editing & batch - too many steps!?

THE TOUCH · May 15, 2006

Do you ever say to yourself “there’s no way everyone else is doing it this way”? That’s what I say every time I edit a shoot. If I may, I would like to list each step I take from start to finish and any advice you can give would be great!

1. Import from stick into folder.

2. Open images and edit as needed. This also includes rotating verticals.

3. Once they’re all edited, I do a batch process to rename the images and change the dpi to 300. These get sent to another folder and the original images go to the trash.

4. Then I take the images and separate the horizontals from the verticals to prepare for resizing and put them in different folders.

5. I do one batch process for the verticals and one batch process for the horizontals and send them both to one folder. When I do a batch resize, I specify the size, which is why I separate the two – if I did verticals and horizontals in one batch, for example, I would have 1200 wide on verticals and 1200 wide on horizontals. Am I missing something!? I also set the dpi to 300 at this point.

6. Once finished, I take the horizontals and verticals and put them back into the same folder.

7. I then take the resized horizontals and the verticals, and do another batch to rename the images, and trash the old resized hor. & vert.

8. Last, I take all of the smaller images, import them into iPhoto then export them as a Quicktime Movie at ~800x800.

9. If I’m uploading to SmugMug, I do the whole resizing and renaming over again for a third time to get 2000x1280.

I can either rotate the verticals then sort them for resizing, or resize all the images then find the verticals that need to be rotated once everything is finished. Either way stinks.

This cannot be right. I’m using Photoshop Elements 2.0 because I don’t severe editing, only basics so I never saw the need to upgrade. Is this process easier with a higher version? Is there other software for this? Am I just really off track!!??

My final product usually includes the following:
Original size images, renamed, and at 72 or 300 dpi.
Smaller images renamed and resized to 1200 x 800 at 300 dpi
Contact Sheets taken from the smaller images.
Quicktime movie at 800x800.

Thanks ahead of time! Sorry this is sooooooo LONG!

StevenV · May 15, 2006

THE TOUCH wrote:

2. Open images and edit as needed. This also includes rotating verticals.

What type camera are you using? Some (many? I dunno) can tell when the camera's held in the Portrat position and have a setting to auto-rotate the images.

3. Once they’re all edited, I do a batch process to rename the images and change the dpi to 300. These get sent to another folder and the original images go to the trash.

if you're just changing the metadata to 300dpi, that's not really needed.

I use PhotoMechanic, btw, to import from the memory card (they call it "ingest"). During that process it automatically can rename and apply keywords, copyright text and other exif info. Well worth the 150 clams.

4. Then I take the images and separate the horizontals from the verticals to prepare for resizing and put them in different folders.

This and 6 are extra steps, there's a way to avoid this and have your step 5 work no matter what the direction, I believe. I'll see if I can find a pointer (and it's possible that it's only a CS thing).

7. I then take the resized horizontals and the verticals, and do another batch to rename the images, and trash the old resized hor. & vert.

Is another rename really needed?

There are some threads on resolution and how changing it isn't normally neede, and one on the resize thing for both Portrait and Landscape direction images; I'll see if I can find them. I think there are at least a few steps you could skip.

StevenV · May 15, 2006

on the topic of setting an image's resolution.

colourbox · May 16, 2006

THE TOUCH wrote:

5. I do one batch process for the verticals and one batch process for the horizontals and send them both to one folder. When I do a batch resize, I specify the size, which is why I separate the two – if I did verticals and horizontals in one batch, for example, I would have 1200 wide on verticals and 1200 wide on horizontals. Am I missing something!? I also set the dpi to 300 at this point.

Photoshop has a command called Fit Image that resizes an image to fit the image proportionally by its longer side within a single width and height specification. If I enter 1200x1200 px and run a batch, then tall images will be scaled to 1200px tall and the wide images will be scaled to 1200 wide and in both cases the short side follows proportionately.

I don't think Photoshop Elements has that command, but I am not sure and it wouldn't hurt to check.

mercphoto · May 16, 2006

THE TOUCH wrote:

Do you ever say to yourself “there’s no way everyone else is doing it this way”? That’s what I say every time I edit a shoot. If I may, I would like to list each step I take from start to finish and any advice you can give would be great!

Some of your steps I'm not sure why you are doing them, so I don't know whether its a step you can remove altogether, or whether you need to keep doing it, possibly in a more efficient manner. My gut instinct is telling me you are doing some steps that you just don't need to do at all.

1. Import from stick into folder.

Use Image Capture, or use Photo Mechanic. Both will also let you do a few things upon import, but Photo Mechanic is a real winner here. Import, flatten the directory structure from the memory stick, rename the files, append metadata, etc.

2. Open images and edit as needed. This also includes rotating verticals.

See if your camera will do this for you automatically. Many will.

3. Once they’re all edited, I do a batch process to rename the images and change the dpi to 300. These get sent to another folder and the original images go to the trash.

Changing the DPI is something you can do while importing with Photo Mechanic. It changes the DPI but does not interpolate the images nor does it change the pixel count, which is what you want. But why do this step at all? Why is it you are concerned about the DPI rating? All that truly matters is pixel count.

4. Then I take the images and separate the horizontals from the verticals to prepare for resizing and put them in different folders.

I must admit I do not know why you spend so much time resizing the images. What is it you are trying to accomplish and why? You also appear to rename images multiple times, which again I do not understand.

9. If I’m uploading to SmugMug, I do the whole resizing and renaming over again for a third time to get 2000x1280.

Why?

jfriend · May 16, 2006

You are making it hard on yourself

THE TOUCH wrote:

Do you ever say to yourself “there’s no way everyone else is doing it this way”? That’s what I say every time I edit a shoot. If I may, I would like to list each step I take from start to finish and any advice you can give would be great!

This is, indeed, way more steps that is needed. Here are some comments on your workflow:

For local printing or smgumug upload, there's no reason to resize your images at all. Just leave them at their native resolution. The only reason I resize images is if I want to send them to someone in email and I want a screen-sized version of the image. But, even then I probably just upload to smugmug, let smugmug make the various sizes that it makes and send a link to that in the email. If you need to resize your images before putting them in your slideshow software, then just do that on a copy of the images just for the slideshow software.
When resizing, you should not need to separate the verticals for the horizontals. There is definitely resizing software that can resize both verticals and horizontals in one pass. I don't remember the details of PSE2, but in Photoshop CS2, if I want both horizontal and vertical images resized such that the longest dimension is 800 pixels and the aspect ratio of the original is preserved (e.g. no cropping), I can just specify a width of 800, a height of 800 and say that I want to preserve the aspect ratio. This will force the long dimension to get resized to 800 pixels and the other dimension will preserve aspect ratio. I think you can do this in PSE2. You should also be able to do it in infranview which is free.
You can completely ignore the dpi. It's just a metadata tag (has nothing to do with the actual image bits). Now-a-days nearly all software lets you directly specify the output size you want so the dpi is not used.
Most people decide to keep their originals, untouched and when they edit they make a copy (like keeping a copy of your negatives from the film days). Regardless of what they do to the edited copy, they can then always get back to the original to do something different or recover from a mistake.
PSE2 can print contact sheets for you directly from your originals. No need to do anything to prep the images.
As others have said, many cameras these days will automatically tag an image as vertical or horizontal and many software packages will automatically rotate it for you so you don't have to do that manually. To make that work, you will need both a camera and piece of software that do that. I know PSE3 and PSE4 do the auto-rotation for you. I don't remember if PSE2 does or not.

In my workflow, I keep the originals. I make a copy and edit that. I then upload that to Smugmug. All rotation is done automatically for me. I rarely ever have a reason to resize the images. I print directly from the edited copies. I never touch the DPI metadata.

StevenV · May 16, 2006

THE TOUCH wrote:

...and the original images go to the trash.

for what it's worth, I think this is the biggest boo-boo, especially if you're shooting JPG.

Every time you make any edit and resave, you've got potential for loosing information (recompression).

As you learn more, at some time you're going to want to go back to an original image to start from "scratch" with all your new learnings... and they'll be gone. I've been there, cursed myself.

THE TOUCH · May 16, 2006

Wow. You guys are awesome!
Thank you for all the helpful comments! Let me take this one at a time:

StevenV -
- I'm using a Canon 20D and it does do auto rotate. When I preview them on my computer in the file list they are the correct orientation but when I open in Photoshop they're back to horizontals.
- PhotoMechanic sounds like just what I need! It's perfect! One of my other questions in the back of my head was bulk keywords, copyright info, etc.
- The only reason for the rename is to tell the large images from the smaller and avoid mixing the two.
- Thanks for the link on dpi. I may be crazy but I resize the images to 300dpi because I'm afraid the clients are going to take them home and print out 72dpi photos on their home printer. Also, I have some clients that request 300dpi because they're agency asks for them. Are either of these two reasons worth it? If a client prints out a 72dpi photo on his home printer does it really matter??? That wasn't very clear in the dpi thread.

Colourbox -
- What you are talking about would save me sooooo much time but Elements 2.0 does not have it (SHOOT!). I need to upgrade, but I want to move to Aperture, but I can't move to Aperture until I get a Mac G5, and I can't get a Mac G5 because I'm broke!

mercphoto -
- I love the idea of Photo Mechanic. Wasn't happy with Image Capture on a Mac platform - too many bugs.
- Camera is a 20D and it does rotate but PS ignores it for some reason.
- I mentioned the reason for 300dpi above but let me know if that is wrong.
- I resize the images for ease of use to the clients. The smaller images allow them to open, view, print, and email without having to mess with the size (display & memory) of a full res image. Make sense?
- As stated above, renaming is to tell the small from the big and avoid confusion for me.
- I resize them again for SmugMug because the originals take way to long to upload and take way to much space. Also, the 1200x800 are too small for larger printer. 2000x1280 lets me print up to 24x36.

jfriend - Great info
- My reasons for resizing is stated above.
- as for resizing vert. & horz. I tried what you mentioned. With aspect ratio preserved, it only allows me to input a number in the width or the height, not both. Looks like I just need to upgrade to CS2 and get it over with! I'll take a look at Infranview.
- I guess 300dpi has been pounded into my head over the years and assume everything needs to be 300 or more. What if a client takes the 72dpi's and prints on his home computer?
- As for the contact sheets, I just create them from the 1200x800 images since they're already there. It makes the process go by much faster!

StevenV -
- This is also a concern of mine. Right now I just can't handle RAW and I try to eliminate the amount of saves on JPG's. Right now I do basic editing, save, then resize. I rarely do serious editing over and over again - I'm pretty simple.

Thank you all for all the great info! Please feel free to follow up on my replies. Basically, it sounds like PSE2.0 is holding me up a bunch and that I need to upgrade to CS2. As for the 300dpi, it sounds like I should just let it be and stick with 72dpi. This will not result in poor quality on the client end?

THE TOUCH · May 16, 2006

Forgot...
I should probably mention...If I'm editing for personal I don't resize to 1200x800. I only resize for clients.

But for SmugMug, I resize to make them smaller in MB's. But I think instead of resizing to 2000x1280, I'll start keeping the original size and just change the quality to 8 or 10.

Do you guys go max on the quality at 12? I read several threads where 8 and 10 were said to be plenty.

jfriend · May 16, 2006

Quality 10 is more than you need, can't see the difference with 12

THE TOUCH wrote:

I should probably mention...If I'm editing for personal I don't resize to 1200x800. I only resize for clients.

But for SmugMug, I resize to make them smaller in MB's. But I think instead of resizing to 2000x1280, I'll start keeping the original size and just change the quality to 8 or 10.

Do you guys go max on the quality at 12? I read several threads where 8 and 10 were said to be plenty.

I use quality 10 for smugmug. Nobody has ever made a case for being able to tell the difference between 10 and 12, but 12 is a ton bigger.

jfriend · May 16, 2006

A few more thoughts...

THE TOUCH wrote:

Thank you for all the helpful comments! Let me take this one at a time:

- Thanks for the link on dpi. I may be crazy but I resize the images to 300dpi because I'm afraid the clients are going to take them home and print out 72dpi photos on their home printer. Also, I have some clients that request 300dpi because they're agency asks for them. Are either of these two reasons worth it? If a client prints out a 72dpi photo on his home printer does it really matter??? That wasn't very clear in the dpi thread.

- I resize the images for ease of use to the clients. The smaller images allow them to open, view, print, and email without having to mess with the size (display & memory) of a full res image. Make sense?

- as for resizing vert. & horz. I tried what you mentioned. With aspect ratio preserved, it only allows me to input a number in the width or the height, not both. Looks like I just need to upgrade to CS2 and get it over with! I'll take a look at Infranview.

- I guess 300dpi has been pounded into my head over the years and assume everything needs to be 300 or more. What if a client takes the 72dpi's and prints on his home computer?

- As for the contact sheets, I just create them from the 1200x800 images since they're already there. It makes the process go by much faster!

Basically, it sounds like PSE2.0 is holding me up a bunch and that I need to upgrade to CS2. As for the 300dpi, it sounds like I should just let it be and stick with 72dpi. This will not result in poor quality on the client end?

I think you aren't quite getting the DPI thing. The dpi on an image is only a piece of metadata on the image. It doens't affect the actual bits of the image. The ONLY time this metadata is ever used is if an application doing printing is not asking the user to specify the size of the output image. That almost never happens anymore.

Look at every possible way that your clients will print images at home. Every one I've ever see asks the user what output size print they want to make, regardless of the dpi stamped on the image. So, if the client tells their software that they want a 5x7 print, the dpi metadata is NOT used at all.

Look at how the Windows image manager prints. Look at how any consumer application on the PC prints. They all ask the user how big an output print they want. Thus, they are all ignoring the dpi. Leaving the dpi as is will not result in poor prints.

As for resizing without sorting vertical/horizontal, you will not need to buy CS2 for that. PSE2 is pretty ancient these days. You might download the trial version of PSE4 and see if they've fixed that functionality there. Or, there are numerous free programs that can do this like IrfanView which you can download here.

THE TOUCH · May 16, 2006

jfriend wrote:

I think you aren't quite getting the DPI thing. The dpi on an image is only a piece of metadata on the image. It doens't affect the actual bits of the image. The ONLY time this metadata is ever used is if an application doing printing is not asking the user to specify the size of the output image. That almost never happens anymore.

Look at every possible way that your clients will print images at home. Every one I've ever see asks the user what output size print they want to make, regardless of the dpi stamped on the image. So, if the client tells their software that they want a 5x7 print, the dpi metadata is NOT used at all.

Look at how the Windows image manager prints. Look at how any consumer application on the PC prints. They all ask the user how big an output print they want. Thus, they are all ignoring the dpi. Leaving the dpi as is will not result in poor prints.

As for resizing without sorting vertical/horizontal, you will not need to buy CS2 for that. PSE2 is pretty ancient these days. You might download the trial version of PSE4 and see if they've fixed that functionality there. Or, there are numerous free programs that can do this like IrfanView which you can download here.

Thank you jfriend! That makes sense. I always thought of the dpi and actual size as two different things but really...one just sets the other.

THE TOUCH · May 16, 2006

StevenV wrote:

Every time you make any edit and resave, you've got potential for loosing information (recompression).

Would renaming cause loss of info or just saving after an edit?

jfriend · May 16, 2006

Rename is safe

THE TOUCH wrote:

Would renaming cause loss of info or just saving after an edit?

Renaming a file doesn't touch the data in the file so you are safe with rename.

StevenV · May 16, 2006

THE TOUCH wrote:

Would renaming cause loss of info or just saving after an edit?

renaming shouldn't.

I'm not sure if the save when you open to change dpi would recompress or if PSE just changes the metadata without mucking with the image.

btw, check the settings on the 20D; I use a 10D and my images autorotate just fine in PSCS (and did in the previous version).

THE TOUCH · May 16, 2006

StevenV wrote:

btw, check the settings on the 20D; I use a 10D and my images autorotate just fine in PSCS (and did in the previous version).

I have it set to auto rotate. When they show in the camera display they are the correct rotation. When I view the thumbnails in my file browser they are the correct rotation. But, as soon as I open them in PSE they go back to Horz. How crazy is that!?

It's so frustrating to see them correctly in the preview and then have to rotate them one by one in PS!

I've check all the preferences but didn't see anything. I think I just need to upgrade! I'm a little behind. :cry

mercphoto · May 17, 2006

THE TOUCH wrote:

mercphoto -
- I love the idea of Photo Mechanic. Wasn't happy with Image Capture on a Mac platform - too many bugs.
- I resize the images for ease of use to the clients. The smaller images allow them to open, view, print, and email without having to mess with the size (display & memory) of a full res image. Make sense?
- I resize them again for SmugMug because the originals take way to long to upload and take way to much space. Also, the 1200x800 are too small for larger printer. 2000x1280 lets me print up to 24x36.

I haven't seen any bugs in Image Capture myself, but I only use it to import files. Many have already corrected your misunderstanding about DPI so I won't add anything there. But I really question whether you think that 2000x1280 is sufficient for a 24x36 image. This is only 2.5 million pixels. Given the amount of work you are putting into your workflow I have a feeling you are trying to deliver quality. Post the full-size image.

THE TOUCH · May 17, 2006

mercphoto wrote:

I haven't seen any bugs in Image Capture myself, but I only use it to import files. Many have already corrected your misunderstanding about DPI so I won't add anything there. But I really question whether you think that 2000x1280 is sufficient for a 24x36 image. This is only 2.5 million pixels. Given the amount of work you are putting into your workflow I have a feeling you are trying to deliver quality. Post the full-size image.

mercphoto - So do you save them at a quality of 8, 10, or 12?

mercphoto · May 17, 2006

THE TOUCH wrote:

mercphoto - So do you save them at a quality of 8, 10, or 12?

10. No reason for 12.

Dave Lee · May 17, 2006

mercphoto wrote:

10. No reason for 12.

Is this jpeg quality you are talking about? I don't use PS, and this isn't translating to gimp-ese in my head.

If so, I take it that 12 is no compression?

THE TOUCH · May 17, 2006

Dave Lee wrote:

Is this jpeg quality you are talking about? I don't use PS, and this isn't translating to gimp-ese in my head.

If so, I take it that 12 is no compression?

Yup - we are talking about jpegs. I just took an original image that was 6.2MB which was saved with a quality of 12, resaved it with a quality or 10 and it was 2.9MB. That's a big savings!

Dave Lee · May 18, 2006

THE TOUCH wrote:

Yup - we are talking about jpegs. I just took an original image that was 6.2MB which was saved with a quality of 12, resaved it with a quality or 10 and it was 2.9MB. That's a big savings!

Thanks.

When I save a jpeg from Gimp, it asks for a percentage for the quality. Do you think a quality of 10 from PS is equivalent to about 85% in Gimp(10 being 83.33% of 12)? I'm trying to equate the opinions given here to what I am doing.

THE TOUCH · May 18, 2006

Dave Lee wrote:

Thanks.

When I save a jpeg from Gimp, it asks for a percentage for the quality. Do you think a quality of 10 from PS is equivalent to about 85% in Gimp(10 being 83.33% of 12)? I'm trying to equate the opinions given here to what I am doing.

Not sure about this one! I wouldn't feel too confident telling you yes or no. You might want to start a new thread and look for users of GIMP.

Dave Lee · May 18, 2006

THE TOUCH wrote:

Not sure about this one! I wouldn't feel too confident telling you yes or no. You might want to start a new thread and look for users of GIMP.

That's not a bad idea. I think I will experiment a bit first though.

Thanks for your answers!

Mongrel · May 18, 2006

hmmm....related but maybe not...
So I'm shooting RAW with a 20D and getting these 7-8MB CR2 files....I converted them in BreezeBrowser Pro and now they're 12+MB's!!!!

Obviously, I'm not getting it....

Anyway, all I want to do is batch 'resize' (file size-NOT dimensions) these so I can upload them all below (man, I sure hope so...) the 16MB limit.

BTW-I need to have enough meat to go to 20"X30" poster size for some of the kids....

Anybody help out an old dog?

Thanks-

Mongrel

mercphoto · May 18, 2006

Dave Lee wrote:

Is this jpeg quality you are talking about? I don't use PS, and this isn't translating to gimp-ese in my head.

If so, I take it that 12 is no compression?

JPG is always compressed, so the notion of "no compression" is not even possible. In Photoshop, a level 12 JPG simply means the least amount of compression that Photoshop is capable of making. There does not appear to be any standard as to how different applications name their various compression options. Some use numbers 1 through 10, others 1 through 12, some use percentages, etc. I think Canon's Digital Photo Professional has only 4 options.

THE TOUCH · May 22, 2006

Upgraded to PS4.0
OMG! Bridge is AWESOME! I can't believe I've gone this long without it!

Bulk Metadata changes including copyright, usage rights, etc.
Bulk keywords - YEAH!
Large preview, multiple view options, etc. - no more little icons!!!
Batch rename is so much cooler than PS2.0 and PS4.0!

And that's only in the first 20 minutes! I haven't been this excited since I got my 10-22!

For future reference: I did have a problem with PS4.0 just minutes after the install though...I tried three times to do a batch process and PS crashed every time! Good thing I wasn't using Windows - It would have crashed the whole system!

I called Adobe and he had me delete the following files:
Location: Home/Library/Preferences/Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 Settings
Files: Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 Prefs.psp & Color Settings.csf

Can someone tell me though...When I do a batch process and convert the file type, does JPEG max quality relate to a quality of 12 and JPEG high quality relate to 10? 12 & 10 being the quality choice saving individual JPEG photos.

Thanks!

Bridge Rocks!

editing & batch - too many steps!?

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