I would get back to the office after shooting an assignment for the newspaper. Then I’d process, edit, and print. After turning in my prints I’d hear from the sports desk or from the copydesk that my shot would be on the sports front or on 1A above the fold – prime real estate in newspapers. The very first copies of the first edition would stream off the presses around 10:45 that night. Sometimes I would go downstairs to get one as it comes off the conveyor belt, freshly printed and folded by a massive two or three-story high machine. Literally “hot off the press,” I can still remember the warmth of the paper and that great aroma of truly fresh newsprint.  And I can remember the rush of actually seeing my picture in print. Other times I could manage to play it cool and wait to see it over breakfast in the morning like everybody else. But it was always fun to see it in print whether it was minutes later or a day later.

That was over twenty years ago…but I had the same rush again yesterday, even though the circumstances had changed slightly. I was unpacking my latest client wedding album fresh from the printer when that memory came back to mind. Newspapers and fine wedding albums don’t have much in common. Newspapers are printed by the tens or hundreds of thousands, with total expectation that every copy will have zero real value within twenty-four hours. But there is only one copy of most wedding albums, and with reasonable care it should last for generations. But the photographs in both media should be carefully selected to document, inform, and even inspire.

The album shown here was printed and bound by Finao, my favorite album production company. The 12” x 12” leather cover on this Finao One album is one of their many “tooTone” options in colors Miami Ink (black) and Optimism (off-white.)

I custom design my own albums with Adobe Indesign.

There is no one-size-fits-all workflow. Many folks just use the software that came packaged with their cameras. Others have complex systems involving several types of software, DVD burners, and RAIDs. I’m just going to tell you about my personal limited experience. You need to devote some time to investigate some of the other options and experiment with them yourself to find what works for you.

The Transfer from Flash Card to Hard Drive

I use a SanDisc ImageMate All-in-One card reader for the transfer from my flash card. There’s nothing wrong with transferring straight from your camera, but doing so is considerably slower in my experience. Card readers are cheap and really speed up the process for me.

I transfer the images from the card straight to an external hard drive. If you take pictures, especially with a DSLR, you need to consider using an external drive. Photo files will consume your computer’s internal hard drive in no time. For $100 or less, you can get a 500G drive, and your computer will thank you.

For software, I use Adobe Lightroom 2.7 to handle the transfer. At this point I should point out that I always shoot NEF files (or “RAW” if you prefer the Canon terminology.) Not all image-handling programs are capable of dealing with this type of file, so this was one consideration for me when selecting LR. Many programs, like LR, automatically catalog and even make multiple copies of images as they are being transferred. You need to get a handle on these nuances early. Otherwise, you will inadvertently consume additional hard drive space, and you can make things unnecessarily difficult for yourself when it comes time to migrate from an old computer to a new one.

Editing and Processing

For me, this is where LR really shines. I mark my favorites, then make my adjustments for cropping, white balance, exposure, contrast, saturation, etc. I can burn, dodge, vignette, clone, stamp, and more right there in LR. If the same adjustments have to be made to other images in the same catalog, I just copy and paste the settings from one image to another. If you have no experience with programs like LR, there’s something else you need to understand: LR is a “non-destructive” program. That means that the changes you make are not actually applied to the original image file unless you choose to do so. Instead, the changes are applied to a new copy that is created once you complete your work. The original is left intact, just in case you need to “go back to square one” for some reason.

When I’m happy with the images, it’s time to export and convert. For each image I select, LR creates a new jpg copy with all the changes I applied. During this step, the files are renamed and keywords are inserted into the EXIF information. This initial export creates full-sized jpgs.

At this point, some images now get a little special attention. For instance, I shoot many events at high ISO. High school football, basketball, theatre productions, and no-flash wedding ceremony photos all require ISO settings at 1600 or higher. In some cases, I like to apply a touch of noise-redution to these photos. My current favorite noise-reduction software is a Photoshop plug-in called NoiseNinja. I recorded Photoshop actions that can apply NoiseNinja’s effects to all the images in a file at either 20% or 40% opacity. Of course I can also deal with individual files in Photoshop to fine tune any characteristic of the picture. While most of the tweaking was done back in LR, there are a couple of jobs that I turn to Photoshop for. The first task I do in Photoshop is portrait touch-up. I use the spot-healing tool and the clone-stamp tool to clean up complexions and to diminish glare from foreheads, cheeks, and noses. The second task is dodging/burning in the details. If I was talented and consistent with lighting and exposure, I should not need to do this. But…..

By this point, all of the image files are finished and printable. But the files are big, too big for digital posting on Facebook or on my Zenfolio gallery website. I’ve got two methods I use to re-size the images for web posting.

IF the files were completely finished in LR and needed no special attention in PS, then I can use LR to create the second set of smaller files. This is common practice for me when I’m handling personal photos that will go straight to Facebook.

On the other hand, pictures that do need the additional PS love, or pictures that need to be watermarked before posting, take a slightly different route. I use Photoshop’s script feature to batch process these images. The script makes the smaller web-resolution copy of the file and applies the watermark using a plug-in called Kuler’s Watermark Creator.

Publishing the Product

If these are professional photos for a client, I’m now ready to upload the low-resolution files to a Zenfolio gallery so the client can view them. With their permission I may upload a select few to Facebook as well. Once they place their order, I upload the high resolution copies to the printing lab.

If the photos are personal family shots, or otherwise “just for fun,” I’ll upload my low-resolution favorites straight to Facebook.

A Few Additional Thoughts

The process I’ve described here works for me, but only you can decide what suits your own needs best. I’m just encouraging you to put some thought into your system so that you don’t become so overwhelmed that you miss out on the joy of actually being able to display and share your favorite photos.

Just FYI, I will mention a few other common programs that I have experimented with:

• iPhoto – Simple and pretty powerful as an organizing tool, but I don’t recall being able to do much image-editing, though I will gladly defer to others who have more recent experience with it. The version I dabbled with had a somewhat clunky integration with Facebook. In an apparent attempt to be “idiot-proof” it had a number of default features that, for me, were undesirable because they slowed things down, but difficult to disable or modify.
• Apple Aperture – I tried this one out when I first got my MacBook Pro about 2.5 years ago. That was a very early version of the program, and it had a number of problems along with its useful features. I gave up on it, and eventually ended up with Adobe Lightroom. HOWEVER, I now understand that Aperture has evolved and matured into a great program that has about as many supporters as Lightroom.
• Photo Mechanic – This is a good, very utilitarian program for uploading, selecting, doing basic editing, and converting images. It seems to be one of the standards used in newspapers and magazines throughout the industry. The interface is not as “slick” nor as intuitive as Lightroom or Aperture.
• Photoshop – It is likely that Photoshop Elements came bundled with your camera’s software, or maybe even your printer. I used PS Elements for a couple of years. It is a great piece of software. I do use PS CS5 now, but I think that PS Elements combined with a program like Lightroom or Aperture could handle a tremendous variety of image-processing needs. I have to qualify this by saying that I do not specifically recall the limitations of Elements vs the full-blown PS, but I do know that the full version of PS is expensive and includes may, many features that a casual photographer will never use.
• Lightroom 3 – I am excited about this one, but have not yet upgraded from 2.7. Two features of the new version that really interest me are enhanced noise-reduction (possibly better than the NoiseNinja I use now) and a built-in watermarking feature. Lightroom (and Aperture) have many, many more features than I have mentioned here because I’m just trying to describe how they fit into my workflow. But, as a digital photographer, you really owe it to yourself to look closely at these programs.
• Whatever you choose to do, it will require some investment of money – you can decide whether it’s a little or a lot. Before you make that plunge, please look into some other sources of information and advice. Just google “workflow” on any photography forum. And there are many books devoted to the subject, written by folks with a lot more experience and knowledge than me.

Patsy and our granddaughter Anna Catherine were “twins” today, so they let me snap two quick frames before we headed out for lunch and some errands. I knew I wanted some examples for this post, so I shot the first frame with direct flash, then twisted the flash head around and shot the second frame with bounce flash. The direction of the flash is the ONLY difference in the two original pictures. Both were shot with my Nikon D700, ISO 320, f2.8, 1/320th, manual mode. For both photos the SB 900 flash was in TTL mode.

This is the first image shot with the on-camera flash pointed straight ahead.

Photo 1 - Direct Flash

Here’s the same pose, but now the flash head is twisted and tilted a little so that it is aiming backwards and upwards over my right shoulder .

Photo 2 - Bounce Flash

You may not agree with me, and that’s o.k., but I prefer the indirect lighting effect in the second picture.

If you’re not sure what I mean by the whole “twisting/tilting/rotating” thing, just let me know. I’ll be glad to shoot and post some pics of the actual flash in the different positions if you need to see it for clarification.

I will also point out that BOTH photos were edited a little in Lightroom 2 before uploading, but both had about the same amount of tweaking. The Bounce Flash example needed more color balancing work because the light was being bounced off of beige/tan walls. That’s one thing you have to be aware of — bounced light takes on the color of the surface from which it reflected.

1) I could not do mathematics.

2) #1 didn’t matter because mathematics was useless in pursuit of my own personal goals…or anyone else’s as far as I could tell. Math was pointless.

I carried these two absolutes with me throughout high school and most of my undergraduate career. As any worthwhile self-fulfilling prophesy should do, my beliefs assured me of the mediocre grades I earned in high school algebra and geometry. As a journalism major, I didn’t have to deal with much college math. In fact, to postpone the misery as long as possible, I waited until the final semester of my senior year to enroll in the required, and long dreaded, Statistics course.

I can’t pinpoint an exact moment, but it was somewhere in the midst of stat class, in the final semester of my undergraduate career, when it happened. The two deeply-held beliefs, that had taken almost a decade to build and confirm, suddenly faded. I was literally startled to discover that two brand new affirmations replaced those old beliefs that had been nurtured since at least the sixth grade. With a mixture of bewilderment, pride, and a tinge of resentment I realized that:

1) I was actually capable of doing math.

2) Mathematics was actually useful.

Oh well. Lesson learned, but it was a moot point since I had my degree now…and I certainly wasn’t about to enroll in more math classes just to feel better about myself. It was time to leave school behind and get out into the real world.

The real world was cool. I was blessed with great opportunities and the best, most creative, and inspiring professional colleagues that anybody could hope for. This was the mid-1980′s, so the internet had not yet impacted the newspaper business. No doubt there were definite signs that the best days of traditional newspaper journalism were behind us. The evening papers were folding, and the media giants were gobbling up the independents. But, still, the overall climate was pretty good.

And then I did it again. This time though, instead of math, it was light. To put this incontext, I should explain that the best newspaper photographers can do it all. They can shoot high school sports on dimly-lit fields. They have to shoot with, around, and even against glaring lights mounted on the video cameras of the evening new photographers. And they have to be adept at lighting people, food, and almost anything else you can imagine, in a studio setting. In short, a good newspaper photographer better be able to deal creatively and quickly with absolutely any kind of tricky or frustrating lighting situation “in the field” imaginable. And when given an assignment to work in the controlled comfort of the studio – well, that should be a piece of cake. With the luxury of softboxes, snoots, honeycombs, gobos, reflectors, continuous backdrops, and fujichrome, any decent photographer should be able to shoot an awesome studio portrait in his sleep. But I cultivated a personal disdain for the science and art of lighting was remarkably similar to my lousy attitude towards mathematics back in the sixth grade:

1) My idea of “modified lighting” was to tilt my on-camera flash, a Vivitar 283, at about 80 degrees, then bounce the flash off an index card attached to the flash head with a rubber band. Anything more complicated than that was way past what I could learn, or had the desire to learn.

2) #1 didn’t matter because I was a “photojournalist,” and photojournalists only used available light and 283′s. Studio lighting was something that portrait and commercial photographers had to deal with, so it wasn’t relevant to me.

Remember, I said they were my personal beliefs…I didn’t say they were true.

So now we have two topics, math and light. Two areas of study that I dealt with in identical fashions, years apart. In both cases I declared each concept as being beyond my ability and irrelevant. Let’s look at where those beliefs have led me.

I teach high school physics. After deciding I wanted to teach science, I plowed through lots of math that I had managed to so cleverly avoid on my first journey through college. I’m no math wizard, but I understand it well enough to realize that it is an essential and elegant language, perfectly suited for measuring and describing every detail and experience in our physical universe.

I am a wedding and portrait photographer. I love to study and experiment with light. I’ve invested in, and regularly use, all sorts of lighting gear. I still want to keep it relatively simple, portable, and repeatable. And I have lots and lots to learn about lighting, but at least I have set aside the doubts and fears that kept me from starting this journey for so long.

I have not conquered math and light. But I did conquer my fears of both. Overcoming those misperceptions about my own abilities has opened up a world of opportunities in both areas. I cannot imagine my life right now if I had not opened these doors to teaching and to portrait photography.

Is there anything in your personal or professional life that could be affecting you in the way that math and light affected me? Is there something that you do not deal with because you believe that it is both beyond your ability and irrelevant? What if you suddenly realized that it was not actually impossible for you? What if you discover later that it is indeed relevant to you? Is it even possible that  facing that doubt could have a profound effect on your life?

I know just enough about math and light to know that I have only scratched the surfaces of both subjects. It is not my goal to learn everything thing there is to know about either one. But I know without a doubt that I have the ability to learn more about both, and I know that what I learn tomorrow about both will be useful and satisfying in ways that I cannot even imagine today.

O.K. You were good enough for an entire year, so Santa brought you a new DSLR camera. Congratulations! Oh, I also see you have a couple of gift cards and some cash too! Awesome. Want to spend it on some useful gear to go along with your new camera? Here’s my advice: Assuming you already got a lens or two with your camera, I think the next thing you might enjoy is a good flash. Not everyone will agree with me, but that’s fine. These are just my opinions, so take them for what they’re worth.

Now you might say. “I don’t need a flash because my camera already has one built-in. It pops up whenever I need it.”  But if you want to take the best photos possible with your camera, you need to consider a better flash. A good flash will have both manual and automatic modes. It will also allow you to vary the flash output. Furthermore, you should be be able to tilt AND twist the flash head so that it does not always point directly at your subject.

If  you are a Nikon shooter, a flash with these features will start at about $250. When shopping, you should be looking at flash models like the SB600, SB700 (new model), or SB900.

Canon photographers should check out the 480ex II or the 580ex II. These start at a little under $300.

There are other companies, like Metz, Sunpak, and Vivitar, that manufacture and sell far less-expensive alternatives. I  used Vivitar flashes 25 years ago, but I have no experience using them with today’s digital cameras.

To understand the potential benefits of a good flash, as well as the shortcomings of your camera’s built-in flash, I recommend you check out one or both of the first two books listed on my next post.

Step One – Look in your camera’s manual to see whether it is capable of manual “exposure compensation.” If the answer is “yes,” then proceed to Step Two.

Step Two – Buy either McNally’s book or the following book by van Nierkerk to learn how to use this wonderful feature.

On Camera Flash: Techniques for Digital Wedding and Portrait Photography by Neil van Niekerk – Do not be fooled by the title reference to weddings and portraits. This book should be required reading for anyone who picks up a camera to take a picture of anything.

The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby – This is actually a series of books. I’m not sure how many there are, maybe four? Maybe more? Very cool books that start with the absolute fundamentals, then become progressively more advanced as you read through the series. But here’s the really cool part – each individual page in each book is a standalone tidbit of very useful information. Just pick up the book whenever you have a minute, open it to a random page, and learn.

LIFE Guide to Digital Photography: Everything You Need to Know to Shoot Like the Pros by Joe McNally – The title is a little ambitious, but it really is a very good and comprehensive book.

There are tons of great books out there. This is just a short list of my recent favorites that address issues that I know interest many of the folks who ask me about my techniques. If you have a favorite book, PLEASE list it in a comment here or on Facebook so others can see!