topaz

What impresses me is that you went through your photos so quickly. Can I have some of that, please?

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jasra

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/qwrrty/sets/72157620752302930/

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jasra

Great captures!

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Well, it took me from about 6pm until about 2am, so if that counts as "so quickly" then yes, I am a speed demon. But it sure didn't feel like it, and there were at least three other attendees who got their photos up before me :-)

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I really loved how that one came out. I lucked out on the lighting 'cause now no one will notice how out of focus it is :-)

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anotherjen.livejournal.com

Ilana looks gorgeous, of course, but I look kind of unhappy... I guess I was just sleepy. :-)

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We were all kinda sleepy that morning. I liked this one (http://www.flickr.com/photos/qwrrty/3673564959/in/photostream/) too, although it's even more out of focus.

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drag0nfly.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)

You didn't take that utilikilt one. :-)

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Oh, I didn't read it as unhappy at all. Just kind of sleepy-spacey, which I usually think of as a pretty good mood when I've got someone in my lap. That's my favorite of all 132 of the photos!

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That counts as quickly to me. My definition is relative to calendar time, not to time spent on the pix.

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Having a process that works for you makes all the difference. Also, being brutal. I usually do three passes for photosets like this: first pass, I cut out everything that is out of focus or ugly. I throw all of those out. Second pass, I pick the one or two best from groups of shots that look similar. Third pass, I pick the ones I absolutely cannot bear to lose. Those, I post. A lot of good stuff falls on the cutting room floor, but six months down the line it's a whole lot easier to flip through my photos.

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Oh, that's just being bullheaded. I knew if I didn't get through them right away, it would take me weeks. No way I would have stayed up so late otherwise. :-)

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browngirl.livejournal.com

Hooray for Baitcon! These are gorgeous!

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fengshui.livejournal.com

Yeah, I didn't notice the focus problem until I looked at the original. Where do you think the focus ended up? In her hair?

Also, f/2.2 is always going to be somewhat soft.

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fengshui.livejournal.com

What do you do with the photos you cut in the first pass? Delete or archive? What about the second or third pass? When does a photo get color managed (level/curves, adjust from RAW, etc.)?

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Pass 1: delete. Pass 2: put into a temp folder, forget, purge in six months or something. Pass 3: either suffers the same fate as pass 2, or gets archived along with the real photos, except that I don't actually have a holistic photo archiving solution that's not flickr. Sometimes I'll upload them to Flickr but make them private, if, say, a photo has a genius expression on someone's face but is uninterestingly and distractingly blurred.

I'll color-manage a photo if I'm almost really excited about it but not quite, or if I messed up when taking it. Usually this happens after pass #3, but sometimes in between #2 and #3 to decide which ones I can't live without. I probably use the curves tool on... wild-ass guess maybe 25% of photos I take? Some months it's 75%, and some months it's 0%. I will be very detail-orientedly fiddly with a photo before printing it.

Edited Date: 2009-06-30 10:53 pm (UTC)

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Also I guess I should specify: by "post" I mean "post to Flickr". Whether or not something makes it to lj is entirely dependent on my moods and whims and on what I've posted recently.

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Your three pass system is what I aspire to, but lack the time. One of these years...

There's also a technical issue that is a barrier for me. I want to be able to deal with photos as I do with email, while they're open. Specifically - open one or several in a list, rename while it's open and/or move to a folder, hit delete and have the open pix disappear and the next one appear.

The setup on my Mac doesn't allow this. I don't like iPhoto because it doesn't have folders; yes I know it has tags but that's not what I want. So I use brute force and Preview. This lets me open one or several, and move from one to the next. But I can't rename while the pix is open and I can't move an open pix. I have to close it, remember the long string of nonsense that is the pix title, then retitle it while it's closed, then move it to a folder. And when I put it in the folder it's going to alphabetize as it goes, which means I lose the time order unless I retitle ALL the photos in the folder 1, 2, 3, etc; adding yet another layer to the already burdensome process.

Suggestions welcome.

PS - Bob won't let me be brutal. He wants to keep every single picture, no matter how blurred or messed up. So I make a duplicate set online and work with that set. Good thing memory is cheap now.

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Where do you think the focus ended up? In her hair?

Possibly -- it does look like the hair had more focus than anything else in that picture. It may also just be that I'd had too much coffee to take a picture at 1/50 at that hour of the morning. :-)

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Suggestions welcome.

Learn to live with iPhoto. :-)

Seriously, though, iPhoto is probably not the best photo management tool in the world but it's at least as good as any of the free or cheap alternatives I've tried, and it sounds like its shortcomings are a lot less burdensome than the method you're currently using. And it does too have folders! (Unless I'm misunderstanding the "New Folder" menu item in the toolbar.)

PS - Bob won't let me be brutal. He wants to keep every single picture, no matter how blurred or messed up. So I make a duplicate set online and work with that set. Good thing memory is cheap now.

I tend to want to do this too. Ellen's urging me to be more selective about keeping photos only made me ornerier. Ultimately, putting my old pictures into a desktop slideshow helped teach me to be more ruthless about pruning. "Oh. Did I really think that was worth saving? Yipes."

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Drat! I was hoping no one would notice!

keyne was responsible for that one, and wow, talk about her timing.

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