My current digital photography workflow

Here's my digital photography workflow when shooting raw with my Canon EOS 30D. I've developed this over the past few weeks, so it's very much subject to change.

I use a Dell Latitude D620 (2 GHz Core Duo, 2 GB RAM) running Windows XP Pro. I use my Dell 2407 display for my image work, as my laptop's display lacks brightness and saturation.

I start processing a photo session by using xplorer2 to copy my images from my card to a folder like pics\raw\<camera>\<yyyy-mm-dd <subject>>\raw.

I then start browsing the pics with Canon's Digital Photo Professional (DPP). I use its eyedropper tool to fix poor white balance, and I also correct underexposure. I then export all pictures to full-size high-quality jpegs in the directory ..\processed.

I next browse the jpegs full-screen with Faststone Image Viewer, looking for issues. For pics with exposure problems, I go back to the raw image and open it in LightZone. Since it doesn't see DPP's adjustments, I use the ZoneMapper for detailed exposure corrections, and apply the white balance filter as necessary. I'll often apply the ToneMapper filter with default settings on outdoor/sky/cloud shots; it lends nice contrast.

If a picture has mixed exposure issues -- tungsten light in one area, fluorescent in another, too dark in yet another -- LightZone allows masks to be defined for each application of a filter, making fixes for such images relatively easy.

Next, if the image needs filtering for noise, I export a 16-bit tiff and process it with Noise Ninja. This tool is simply miraculous; it fixes bad noise out of the box. I've found that just a little bit of practice with the advanced controls allows removal of more subtle noise. This tool is truly amazing.

If a jpeg created by DPP only needs noise reduction, I'll skip the tiff creation and process the jpeg in NN, adding -nn to the filename.

I'll next open the tiff in Paint Shop Pro XI. I'll do any necessary cropping or resizing. Finally, I'll export it to jpeg.

The last step is usually to upload to either Flickr or Smugmug, creating a set for the session.

Yes, it's a rather long workflow. I don't do every step for every picture -- I only apply a tool when necessary. The flow needs some optimization; it'll come with time.

Do I regret the additional work brought by shooting raw? No. I appreciate the additional quality and detail of raw. I also appreciate the flexibility in processing the additional data allows.

The first thing that will change in my workflow is I'll replace Paint Shop Pro with Photoshop CS2. I was frustrated to find that many of Paint Shop Pro Photo XI's tools do not work on 16-bit images. That's preposterous! I need to throw away data to manipulate data? No thanks.

I've left out lots of detail. I encourage comments and questions.

Two of my favorite companies have settled their argument

Apple and Cisco have agreed to settle their lawsuit about the iPhone trademark.

They've agreed to share the trademark. What on earth does that mean? It'll be interesting to see.

Why are they two of my favorite companies? Well, I work for Cisco now. I had a lot of respect for them when I was a customer, but I have a lot more now that I see how they operate. They're a very good company.

As for Apple, they make beautiful products. I love my iPods. I want a MacBook Pro. Bad. MacOS is a luscious OS. I have friends that did and still do work there, and they like it.

nice weekend

I had a very nice four-day weekend. I took Thursday and Friday off; I didn't do much, as I really needed some downtime. I finished a novel, Soul Hunter by Melanie Wells. It's the second in an excellent series; I highly recommend it.

My new monitor arrived Thursday. It's absolutely luscious.

Thursday evening, I started building my two new home servers. Friday, I went to dinner with my brother, and then we went to Borders. Very relaxing.

I got to work on Saturday. I wiped my backup server, my old PIII desktop, and my brother's old desktop. I sorted through old clothes. I extracted my excellent-but-huge old stereo I received as a gift from my parents back in 1984 or so.

Basically, I started cleaning up my room. We took the computers, stereo, and wearable clothes to Goodwill, and threw the rest away. I cleaned out my desk, and we went to Office Depot and bought new office supplies: Post-Its, pens, pencils, etc.

And Sunday afternoon was the pinnacle: I finally found the right bookshelf for next to my desk: a 7-foot tall, 21-inch wide beauty at Cost Plus. I brought it home and assembled it. I filled it with every book formerly on my desk, or on the floor by my desk. It's only half full, and now the floor is clear, and my desk is as well.

So nice. Now I have space to think.

Next steps: set up the desk with the new monitor -- I need a new keyboard and mouse -- and some writing accessories. Retire the current server, replacing it with the faster, bigger (RAM and disk), smaller (physically), and quieter new server. Build the new backup server. And enjoy.

The credenza, old shelves, and boxes at the foot of my bed are projects for another day. but their days are coming soon.

Monitor ordered, photos

Oh yeah! I ordered my Dell UltraSharp 2407WFP today. I should have it by Friday. Now I will have a proper photography workspace.

Did you see the new set of pictures I posted to my Flickr account recently? They're very cool. They're pictures of the sky after the rain this past weekend.

I'm so proud of this picture. It was a lot of work, but I really like how I gained control over the lighting to get the exact image and exposure I wanted.

I realized I've not written anything about my new photography workflow. I'll get to that soon.

pondering a new monitor

I'm seriously considering a new monitor for my home computing. I'd be connecting the new display to my still-pretty-new Dell Latitude D620 as a second display. I'm thinking about a widescreen 23" display.

The Dell UltraSharp 2407WFP has risen to the the top of my list. I've read some reviews around the net and it seems like a really good deal. Does anyone have any thoughts on this they'd like to share with me?