Workflow Part 2

Now all the images are sitting on your hard drive in Lightroom. You may ask how is it in both. Lightroom actually makes “thumbnails” for you to work with. You aren't actually working directly on the raw image, (raw or Jpg) you are working on a virtual copy, non destructive processing. This is great because you can play with your adjustments and not mess up the original file.Side note – I always shoot in RAW – you will see why in a bit. Since you will be using Lightroom from now on :) I suggest you start using RAW as well.This is what Lightroom will look like once the images are imported. Again, I would suggest, if you haven't yet, and you are going to follow along with this blog, and you don't already have Lightroom 4, you might want to install a trial version of it. https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=photoshop_lightroom Now, I do a quick scroll through them all and get a rough feel for what I shot, how the exposures look, and so forth. I usually remember particular images from the shoot, something that when I was shooting I went.. ohhhh that's a keeper (yes I do that in my head while shooting.. sometimes you just know when its right). Or it could be a funny moment that happened during the shoot. I can then click on the image to look closer at it.  To get back to the Grid display, you can either click on the library on the top left hand side of the window or the short cuts, just press the letter G on your keyboard.During this time, I don't pick anything, or mark anything I just go through the images and have a quick review. Once I have done this, if possible, I leave the work for awhile, perhaps work on something else. The reason for this? I have to deal with the critic that lives in my head. I find a lot of times my first review of the images, I pick apart everything.. I shoulda, coulda, woulda... Its natural for us to do that. That critic is always there, telling me what I did wrong, sometimes it will actually like a shot but more often than not will just criticize. That is why I leave the work for a bit. When I come back to actually start my adjustments I have managed to shut the critic up and tell it, “you don't know what you are talking about, there are some great shots in here!”. I do believe that it is that critic who helps me to strive to be a better photographer. On a side note.. I never delete anything when I am shooting because of that darn critic. You may, at the moment think the image is bad, but later you may think differently so don't delete while you are shooting! If it really is a bad image, you can always delete it later, but its there for you to learn from. On top of that, some of those “bad photos” or mistakes can turn out to be happy accidents and may turn into a fantastic image. Next week: selects