RAW Workflow in Aperture

This workflow has kept me from sitting around playing with pictures for days instead out shooting new ones. This is especially great for a surf photographer, as everyone’s keen to see their shots at the end of the day. But don’t bother showing all the shots; no one really wants to see that many pictures, not even of themselves.

Not to mention you’d be showing them all of the unprocessed, unedited, crap that no one needs to see but you. All of which is poorly displayed on tiny LCD on the back of the camera. Tell them to give you some time and show them only the gold. It’s for their own good and its better for your perceived abilities as a photographer too.

Using this workflow after a full day of shooting surf. (1000 shots) I’ve been able to do basic keywording, make quick selections (400 shots), full color corrections and adjustments, cropping and putting on a slideshow (70  best images) on a nice bright 15-inch laptop within two hours.  This is with no Photoshop; in fact I rarely use Photoshop at all for most of my photography work anymore.

Note: Aperture and Adobe Lightroom are very similar in purpose and design, although there are some differences; the principles of my workflow are the same in either program.

Edit

Following a shoot I always do some in-camera editing just to eliminate the obvious junk.

Importing the images into Aperture

During this process, I choose to keep the master images on an external hard drive rather than loading up my laptop drive. My entire image library is on a few small 400 GB external drives which is referenced by Aperture. The most important step to me in importing the images is to rename the files something useful. DSC_546637738 means nothing to me and it never will, so I give the files a name like balisurf with a three digit serial and I’ll end up with filenames like balisurf001, balisurf002, balisurf358 etc. These are much more useful to me.  Do this now while your just starting the process and you won’t have to look back. These are all choices available in the Import dialog.

Quick selections

While images are importing, I begin to rate them with stars, one star is worth a look, two stars is probably a keeper. I’m looking for sharp images of peak action or other interesting perspectives. I move through pretty quickly since I’m not deleting anything. This can done very easily by moving through the shots with the arrow keys and hitting the + key for each star, the – key takes a star away. Notice the cool (useful) filenames appearing under the thumbnails. You’re already taking control.

Sort and Adjustments

Now I choose to show only the images with one star or more. (selections) It’s definitely a lot less to look at now if I wasn’t too sentimental during the quick selection process. So instead of 400 RAW files to “work on” I’ve only got maybe 60 now to deal with. Remember: that I haven’t deleted any files and I may never, I’m just not showing them now. I’ll probably look at them again later to make sure I didn’t miss a gem though.
I start the RAW conversion now; this is really where you take both the creative and technical control over the image. Color correction, Saturation, Contrast, Exposure adjustments, White Balance, Black and White happens now.Aperture makes it easy: the adjustment palette is already laid out in the order you need to follow. Remember: none of these changes below are permanent, so you can go back and make changes as many times as you want without ever really effecting the original RAW file. Enjoy the freedom.

1.White Balance: adjust the white balance here if you want for creative reasons or if it’s necessary correct for a colorcast. I generally eye this by looking at the image preview as I make the change.

2. Exposure: I adjust the exposure using the slider.Important: I rarely watch the image as I change this, instead focus on the histogram and make sure the hills and valleys begin and end cleanly within the left and right side of the box. No stacking up (clipping) against one end or the other. That means lost details. The ‘mountains’ represents the dynamic range of tones in the image. The left side being the shadows and the right, the highlights, all other tones fall in between these extremes.  Within the exposure palette there is also a Recovery slider. This slider helps you bring back highlights that you may have blown out. I sometimes make slight adjustments to the Black Point and less frequently to the Brightness adjustment. Again let the histogram guide you. It knows all. 

To become really in tune with the histogram, keep an eye on it through every step of your workflow. See how it changes slightly with almost every tweak you make. Not all adjustments you make are based on the histogram but there is a reason its on your camera's LCD and stationed at the top of the adjustments palette. Learn to love it.

3.Enhance: I usually bump up the saturation to 1.30 and Vibrancy to .15. This makes  the colors pop (less or more is a creative choice) and will really show you if your  white balance choice was good or not. If not there will be a colorcast that you can fix with White Balance slider back at the top. The contrast and detail sliders are rarely used in my workflow at the moment.

4.Levels: This is sort of the final step for the color correction in my workflow as this is where you'll see the most profound changes in the looks of your image. And here, it’s all about the histogram again. I use the luminance tab for the levels and rarely deal with the RGB levels option mainly because luminance is simpler. Pull the left slider (shadows) over to where it touches the histogram. On the right side, pull the right slider (highlights) over to the where it touches the histogram. This makes a huge difference in the image now. By moving the sliders like I did, I effectively shortened the distance between the shadows and highlights and when that happens you get an increase in contrast. This really defines the elements in your shot.

After just these four steps, the images are now looking like what I saw when I shot them as well as being a good digital image from a technical standpoint. This matters for printing purposes and display on the web. These four simple steps are done pretty quickly after you’ve done it a few times and you’ve learned to use the histogram. At this point, I generally crop the image and /or straighten a horizon if needed. I spend 30 seconds or less on an image. 

Lift and Stamp

This seems like a lot of steps to do on every image, but you don’t have to do it that way. If you have a group of shots that are in the same light, exposure (like an action sequence), you can use the lift and stamp tool to copy the adjustments you’ve made on one image to any number of other images that are similar. This makes things move very quickly and efficiently. This tool works for any adjustment you can make including, keywords, captions and cropping. Using the lift and stamp tool gets things done quickly and will also keep sequences with consistent tones and color from one shot to the next.

So here it is again simplified:

• Rename and Import
  
• Rate images for quick selections
  
• Adjust: WB, Exposure, Enhancements, Levels and Crop as needed. (30 seconds or less)
  
• Lift and Stamp Adjustments to similar images.
  

Of course there are more tools available in Aperture for really fine tuning an image, but its best to "keep things simple" when your just learning and developing your workflow. You don't need every tool in the tool box for most images. The four adjustments above should be the base of your workflow upon which you can apply other adjustments as you become more familiar with your tools. 

See the basic adjustments for this shot of Indonesian surfer Komang "Gogo" Sujaya below. click image for a larger version.

Now you have a nice selection of images that are ready to be seen, export a jpeg, email, print, or just show in a slideshow. You may go back countless times to make additional adjustments, but for now you have something useable to share. Your shots look like they’re supposed to and you can be proud to show them as a skilled digital photographer.

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New Shots from Bali

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All of Indonesia's best are back in Bali following the ISC contest in Cimaja, Java last week. I was just down at the beach the other afternoon and caught some good action. Here's Putra Hermawan of Rip Curl proudly waving his sponsor's flag.

Only show your best | Critical skills for the digital photographer

I run into a fair number of “pro” photographers and usually strike up a conversation at some point about camera gear, who they shoot for, etc. I’m always surprised when I meet a pro that doesn’t seem to have a grasp on their digital workflow. And there’s more than you might think. That’s not to say that’s its easy to learn, but I’m shocked that its not seen as important to some.

For me, capturing the shot is only the beginning of the process to creating an image. Post-production is just as necessary as focusing, composing and exposing the shot correctly. It’s a skill you have to learn. That doesn’t mean I spend hours or days immersed in the bottomless toolbox of Photoshop. I’m just talking about basic color correction and RAW conversion. I personally never show an unprocessed RAW file to anyone if I don’t have to. It’s like holding up a negative to the light and asking them to imagine with you the photograph you intended. In my opinion, a RAW file is never ready to be shown to anybody because its not finished yet.

It’s true that many magazines want only the RAW file sent to them for publication. This makes sense as most publishers have their own digital workflow parameters and work the within those to get the best results for printing etc. They know their process better than I do. But that’s not how I would present my portfolio or show shots on my website. I want to show only my best work as a finished product. What do you do with the images that aren’t sent out for publication? I have to do the RAW conversions and understand the process. I'm no expert, but my understanding of post processing has made me better at managing the exposure when capturing the image in camera. For those who started shooting film and now shoot digital, this is particularly important to understand because the way to expose slide film is not the same as exposing for digital. Here’s a great article on How to Expose for RAW from Digital Photo Pro. click to view

It took me a while to figure it out but thanks to a variety of sources, and a need to take control of my images, I feel like I have a good understanding of RAW conversion in Apple’s Aperture and the most useful photography related tools in Adobe Photoshop. I’ve owned countless books on Photoshop from the Idiot’s Guides to the books meant to certify me as an expert. None of these worked for me, way too technical, complicated and not aimed specifically at photography.

Photoshop is a vast creative toolbox; there are countless tools and a seemingly infinite number of ways to accomplish the same thing. It’s very confusing if all you need to do is color correct a photograph. It’s like, if all you need is a screwdriver and they give you the entire Home Depot. Luckily, I stumbled upon some great resources eventually that gave me what I needed: practical information for photographers. My list of favorites and links are below.

• Scott Kelby’s series of Photoshop books absolutely helped me turn the corner with color correction, sharpening etc. Buy one; it’s hands down the best and updated for all new versions.
  
• Digital Photo Pro magazine
  
• Apple’s online tutorials for Aperture are very well done. I watch them every once in a while and I always end up learning something new.
  
• YouTube and Google always end up with some good information, hopefully my little contribution to the sea of information will help as well. 
  

In a follow up post, I'll outline my workflow in Apple's Aperture that keeps everything streamlined, organized and most importantly allows me to show only my best shots in a relatively small amount of time.

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Surf Photography portfolio update. Finally!

Finally, I updated my portfolio on mokensurf.com today. Now you can see some of my take from last year's Rip Curl Search in Bali, the Padang shipwreck and a bunch of new stuff. I really chopped it down to the best of the best and as usual ended up reworking the entire site from the ground up. Which means, playing with design ideas for weeks before finally going on 26 hour session to finish it. That's usually what happens and this time was no different. Check it out.

Back in Bali

Well, here I am again. I’m back in Indo to shoot the surf season. It’s my third year in a row and I’ll probably kick around here for 4 or 5 months this time. I’ve got some ideas for some new stuff and hopefully writing this blog regularly will keep things moving. For the last few weeks I haven’t really been chasing swells just hanging out getting the pad setup, making contacts and working on some new flash equipment. I have made it down to Kuta Beach on many an afternoon to find the usual ridiculous display of Indonesia’s local surfing talent. I know, nobody likes to shoot crowded beach breaks, and Halfway is as bad as it gets. However, virtually everyday at about the same time, the best of the ISC filter out into the lineup and put on a show. Regulars include Bol, Gogo, Dedy Santoso, Rahtu, Devis Ratif, Garut, Mustofa Jeksen and various super groms just killing it. Even if the surf is crap you’ll probably catch them out there having a surf, it’s their front yard, why not? Anyway, the point is, some of my best shots have come from there, sometimes in the water with an 12-24mm lens or an 85mm in an SPL waterhousing or from the beach with a 300mm. It’s safe to say, I’m the only serious photographer ever there and that’s probably for a good reason, but something keeps drawing me back a few times a week. The results I guess, and the fact that it’s a great place to experiment with your exposure settings, drag the shutter, without feeling like your risking ruining an important shot. Check out the pics from Kuta beach below.....Stay tuned.

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Images from top down: Mustofa Jeksen, sunset spray, blurred barrel, and Randi Dinar all on an average day at Kuta Beach.