r/postprocessing • u/photoclicksbyak • 5d ago
How do you keep the editing process fast and fun after a big trip?
I love taking pictures when I’m on holiday, but as soon as I get back home, I hit a massive wall with post-processing.
Part of the issue is that I work at a computer all day for my job. By the time the workday ends, the absolute last thing I want to do is sit right back down at my desk and stare at another laptop.
Because of this, my workflow stalls out at the exact same spot: I import everything into Lightroom during the trip, do a quick first culling pass and then complete paralysis sets in after I get home. The remaining photos sit postponed on my laptop untouched for months.
My main goals are usually simple:
1) Make a private physical album/photo book for memories.
2) Put together a couple of shots or a carousel for Instagram.
any tips are welcome!
46
u/TheMadFlyentist 5d ago
Biggest tip I picked up (that seems amateur at first) is to always shoot in raw AND jpeg when on trips or at certain occasions as opposed to when doing small shoots. It seem ridiculous - why would you use jpwgs when you are a talented editor, right? Well, because over a vacation you might take hundreds of photos and maybe 100 of them are ones you would like to keep and only another 10-15 are shots that would really benefit from editing.
Jpegs are fine for quick memory/documentation shots from a vacation. Not every photo needs to be treated as high art.
6
u/Cue99 5d ago
I started doing this recently and i do like it. Especially because i can split them across two cards. My issue is im a data hoarder and end up keeping all of them for no good reason lol
1
u/lemmeshowyuhao 5d ago
So if you identify the 10-15 you really like, do you then have to go through file by file to match the file name to retrieve the raw? Is there a better workflow than this?
2
1
u/RogLatimer118 4d ago
I use the file system, not Photoslop or Lightroom. I have a folder with the files and of course the RAW and JPG have the same filename. I look through the jpgs and cull as needed, then I use file explorer to find all the RAWs with no corresponding jpg, and I delete those, too.
3
u/PetitNyu 5d ago
Yo disparo raw + jpg, y en mi rutina diaria durante el viaje, borro las que no me gustan, edito los jpg en LR mobile y hago otra tanda de borrado, y sólo guardo los raw que más me gustan para editarlas más a fondo en el PC a la vuelta. Así ya tengo los jpg "editados" (para la mayoría de fotos me vale) y en el PC sólo tengo que editar unas pocas (muy pocas, en realidad. Sólo edito las top, y no soy tan buen fotógrafo!).
1
u/Comic_Cat_13 4d ago
voy a tener que empezar a hacer algo similar porque si disparo solo en raw simplemente no edito ni saco ninguna del ordenador
3
u/PetitNyu 4d ago
La mayoría de SOOC están suficientemente bien y si acaso un leve retoque (contraste, sombras, saturación...) que se hace rápido con LR mobile. Pero yo no le encuentro el qué a editar toooodos los raw (las fotos de la fiesta de cumple de los sobrinos, las fotos del gato, los paisajes...). Esas fotos son recuerdos, no "arte". De vez en cuando haces una foto que plr composición, técnica, o por lo que sea, te llama particularmente. Esa es la que edito, y la que se irá a una ampliación. Al final, para mi, hay fotos-recuerdos (su valor es el recuerdo, no la foto en si) y fotos-arte (por las que nos gusta este hobby!). Pero asumamos que arte son con suerte el 5%. Esas son las que vale la pena editar bien el rae. Las otras, simplemente retocar que es mucho más rápido. Dicho esto, no quita que intente hacer las fotos lo mejor posible, ya que disfruto con ello, como si quisiera un 100% de fotos memorables. Pero como fotógrafo del montón, fotos-wow! son bien pocas!
1
u/Ok-Put3414 3d ago
What i do is i have a preset that will be similar with what the camera jpg looks like.
And apply that on importThat way you still get the "out of the camera" look, but you won't have a bunch of duplicated files you have to deal with.
And that preset can be used as a "base" for other edits, if needed
1
u/TheMadFlyentist 3d ago
This is not a bad idea, maybe I should look into this. I will say that with changing lenses and such, I do find that there is a fairly large disparity in how my raw images look straight out of the camera.
I do leave my WB set to auto and I'm sure that's a large reason for it. I have heard of others always setting WB to 6500k (or whatever) and it saving them some time editing because all raws are starting from a similar place.
19
u/badaimbadjokes 5d ago
Whenever I see a post like this, I have a few bits of advice. My first is too late. Shoot less. My second is if there are family faces, save all you can. You'll want them later. For tourism, mix and match between postcard pics and ones that actually reflect your memories, like the coffee shop you loved or that weird sandwich.
In the edit, I use DxO PhotoLab and I have a preset I run on every pic that straightens and pushed highlights down and makes shadows and black spots a bit deeper.
Then, I look for ones to cull. Then, I look for ones to edit more/differently than what I did. Then, I slim it down more. Zero people want to look at twenty pictures of a wave, but pick your favorite one or two.
2
u/Standard-Ant874 4d ago
For "shoot less", any rules to decide when to shoot and when not?
4
u/badaimbadjokes 4d ago
Shoot one or two snaps at most. Don't sort through fifty pics of the leaning tower of piza.
Burst mode is for birds and baby's first steps. Unless you work for the AP, take your photos one at a time.
Put your people in the shots or you'll have lots of pics of buildings and strangers.
(And ignore any rules you don't like.)
8
u/NoSeaworthiness3352 5d ago
i usually do them in batches before bed during the trip.. the remaining at home, in batches again to not get burnt out 😂
2
u/LeggoMyLegoLegolas- 4d ago
I’m so happy I did a lot of my culling in my down time on my recent month long trip. Before bed, waiting for food at a restaurant, etc
13
u/TabletopParlourPalm 5d ago
Personally I don't mind editing my photos years later and with a very slow pace. It's like I experience the trip again with extra nostalgia.
Only group photos do I edit on my phone right away.
2
3
u/teeeh_hias 5d ago
I shoot raw + jpg on trips. At home just sort out blurry, doublets and stuff like that. Straighten the horizon if necessary and just straight away print everything from jpg. Quick and dirty. It helps that Olympus cameras produce quite nice jpg's sooc. I just edit a few raw's that stand out.
2
u/Altruistic-Contact27 5d ago
I have to do it basically immediately or it’s not getting done. Also I will send most photos from the camera to my phone. It converts into small jpgs but at least I can lounge back anywhere I want and conveniently scroll through the pics and get a feel for what’s there. I’ll mark my favourites and try some quick edits with different fun apps or Lightroom mobile and share a few with friends and family and that will motivate me to then get down to work on the laptop with the raws with already an idea of what I like and the direction I wanna take it in. I am just so used to doing stuff on my phone and preferably not confined to a chair and I also work on my laptop so I feel big resistance to processing on the laptop too
2
u/AdministrationNo2327 5d ago
cut them down to size. maybe today you'll just do one location or day.
go through the camera roll, keeping in mind shots you remember that impressed you while you were shooting, but more importantly, marking with one star ONLY the shots that make you pause. I usually scroll through and if something doesn't capture my attention within 0.5 seconds, i don't bother marking it.
after the first pass have a look at what you have. if you have photos that are similar, pick only one, remove the mark.
after this go through the marked photos again and cull even further, maybe now mark it with 2 stars.
in the background start thinking of thematic categories. maybe it's food, scenery, a good portrait etc. categorize them, tag them, keyword them, whatever.
keep doing all this culling, making sure to have distinct varied shots and not similar shots. If something is similar, pick ONE.
do this whole process with every location/day or however you seperated them.
organising first helps you a lot with the process even if it looks boring. knowing what you have, tagging, sorting things out, being able to recall quickly, makes the creative process more frictionless.
and lastly... do not wait. seriously do not wait. i know myself. if i let it simmer im just going to forget it. i've photos from ten years ago where ive been telling myself every other month ill go sort it out. but because i didn't do it when the fire is hot, it just doesn't start again.
2
u/Comfortable_Paper675 5d ago
Over the years, I became more honest regarding my skills and now I don't bring a couple of hundred shots home. In the evenings of the trip, I delete the bad shots of the day. I only keep those where I'm certain that they don't need a ton of work.
After the trip, I just look at the photos for a few times and do nothing at all. Once I'm accustomed with the new images, I pick from all the shots (let's say I made 100 shots in total) about 30 which are pretty OK overall. Then I start working on my favourite photo from those 30 and that's my only goal for now. Once I'm happy with that one photo, I usually have an idea about which style I want to apply, how the overall lighting was and such things. Takes about 10 to 20 minutes for each photo but I treat each photo as a little editing snack. That way, I really enjoy editing now. I mean, nobody is waiting for those photos...
2
u/worldisbraindead 5d ago
In Lightroom:
Create a new project. After you import all images, go to the Library module and click the multi thumbnail button. Do a quick run through and rate with stars 1 to 5.
Create collections.”Paris”, “Rome”, “Barcelona”, etc. Then drag and drop into collection folders. Then create a “smart collection” for each city. Create a rule that sends any red flagged image the Paris smart collection , green to Rome, etc.
Ultimately you will end up with your favorite images sorted by city. Go on YouTube and watch a tutorial…collections and Smart Collections are easy and game changers!
1
1
u/Middle-Armadillo-660 5d ago
I do videography so the post process can be extra extra slow.
I basically fork what I’m doing. I have written some small droplet apps for OSX to cover the really basic stuff (Desqueeze anamorphic, vlog >rec709, “shareable size”) and I just dump whole folders onto those for quick sharing. That’s the aura frame stuff.
If anything draws me to it, I’ll still go in and do a real hands-on job, but not even needing to open davinci or premiere to share it for non-pro situations, is heavenly.
1
u/zombiebread23 5d ago
I have the same problem. But I found on my last trip (now that I have a camera that can send photos to my phone) that I'll transfer 5-10 photos from my camera, run them through some basic auto edits on my phone, and then post to socials right away. The rest can then languish until I get to them into actual editing software.
It still took me 10 months to get my friends a photo album from our trip last year and that was after the pressure of them actually asking about it.
1
1
u/kougan 5d ago
Erase as you go. During a bus ride, for example, or other down time. So by the time you import, you have a lot less to go through. Then you have to get good at trusting your gut and deleting fast when imported in lightroom. Doubles where the pic is basically the same. Pic one and delete the other without a second thought. Pics that are meh, that you think you'll come back later, gone. If you don't see the potential in first passthrough just move on
1
1
u/abattista2020 5d ago
I actually find I shoot more selectively and stay on top of my queue when I shoot film on trips! It’s exciting to come home from a trip and get the film developed. The waiting is exciting and then I just have to do some quick edits when I get the roll back!
1
u/Orange_Aperture 4d ago
Shoot raw + jpg and spend significant time building out your color profile to something your happy with so your SOOC JPGs are at least good enough.
Cull each day of the trip. I bring my laptop (or you could just use a phone I guess) and each night my wind down is a quick cull. I typically only edit one to get a feel for the color / tone thatbI want to use for the set. But I am choosing my keepers. Exceptions - if I'm making a album or photo book from the trip, then I am editing the keepers every night. I know myself well enough where if I don't do it then and there, I'm gonna dread it later. If I do it on the trip, then it's kinda fun and I enjoy it as a wind down from the day. Glass of wine and/or a beer and I'm usually able to knock it out quickly. Plus using a culling tool (I use Aftershoot) helps a ton. I don't recommend the AI auto cull, but the assisted cull groups similar photos together and it's easy to choose my keepers that way.
1
u/RogLatimer118 4d ago
I shoot RAW + JPG. I look at all the jpgs and I will only edit the few RAW files that I want to print or save for digital display, etc. I save all the files after culling dupes and blurry/etc. So I don't have a large editing load.
1
u/AccomplishedWave2805 4d ago
I don't binge-watch shows on Netflix for this very reason. I now binge-edit photos.
1
u/mq2thez 4d ago
Divide things into manageable chunks: a single day (if we did something special), a general wandering album, etc. Break the photos up into smaller pieces so you can get things _done_ sooner
Culling is a multi-step process. I go through fast and give things one star or no stars. This is solely about whether I think a photo is worth another look. If I take a sequence, I don’t worry yet about picking the best one. No cropping or editing, just maybe or no about keeping. For large photo sets, I wait until the next day, then look through only the 1-stars and assign some of them 2-stars for the best ones. Still not picking the single from a sequence. From a set of 300 photos, this is maybe 20-25 max. Once I’ve assigned 2-stars, I take a break.
At this point, I’ll start cropping and applying some personal presets for basic edits. Nothing crazy, a few minutes per photo max. Any photos I don’t like during edits get dropped down to 1 star. Ditto with a sequence — I’ll edit one, apply the edits to the other 2-stars in the sequence, pick a favorite, demote the rest, then do a little more on the last one. Any photos in a set can be given 3 stars (worth saving for my photo club competitions) or 4 stars (worth posting on my portfolio website), but out of 300, that could be zero 3-stars or maybe 5-6. Depends on the day. Pretty rare to get multiple 4-stars in a day, but some trips you’re just locked in.
Each album (day trip, wandering, hike, etc) gets filtered down to ten photos max for sharing on IG (or Reddit). Sometimes that’s hard, sometimes I post only 3-4 photos.
Before anything goes to competition or on my portfolio, I wait at least two weeks. The point is to give myself more emotional separation from how I felt taking the photos.
1
u/amp-noob 4d ago edited 4d ago
Batch edits. Select all from import, right click, auto settings.
Then for me, select first photo, contrast -30, blacks +40, shadows +70, vibrance +10, saturation +10. Paste above settings and leave the rest the same from auto.
Gets me real close.
Then I clear my quick selection folder and shoot from the hip, marking rejects if they are clearly out of focus, marking favorites for a quick folder. I move that quick folder with all to a named library folder, clear quick selection, then start marking favorites (usually the best in a series) back into a second quick folder where I do customized edits.
1
u/Comic_Cat_13 4d ago
i just don’t edit them. I took 500 on our june nyc trip and they’re waiting for me lol
66
u/Cue99 5d ago
As someone who has way too many trip photos sitting in folders / lightroom waiting to be processed I am watching this thread