Getting Started

Hope you all had a good weekend. I am going to spend the next couple of days going over what I shot last week in the studio but here is the start of it. Above is a screen shot of the Lightroom Library module. With the room constraints in the studio I use a couple of sheets of white mat-board for a seamless background.

I have really cut down on my workflow in Lightroom. My first pass eliminates 90% of the final rejects which constitute about 20% of overall portrait an 80% of product. So that means if I take 10 shots of a particular product pose, there will only be two final picks of that pose (sometimes only one). That means that seven of the eight final rejects will happen on the first pass. I'll use the survey mode initially and then switch to the compare mode when it comes down to the wire. This way I can zoom on the final two for comparison.

All five of the plate images were sharp but the last one had the higher exposure and was most workable in the Develop module (AKA Adobe Camera RAW). 

The biggest improvement in my workflow was not getting emotionally attached to the images. This is easier with product shots as it is just an object. Portraiture is a little different, there is an emotional feedback during the shoot that reemerges during post production, so it takes a little more discipline when I work with people shots.

Tomorrow I will go over the editing of a final shot. 
For now, take care... Doug


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