How I dramatically improved my photo editing workflow
Photography is a massive creative process. All the way from finding a composition and taking a picture; to getting back in the studio, editing your photo and getting it ready to be printed (or whatever else your end goal might be). When I first started editing photos, there were a lot of technical aspects getting in the way of this creative process. One thing getting in the way of my creative process had to do with the software I was using (and the software most people use). I use Lightroom to edit the majority of my images, as I believe it is the simplest, most user friendly, and efficient way of editing and correcting images. However, there a few things Lightroom isn’t so great at, one of these things is adjusting specific parts of a photo. Perhaps you need to remove a person from a landscape image, or add a glowing highlight to the edge of someone’s hair in a portrait; these things are best done in Photoshop (to make these fine adjustments in Photoshop it really helps to use some sort of stylus/tablet combination. This is what I use). At this point you’re probably thinking,
“well what’s the big deal, make the basic corrections in Lightroom and then fine tune the image in Photoshop.”
And you would be exactly right, but it’s how you do this that makes all the difference in your final product. When I first began to incorporate this process into my workflow, I would import the image into Lightroom, export the image from Lightroom, open the edited image in Photoshop, save the fine tuned image in Photoshop, again import the image to Lightroom, make any final adjustments in Lightroom and export the final image. That’s a lot, it’s confusing, it takes a long time, and most importantly it LOWERS the quality of your final image. Everytime the image is exported or saved, it is compressed (loses data) and the quality becomes lower. I call this a destructive workflow.
The process I use now is non-destructive, simpler, faster, and still allows me to marry the best of both worlds in Lightroom and Photoshop. I call this process “circling”, as we start in Lightroom move into Photoshop and end back in Lightroom. To explain this process I’m going to use an example.
The image above is from Cannon Beach in Oregon. The day I was there had some very high surf. I was fairly pleased when I walked away with this image of the birds flying through the waves crashing against the sea stacks. The first step in this process is to import the original (straight out of camera, RAW photo) into Lightroom.
Now that the photo is in Lightroom, make the adjustments you would like to see. I’m not going to discuss how I edited this photo, as that is a much longer topic concerning my editing style. Here is the photo after basic corrections were made in Lightroom.
The next step in this process is to find a way to move the image to Photoshop so that we can make some fine adjustments, without compressing and losing quality in the photo. Both Lightroom and Photoshop are Adobe products and it turns out that they work very nicely together. To move this image to Photoshop, right click on the image thumbnail at the bottom of the page and select edit in → Adobe Photoshop.
Now, open up Photoshop and the image will be there waiting for you. Make the necessary adjustments in Photoshop and prepare the image to head back to Lightroom for the final pass. This step is very simple. Head over to the file tab at the top of your screen and hit ‘save’, not ‘save as.’ This will send the image straight back to Lightroom.
The new image will appear in Lightroom, right next to the original in the library at the bottom of the page. Make any finally adjustments (I usually check exposure, just in case I changed anything too much in Photoshop), and it’s time to export your final product. Right click the image, hit export, and you’re finished.
By using this process, you will have successfully edited your image with a non-destructive workflow, maintaining all data collected by your camera. You will have also used Lightroom and Photoshop to their fullest potential, allowing you to create the best possible finished product. Also, this process will have simplified everything, leaving you with one original photo and one final photo. No in between photos left to clutter up your hard drive.
This workflow, dramatically improved the way I edit, and has left me with so much more time to focus on other projects and take more photos. If you use this process of “circling” and post your image on Instagram, be sure to tag me @mashley.media. You can also checkout more of my work at www.mashley.media.
