For a long time I have had a theory that Nikon photographers are more likely to be Mac OS and Apple Aperture users while Canon shooters tend to use MS Windows and Adobe Lightroom.

Please tell us what you are most likely to use as the primary set of tools in your photography workflow:

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Polls Archive

I don’t typically get too excited about beta software, particularly for my production environment, but this is one that I’ve really been waiting for! The first public beta of Lightroom 3 didn’t get me too excited. It didn’t really offer enough new stuff for me to bother with the hassles of the fact that it was beta, and in fact it had certain features that were disabled that made it problematic to use (like luminance noise reduction). But the new beta offers several new features that I’ve been hoping to see in Lightroom and I will definitely be giving this version a full workout.

One final word before I talk any further… This is Beta software. Your results may vary, and there is significant potential that you could really do some damage to your photography collection if you use this software. It hasn’t been released for production yet because it’s not ready. Be careful.

• Video Support: We didn’t get full on video editing yet, but at least we finally have some rudimentary management tools that allow viewing, flagging, keywording, and captioning of video files in exactly the same way that still images are cataloged. I certainly hope that they expand this further to include basic edits (clipping, exporting, and global exposure adjustments) but for now this is a huge step over the old version!
• Tethered Shooting: With this version they have added support importing live images directly into Lightroom when shooting while a camera is connected to the computer. This is a studio and product shooters dream. I won’t use it a lot, but every once in awhile it will be very useful.
• Performance Improvements: I haven’t tested the new version enough to fully buy into this one yet, but I really hope that this one is true, and the new version does seem to be a little bit snappier. I will definitely be watching to see how this pans out.

For a complete list of the new and upgraded features the best place to go is the Lightroom Team Blog. You can also check out the release notes included with the update.

To download the program head on over to the Adobe Labs site.

Here are a few more sites you can check for additional information and commentary:

• Jeffrey Friedl’s: Lightroom 3 Beta 2 and My Plugins
• The Lightroom Queen: What’s New in Lightroom 3.0 Beta 2?
• Terry White: Lightroom 3 Public Beta 2: What’s New?

Photographic workflow is a massive subject and is probably the hardest thing for new photographers to get right as they take more and more images, and as they get deeper into post-processing those files. It is so easy to shot in rapid-fire these days, and there’s no added cost to creating more photographic files, so getting the whole workflow thing nailed is very important.

Fortunately there are some really great pieces of software such as Adobe Lightroom (Windows or Mac) and Apple Aperture (Mac only) out there that help to make life easier and workflow faster.

I get asked about this all the time so I thought I would share my workflow here. By no means would I ever say that this is the best or most efficient workflow; rather, it’s just what I do. It work well very me and it is actually possible to go through hundreds of images pretty quickly.

1. Download all files from memory cards to the computer using Breeze Downloader Pro. The software automatically applies metdata including my name, address, copyright info, and a few keywords about me. It also creates date based folders on my computer that fits into my existing storage hierarchy, and it renames every file so that I will never ever have images with duplicate file names. Note that this is a real possibility as most cameras only go as high as 10,000 images before reusing old file names.
2. Import all the images into Lightroom. I automatically apply a preset with a few develop settings that I’ve found to be a good starting point for my images. The applied preset is specific to the camera that was used to make the images.
3. First pass review of the images. I mark all the bad ones (out of focus, massively over or underexposed, or just plain ugly or boring images) for deletion, and also mark some of the very best as “Picks”.
4. Second pass review. Very similar to the first pass, only this time I do some minor image adjustments (Cropping, White Balance, Exposure, and Contrast) to see if marginal images can be improved or if I should just delete them. At this point I also use the color flags in Lightroom to mark images for upload to my various websites, online galleries, and stock agencies. I also use the Lightroom Stacking feature to group images that were shot in a set for processing as HDR or Panoramic images later.
5. Add additional metadata to all the remaining images. Includes generic keywords for all images about the shoot, the location, the weather conditions, and anything else that might apply to every image in the folder. I also apply specific keywords to individual images about the subject matter, people, and places involved so that I can easily find the images later.
6. Add a Title and a Caption to every image. For the images marked earlier as “Picks” or with color flags these titles and captions will be very specific with lots of detail. For the other images the title and caption will be very generic, and may be identical for many images.
7. Every image that will be uploaded or printed will then get additional processing. Final edits to Cropping, White Balance, Exposure, Sharpening, Saturation, and Vignetting. At this point I will also remove dust spots and do any local editing to smaller areas of some images. I will also play with some images to see if they look better in Black and White or with some added special effects. I don’t do a lot of this, but Lightroom makes it extremely fast and easy, and most of the time edits to one image can be very quickly and easily applied to a whole series of images that were shot under the same conditions.
8. At this point I will process any images that will be merged as HDR or as Panoramic images. I do lots of both of these, but I use automated tools to do most of the work that make this process very simple. These processes can be time consuming, but for the most part I set them up in batches and walk away while the computer does the work. Any merged HDR or Pano images will also need another pass of editing similar to step 7 to finalize them.
9. Upload to my online galleries. Post to Twitter, Facebook, or my Blog. Upload images to stock agencies for sale.
10. Backup everything. This is automated and happens overnight.
11. Backup everything in 3 more places. This is automated and happens gradually over the following two weeks.

That’s just about it. This probably sounds like a lot of work, but honestly Lightroom makes it fast and easy. I can go through a batch of 100 images in under an hour. And it scales up easily too. I’ve done 1000 images in under two hours before. There are always individual images that that may need additional work, or images that I really like that I may go back to and revisit from time to time, but this is the main part of my workflow.

What do you think? How is your workflow different? What do you see here that I could improve?

I posted an article yesterday describing a method to reduce noise from photographic images shot at high ISO by using a free Action for Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom called the OD Virtual Tripod Action.

In that article I used an example image that was shot at ISO 400. I realized when I was writing it that the example image may not have been the most convincing; however, it was the best example I had at the time.

So I went out at sunrise and created a new series of images that could really demonstrate how well this action works.

This new example image was created from a series of 11 images that I shot in rapid fire on my Canon 1D Mark IV at ISO 12,800. I deliberately underexposed the images, which always results in noiser images than images that are exposed correctly. I also turned off all noise reduction in Lightroom. The resulting image (upper left) after applying the action is still somewhat noisy, but I think it’s a much more pleasant or organic noise than the originals.

Check out a closeup of the original image on the left below. It is really, really ugly. Now compare it to the image on the right. This is the resulting image after the OD Virtual Tripod Action has been applied. I think the result speaks for itself.

For more information about the OD Virtual Tripod Action check out the original article.

Download the Free OD Virtual Tripod Photoshop Action

• OD Virtual Tripod (Photoshop Action)

There was a post on the Imaging Professional Blog a few months ago showing how to use Adobe Photoshop to dramatically reduce the noise in a series of images that were shot at high ISO.

“This technique describes a method to stack several high ISO source images in Photoshop CS3 or CS4 Extended, in order to minimize random noise – in effect creating a synthesized long duration low-ISO exposure.”

Sometimes you really just don’t have the light you need to shoot at low ISO and still get the high shutter speeds you need to shoot hand held. If you don’t have a tripod with you then your only option may be to crank up the ISO. This will likely create some very noisy images. Using this Virtual Tripod technique will allow you to easily reduce that noise in post processing after the fact. In my experience this method works far better than noise reduction software and can result in some really great looking, noise-free images.

The original article described in detail a method to do this once you already have a series of images loaded up in Photoshop. I took those instructions and modified them slightly to simplify their use with Adobe Lightroom. I also created a Photoshop Action to automate the process. Depending on how many images you use, the resolution of your camera, and how fast your computer is, this method could take several minutes to run (or maybe even longer in some circumstances. But using this method is very easy, and extremely effective!

Example Images

The first image is one of the original images, essentially straight out of the camera. There may have been some minor global edits applied in Lightroom, but no noise reduction has been performed.

The second example is the resulting image after application of the OD Virtual Tripod Action. This was done using a series of 5 images that were shot using the high speed shooting mode with my Canon 40D.

The difference isn’t really noticeable when the images are rezzed down for on-screen display, but when you zoom in the noise in the original is extremely obvious (I’m really not that much of a pixel peeper, but even when looking at the originals in Lightroom the difference was extremely obvious.)

Here is a close up of one of the original images with no edits applied.

And here is a close up of the resulting image after application of the OD Virtual Tripod Action.

I think you will agree that the difference is simply amazing. These images were shot at ISO 400. Imagine if I had used originals at ISO 1600 or even 3200. I generally find the images shot at ISO’s above 800 on this camera are barely useable. Using this technique has allowed me to create a few really nice images that I wouldn’t even have tried to make if I didn’t have this tool in my kit.

Try it, you’ll like it!

Install the OD Virtual Tripod Action

1. Skip down to the end of this article to download the Free Virtual Tripod Photoshop Action
2. Extract the file called “OD_Virtual_Tripod.atn” from the zip file you just downloaded, and save the action to a safe place on your computer (that you will remember).
3. Open Photoshop
4. In the Actions Palette choose “Load Actions…” and navigate to the file you just saved. Choose “Load“.
5. You will now have a new folder in your Actions Palette called “OD Virtual Tripod“

If you need more help with loading actions (or using them) then you should check out the article called Photoshop Actions for Photographers over at PhotoshopSupport.com. They do a great job of teaching all about Photoshop Actions.

Using the OD Virtual Tripod Action

1. Shoot a series of photos in rapid fire. Use your best “Human Tripod” technique while shooting them. Hold your arms in tight to your body and try to be as still as possible. If there is a small amount of camera shake or body movement then the Photoshop Action will take care of aligning the images properly. This won’t work so well for large movements or for moving subjects. I suggest that you use at least 5 images, but any more than 12 is probably overkill. You can read more about how to actually make the images in the original article over at the Imaging Professional Blog.
2. Import the files into Lightroom. Do any basic edits you want to the images, but be sure to do the same edits to all of the images.
3. Select all the images.
4. Right Click on one of the files and choose “Edit In” and then “Open as Layers in Photoshop…“
5. Run the OD Virtual Tripod Action
6. When the action finishes, Save and Close the resulting file in Photoshop. The finished image will automatically get imported back into Lightroom.
7. Inspect the resulting image to ensure that there is no ghosting and that the edges are clean. If the images didn’t line up properly, or if one (or more) of the images was severely out of alignment with the others then you may need to do some additional cropping to clean up the images. You may even need to repeat the process after deselecting the offending image(s) that were badly aligned.

Download the Free Virtual Tripod Photoshop Action

• OD Virtual Tripod (Photoshop Action)

That’s it. Try it out and drop me a comment to let me know how it works! This action should definitely works in Photoshop CS4, and it may also work in prior versions. Please let me know if you try it with other versions and I will compile a compatibility list.