Workflow Question

[david mcwilliams]

I’m probably over analyzing but I’ll ask anyway.

What I’m trying to reduce is a bunch or re-processing when a client

[Henry Gilbey]

David – maybe I am doing something wrong, but I very rarely crop my images for clients. Not for any real reason other than I have found that clients I work with tend to like having the freedom to crop as they see fit, if indeed they want or need to.

I do resize my images and store them separately, but that’s just for web, blog and sample use.

I very rarely crop my stuff – unless I have messed the horizon up a bit and need to straighten it out !! Guilty as charged from time to time when things get hectic…….

[John Bennett]

David – maybe I am doing something wrong, but I very rarely crop my images for clients. Not for any real reason other than I have found that clients I work with tend to like having the freedom to crop as they see fit, if indeed they want or need to.

I do resize my images and store them separately, but that’s just for web, blog and sample use.

I very rarely crop my stuff – unless I have messed the horizon up a bit and need to straighten it out !! Guilty as charged from time to time when things get hectic…….

I am with Henry completely.If I were to guess what percentage of my images are cropped I would say 2%.  There’s a number of reasons for this but most echo his statement. I’m going to highlight two important ones.

First being.
Clients and publishers often desire/need the latitude to do that themselves. If ‘ve gone ahead and cropped the image some, then it makes further cropping tougher, perhaps un doable. Which means they are coming back to me for the original. Not good that.

Second being
Misrepresentation. “Suppose” a potential client is perusing your website/portfolio/work and they see something that “clicks” with what they are looking for. However unbeknown to them, it’s an ijmage thats been cropped (perhaps a fair amount). Maybe the crop was to remove something unsightly or distracting in the BG, or Maybe the crop was to change the perspective, or make the subject fill more of the frame.

They contact you…”Hi, I’ve been perusing your work and I would like to discuss buyng the rights to image abc. Could you please send us a high res file, printable 22 x11 300dpi…..or larger

And the cropped version doesnt cut it.

It’s not as far fetched as you think. I know some shooters who are in the habit of cropping and who have “lost” sales to some nice commercial uses because they’ve had to respond.

Thank you for the enquiry but I am unable to meet your request. So not only have they lost that sale, they’ve probably lost potential future ones to.

Here’s how I approach my workflow. It changes a bit image to image but this fits *generally*.

First pass with the original RAW file. If needed minor corrections to exposure/tones and a light dose of sharpening..”capture sharpening”. Which in essence is correcting “softness” in all raw files that come about due to the strength of your bodies AA filter. In a word replacing that which is lost.

Save as Master file in a holding folder.
If it’s a file I want to “display” for myself, my friends, my family, use as a sample of something, I then copy or save as and continue working on it with the last step being output sharpening to match size.

The “master” files are then there to further adj as needed, when needed. If Im asked to prep an image to a specific size I can. If a magazine picks up an image for use as a cover on 8.5 x 11 or as a double truck 8.5 x 22 they can crop and sharpen as they see fit and need.

J

[Ben Cochran]

I am a bit different on this. If it is for commercial use, I try to shoot wider as to leave plenty of room for gutter and bleed or slag. For illustrative, I will crop down to what I would of normally framed but I am trying to get away from shooting that tight, as I have a terrible habit of framing for my intended personal finals, got this bad habit from to much fun in closed framing recreational photography. I will sometimes put reminders in my bag, to remind me to shoot for the gutter and possible bleed.

Agree 100% with above, about keeping the original’s at 100% so that the GA’s have more data to work with.

[david mcwilliams]

Thanks for the input.

My delima is I’m new to the web portfolio thing (think photoshelter).  If I’m shooting an event (e.g. retirement pary), sizing is not such a concern – I know who will view the pictures and the normal sizes for print.  But for work that could be viewed by anyone and picked for any medium I’ve no experience.

Just for clarification, here’s what I’m doing currently… is this in-line with what ya’ll have described?

COPY 1 – The ORIGINAL file.  Unedited, straight from the camera, never to be modified.

COPY 2 – The “CORRECTED” file.  “Basic” & minor corrections, whatever it may need to “pull the image” out from the camera’s recording… NO RESIZING, and no over the top photoshop.

COPY 3 – The PORTFOLIO file, for display on a portfolio website (e.g. photoshelter, smugmug, etc).  RESIZED for web publishing, occasionaly liberties taken via additional editing to add effect or mood.

Any risks with this methodology?

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