Post Production of jpgs - help

[alsocass]

Annual photobook, 200 photos mostly all jpegs taken using the auto settings.

I want to do a good job this year making the annual photobook, so I want to take the time to edit and adjust each photo, make them look their best.

I sit down with Lightroom and get overwhelmed. A combination of still learning LR4, the photos being of really low quality (great for family albums, some of them would be deleted if it weren't for the cute shot that I absolutely must-have), and finding a 'style' for my photos. I would post examples, but I am sure you can imagine dark, grainy, cluttered photos make up about half the photos.... but it was my youngest daughter's first year and I am loathe to discard any that capture her facial expressions. Annual albums are hard, you try to make it represent the children that I spent my every day with, I want to show grandparents all the range of people that they are.

Can someone be a bit critical with me. I think I am trying to turn mutton into lamb.

[ricktas]

We cannot be critical, but we can be constructive with criticism. I think posting some of the photos is the only way we can assist.

[flashc]

Hi...

I'm trying to do things (editing) from a collection of 100,000+ photos since I decided to look back at my digital images from the beginning. I'd like to sit down and make them all perfect but that's impossible. I always keep slightly bad images or just quick snapshots with the hope of rescuing them one day.

I can't find anyone willing to do it for me (for free) ...

My suggestion would be to find someone local to you with perhaps more experience in editing who can sit with you, assist with the process and perhaps tell you if some of the photos are beyond help.

In the end, don't forget that if a photo is a cute or family record shot,the other family members will look past the photo quality, if unrecoverable, and will see the subject's image and smile through their eyes as they remember them.

[William]

Just a reminder , If your working on Jpegs only , Dont rework and save to much, You'll start to lose quality very quickly , Convert them to Tiff files if you plan on working on them a bit , Another reason to shoot in RAW

[fess67]

alsocass - the most interesting comment for me is your statement about turning mutton into lamb.

Fact - a crap photo is exactly that. Do not try to process it into simething it is not.
Fact - people see different things in a photo so what we 'enthusiasts' think is crap, they think is 'great', 'sweet', 'awesome', 'OMG'......you get the idea.

If it was my gig I would think about what is required and deliver to that requirement. Example: on Saturday I took shots for a theatre group I am a member of. We are putting a show on and they needed headshots. I took the shots and spent 2 minutes each photo, exposure, crop, sharpen, job done. These are going to be tiny shots in a program booklet. Nothing more is needed.

What is required from your project? If it is a small image in a yearbook, do not stress about the processing too much, just make them bright enough and it will all be good. However, if you want large print images, then learn to use LR or PS but it seems to me you will be able to get the job done with a simple approach.
ps. in LR, if you apply adjustments to an image and they would apply to all the ones you took, you can use the 'previous' button to apply the same settings to the next photo. Lots of tutorials online.

[Mark L]

A little off topic, just thinking of the future.
With your camera, you can take each photo in RAW and Jpeg, though only in one of the manual modes. P is almost point and shoot. AV just needs you to choose your aperture. The point is, you have a RAW file that gives you more to work with in PP.
If you need to start from the beginning with PP, then I've found Canons DPP (on the free discs that came with your camera) a good place to learn the basics of highlights, shadows, sharpening, contrast, exposure adjustments, cropping and a couple of other basic things. It's pretty amazing what slight adjustments can do. I still use DPP 'cause I find what you said, " I sit down with Lightroom and get overwhelmed."
So maybe take a step back for a while and get into DPP. And take a step forward and strife to shoot RAW (look up the manual about P mode, though AV is good).
Anyway, good luck with the present.

[alsocass]

Thanks for the responses.


This book is a 20" x 28" (from memory but you get the idea) landscape photobook of the kind most printing companies will produce.

This will be the third year I have made one. It is just family photos (mostly my kids). It makes a great present for all the grandparents who we rarely see. All up we print out 7 copies.

What am I trying to achieve?
1. Photos for grandparents
2. A motivation to cull photos (I take thousands of photos and I have a theory that too many photos means that nobody will ever see them because what person wants to trawl through fifty thousand photos taken over a childhood).
3. Learning experience (ie Lightroom).
4. An improvement in quality over the last two years.

On the last point. I was so proud last year producing the album, but flicking through it again I am horrified at the low quality and lack lustre photos. I guess I was hoping I could take my jogs and boost them a bit so the album didn't look quite as flat.

Perhaps the answer is to focus my efforts on the 2013 album!!

[alsocass]

Just want to add. I have been shooting exclusively in RAW since late last year. So future PP will be easier, unfortunately most of the photos for this album were shot when I was still using full auto and jpeg modes.

[alsocass]

Thanks for the responses.

This book is a 20" x 28" (from memory but you get the idea) landscape photobook of the kind most printing companies will produce.

This will be the third year I have made one. It is just family photos (mostly my kids). It makes a great present for all the grandparents who we rarely see. All up we print out 7 copies.

What am I trying to achieve?
1. Photos for grandparents
2. A motivation to cull photos (I take thousands of photos and I have a theory that too many photos means that nobody will ever see them because what person wants to trawl through fifty thousand photos taken over a childhood).
3. Learning experience (ie Lightroom).
4. An improvement in quality over the last two years.

On the last point. I was so proud last year producing the 2011 album, but flicking through it again I am horrified at the low quality and lack lustre photos. I guess I was hoping I could take my jogs and boost them a bit so the album didn't look quite as flat.

Perhaps the answer is to focus my efforts on the 2013 album!!

[ricktas]

1. Grandparents love photos of grandkids, even if the photo is not perfect.
2. So cull them, In lightroom Library module, look at each photo, the ones you don't like, hit 'x'. When you get to the end hit Ctrl+Backspace. All your culling is complete.
3.Lightroom, go and get yourself a copy of Scott Kelby's book "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for Digital Photographers", make sure you get the version for LR4, and start at the beginning and go through it. Brilliant book.
4. If you want to improve the quality of your photos over the quantity, then do so, learn how to take better photos and learn to stop pressing the shutter button. One way to do this is to buy some disposable film cameras and use those. Cause when you cannot see the results straight away, and each shutter press is going to cost you money, to get the film developed and printed, you will think more about each photo, before you press that shutter. Or treat your DSLR like each photo is going to cost you $2.00. You will learn a lot more about photography by slowing down, working out the correct exposure settings, and composing well, than aim-n-shoot.

You mention the word motivation, that comes from within. We can tell you how to, guide you with what to, and suggest which way, over and over, but only one person can actually do the culling, learning, photography, improving...guess who? So set yourself a goal. Say over the next two weeks to learn a lot more about LR. Go out today and get the book I suggested above and learn. Once you have a reasonable grasp of LR, then you are in a position to cull the photos, so allocate a week to do that too. Improving your photography will take a little longer, but once you get over your frustrations with culling and LR, your mind will be free of these distractions that are causing you angst, so you can get on with learning your photography more readily.

Over to you! The power is in your hands to do what you have dot pointed above, but now you have to put the effort in.

[Brettmc20]

Well said Ricktas. The motivated me to go and buy some of those diposable camera lol or a film camera and do that.