Image Processing Software
by William Lulow
Well, it’s almost the end of 2020. It’s been some kind of difficult year all around I’m sure you will agree. With all the staying at home and working from home this year, I have had a chance to go over much of the software I use to produce the images I make. I have found that the steps you take to make digital images these days becomes a kind of personal preference thing after a while. Computer programs and apps for iPhones tend to take some getting used to and therefore learning a new program is not always easy. We tend to develop various shortcuts and other methods that work for us over time. Changing them always requires a learning curve that is not always convenient and most of the time isn’t even necessary.
The other side of this coin is that technology continues to improve year after year. It is a fluid thing that also requires us to keep up with it. I must confess that I have become so used to using Adobe products that I almost can’t imagine working with different applications. But, having to lease the software these days is actually a plus because you are always working with the latest versions of everything.
Whatever software packages you work with, your goal should be a seamless flow from intake to cataloging to editing to producing finished images. Anything that helps you to do this is something you want to embrace. My particular method involves using Adobe Bridge for the INTAKE and SELECTION part, Adobe Lightroom for various grouping, adding metadata and imprinting copyright information and Adobe Photoshop for retouching and final editing. I haven’t purchased INDESIGN so I still use QUARKXPRESS to set up pages and make special prints such as tryptiks and other page designs. I know it has been said that most photographers only use about one-tenth of what Photoshop can do, which is fine because I never wanted to spend a lot of time at the computer editing images. So, I have learned to do portrait retouching which sometimes involves changing background tones and removing unwanted blemishes and other objects from the images.
These days, my workflow often consists of doing all of this with the client present, looking over my shoulder as the two of us choose which images he or she wants to use and then touching them up as needed, right there on the spot. This takes a thorough knowledge of the software and what it can do. I then make sure all selected images are transferred to a flash drive, in appropriate folders, and the client(s) can walk away with a finished portrait. As an aside, my business model includes an 8×10 print or two as well. The reason for this is that if you are going to give the files to your clients, they can now make prints so cheaply that the days of charging a lot for a print are really gone unless you retain all files and only make prints from the client’s selections. When you are doing portraits and headshots for business clients, it seems kind of mean not to give them the files because they usually have more than one use for them. This cost is built into the whole shooting fee. It’s not the same thing as a family going to JC Penney, for example, paying a $39 fee for a sitting and then having to pay $650 for a print! So, when I’m shooting for corporate folks, I build that profit in to the cost of the job and thus charge a lot more than $39 for the whole assignment. Shooting for magazines and other publications is also different and has changed over the years because of the digital process.
If a major amount of retouching needs to be done, I will usually send the images out to a clipping path service (these days probably in India or Bangladesh, although I try to use services that are US based). The reasoning is that these folks spend much more time at the computer than I do and they can usually change an image in a fraction of the time it would take me. Although I love it when I get the hang of a particular kind of image manipulation and can then accomplish it from beginning to end. Here is such an example, but it took me quite a while to get this right and there are parts of it that could be better as well:
I recently saw someone working with Hasselblad’s proprietary software called “Phocus.” I wanted to see what it would do and I noticed, right off the bat that it had some elements that Lightroom had, such as showing images in a strip that could be compared and it seemed to be a bit easier to use. But my question always is “should I take the time to learn a new image editing program, or should I continue to perfect my techniques with what I have? Over the years, I have chosen the latter because it just seemed easier to concentrate on what I knew than to try to learn a whole new system.
Here’s another bit of Photoshop magic:
This is a fairly straightforward retouching job without as many steps as it took for the one above. It just involved replacing the sky and making some small adjustments. But it still took some learning. But it is still fun to see what can be done with some manipulation.
So, the moral is, learn one system of image manipulation and stick with it until you know it well, well enough to do what you have to do to an image quickly and efficiently.
