How long does your digital processing take?

[Doctor Zero]

I'm not sure if this means I'm slowly being drawn to the "dark side" - but I'm starting to wonder about digital. My question for today is, how long does image manipulation take? You go out and shoot, you come home, you download your images. How long do you on average spend working on the catch of the day? Is it on the order of a minute per shot, or 30 minutes per shot, or can you automate it since all shots require the same processing? And is this a quick sharpening, or do you require extensive white balance changes, cloning for blemishes etc.?

I accept this may be a meaningless question: I can imagine that some shots require little work and others (a lot) more. It may also vary from shoot to shoot, maybe sometimes the light was just that bit more constant. But just a rough figure, to get a rough idea.

Oh and er, I'm not worried whether these are RF or SLR digital images

Cheers peeps -

Doctor Zero

[rogue_designer]

for my personal stuff - i keep the processing pretty minimal. Adjust the WB and contrast to a range I like, save the raw, apply appropriate amount of sharpening and then print for review later. All the basic keywording is already embedded by the date and folder location, I can go in and label later if needed. So maybe, 5 minutes per shot if I'm paying attention.

Professional shots require more time. Prepping to spec, more attention to color balance and cleaning up the files. Then any retouching, or other work. Basic files are about 45 minutes per lighting setup, then I can batch accordingly... additional retouching and composition can run one to twenty hours.

Obviously scanning, etc. adds time.

[iml]

I mostly shoot film nowadays, but my colour (which is all digital, using raw files) has a workflow like this: check white balance, tweak levels by eye, tweak colour by eye, save as TIFF. Occasionally a crop where something has crept into the edge of the frame. That's it. No more than a minute or two per image. To use the TIFF, I just open it, size it as required, sharpen it, add a border, and then either print it or save it as a 72ppi jpg for web use.

Ian

[mackigator]

I'm shooting personal projects only and view photography as a hobby. I'm shooting RAW files usually - recommended - and processing in Rawshooter (bought out by Adobe). When I get a better computer I'll switch to Lightroom.

First I grade the photos 1, 2 , 3 or trash (1 is best), relative to the other images from that shoot. I then immediately throw out the trash. < 100 images, < 5 minutes, tops. Second I proof the 1's again, adjusting white balance if needed <5 mins. Third I do detailed adjustments of photos I intend to print/make jpg's of. <30 mins, depends on the number of high quality images. Fourth I review the 2's and 3's looking for hidden beauty , <5 mins. Then I throw out the 3's as well and export all my 1's that I marked for print/jpg. This last step is the click of a button. With a couple hundred images I'm usually done in under an hour. If something needs work in an image editor, I save it for later so I can think about it. 95% of the time I stop here and upload to Flickr.

I have no darkroom to compare this process to. It is definitely faster than my workflow for film via the Coolscan 5000 scanner, which I use a lot.

[doitashimash1te]

Originally Posted by Doctor Zero

I'm not sure if this means I'm slowly being drawn to the "dark side" - but I'm starting to wonder about digital. My question for today is, how long does image manipulation take? You go out and shoot, you come home, you download your images. How long do you on average spend working on the catch of the day? Is it on the order of a minute per shot, or 30 minutes per shot, or can you automate it since all shots require the same processing? And is this a quick sharpening, or do you require extensive white balance changes, cloning for blemishes etc.?

I accept this may be a meaningless question: I can imagine that some shots require little work and others (a lot) more. It may also vary from shoot to shoot, maybe sometimes the light was just that bit more constant. But just a rough figure, to get a rough idea.

Oh and er, I'm not worried whether these are RF or SLR digital images

Cheers peeps -

Doctor Zero

FYI, I just came home from a whole day of shooting; started at 11 AM, stopped at 6 PM, a total of 522 images (raw Nikon NEF files).

Emptying my 2 x 2Gb memory cards into folders on my computer took me 3 minutes, and importing the folder into Aperture, batch renaming and adjusting some image settings took me 15 minutes. Exporting all the raw files to JPEG versions (max. quality / resolution): 26 minutes for 522 pictures.
I have to add that I am working with a top notch Mac.

After that, I print contacts of them (35 shots/page: 7 rows of 5 pictures each) which I put in a map. After a while (never too soon!) I take a closer look on the shots and make new JPEG versions of them (changing exposure, sharpness, saturation, crops, etc.)

I always do my best to get everything "right" (or should I say: as good as possible) in the camera. That saves a lot of time in post processing.

[kshapero]

When I shoot digital, I shoot RAW. I then use Adobe Camera RAW 4.0, adjust a few things, contrast, exposure, etc. save as a JPEG 8. prints beautifully up to 18 x 24.

[350D_user]

I shoot jpg only. Get the exposure and whitebalance right in the camera, raw has no use.

5-10 seconds previewing a photo, yes/no basis.
10 seconds tweak the levels.
5 seconds correct photo rotation.
Save photo as a new file.

Whilst the photo is still open, the following process is applied...
2-3 minutes compositional cropping of a prospective photo (the longest process for myself)
The rest is pretty much preset stuff... resize cropped image to 800px on the longest edge, convert to b+w, sharpen, add a border.... 30-45 seconds max. Save the converted photo to another new file.

[Kin Lau]

I shoot mostly RAW unless it's just snapshots, in which case I'll do JPEG, sometimes I'll even shoot in the final size if high quality is not required.

I try to get the shot correct in-camera, and then edit in-camera, deleting the duds. This isn't alway possible if I'm shooting a wedding, but I like to review what I'm doing as I go along with weddings.

With wildlife/bird shooting, the frame rate is very high with many "reaction" shots for the environment that I shoot in. I'll delete the obvious missed shots in-camera, but most of my review & edit process will take place on the PC.

By the time I come up with the keepers, it's usually only a minute to do the RAW conversion, I do most of the exposure tweaking at this point and usually only crop & USM in PS. Once in a while I'll need to clone something out, but that's not the usual process.

[Doctor Zero]

A quickie to say: thanks! to those who responded. Had a busy few days, hence the delay. I'm quite surprised, actually, at how fast all of you process your images. For some reason I assumed digital would involve hours of meticulous photoshopping/gimping to get things right.

doitashimash1te, Kin Lau: I appreciate that, of course, you do as much of it 'right' before you press the button - but I imagined it would take a lot of time to tweak white balance, unsharp mask, remove spots etc. Again, this is not based on any real experience.

Hm, good to know. Maybe digital ain't so bad after all. Now to find a digital camera/RF with as few buttons as possible.......

Doctor Zero

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