard drive also (I select this second option), click OK and all your rejected files will be gone forever.

Now click back on the 'picks' flag and you will be shown all the selected images. I then click on the fourth star beside the flags and this will then show you just the four star picks you graded earlier. Now you are focused on just your very best images from the shoot and you can work on these.

I hope this has proved helpful - if you have any questions, please go ahead an ask me in the comments section and I will do all I can to help