Work Flow

Image: Eyelash Viper, Costa Rica, 5D2, 70-200 f4 L IS, f7.1,1/200s ,ISO 1600,-.2/3 ev. Digital photo Pro and CS3

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The Darkroom, or rather Lightroom as its referred to today, now consists of electronics instead of chemicals, but we still do the same basic things we did in the film days, we adjust saturation, we dodge and burn, we try to get every last thing out of our RAW files that we used to try to do with our film in the dark room. "RAW" this is the equivalent of what used to be the negative, so remember if you shoot in jpg only, you are throwing away the negative.

Every camera's work flow will be a little different, maybe by a small amount, but always in my experience at least a little. The 5D Mk II is no exception, Digital Photo Pro, the software that comes with your camera, if you use a Canon, actually works very well in a lot of cases, the software of choice for me is Lightroom (currently at V 2.3) see Killer Tips, followed by CS3 (now CS4) for local adjustments, final color, size, sharpening and print.

I will always adjust curves, white balance if needed, noise and sharpen in RAW, whether I use DPP or LR and save as a 16 bit TIFF file, the only time I use jpg is when saving for use on the web. Next step is to open in CS3 and adjust curves, levels and color, I always use layers with CS3 as you have the ability to turn them on or off. Next I do local adjustments and dodge and burn if needed. Now I size using bicubic and sharpen for print using Smart sharpen and save as a 16 bit TIFF, a 100 meg file is not unusual at this point. I do all of this on an external LaCie 1 tb drive, all my best work is burned to CD at this point for back up, the rest is put on a 2 nd back up drive for later use as stock. I have found I will use DPP for animal, city and people and Lightroom for landscape or seascape. This of course is only an overall look at workflow, I could write pages about it, mostly it takes practice to develope your own workflow, but these are the basic steps I use.

I use ACDsee Pro for viewing and selecting work, you can drag and drop images into CS3 for printing and re-sizing, it is ultra fast when viewing large amounts of photo files.

Shadow and highlights where just added to the latest release of DPP 3.6.1 and I look forward to trying this new version out, Canon is constantly updating DPP and you should try the newer versions. Update DPP 3.6.1 Get it here

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Ross Murphy Images In Light
coming soon: sharpening and sizing for the web.

Photographic Inspiration

This photo was taken with a Canon A2E and a 70-200 f2.8 in Serengeti NP

Inspiration:
One of the things photographers some times have trouble with, finding that image that's new and inspiring, maybe we have taken things for granted or found ourselves in a rut, after all I have shot everything within a hundred miles of where I live, right ? Well, some times exploring the world on the WWW can re-inspire us to see something new just around the corner. I live in a place that many consider one of the best in the country for landscape photography and yet often find myself wondering where should I go shoot this weekend. I have been to Mt Rainier countless times, I find I often gravitate to the standard places, which is fine if you can find a new way of seeing that place, most often though its best to find a place you have never been to or a place you may not have had luck with before. Creating your own iconic image may seem hard and it is, especially in this age of digital information, you can find photos of almost every nook and cranny of Mt Rainier on the web these days, but try finding an image that has meaning, emotion and passion.
A great place to find inspiration can be found at the UNESCO world heritage web site here The 878 world heritage sites listed 'currently' would take an army of photographers a lifetime to document and many more life times to document images that evoke and inspire emotions that stir the soul and tell that places story in images. Many of these places listed are just around the corner from some of us, yet we seem to take them for granted. I feel I have been very lucky to have visited more than 40 of these sites, most with out a camera or before I became impassioned to document them in a way that tells there story in an image. I would love to one day say "I have visited all these places", that may be unrealistic but hey, I can try. One place I would love to visit again is the old city of Segovia in central Spain, what a magnificent city, with it's Roman aqueduct, ancient cathedral and the fortress of Alcazar, its narrow streets and many other historic buildings. If only I could transport myself there this instant the very thought of the images I could take makes me want to drool.
Writing this has given me the inspiration I need and I hope it inspires others to get out and travel and visit some of these incredible places and return with there own inspiring images.
Ross Murphy, Images In Light