A Workflow for Traveling

ggbutcher

I've been messing around with shooting and PP alternatives for what I like to do when I travel, that being shoot during the day, and select-edit-post in the evening. I bought the Windows tablet I've discussed elsewhere for that, and I've been playing with the various PP softwares. I'm a rank amateur with not a lot of funding, so free/inexpensive is the watchword.

I've been shooting NEF+JPEG and just NEF, trying out the various alternatives for staying high-gamut in my PP, and I've come to the conclusion that for my travel workflow, raw is just not worth the time. My final product is mostly a 640x480 JPEG, so any posterization produced by exposure tweaking isn't that noticeable, at least to me. Last night, I switched to JPEG-only and took pictures at a hockey game, one of the better ones is on PAD. Afterward, I just stuck the camera card into a USB reader on the tablet, used the Windows File Explorer to select, the Metro Photos app to edit, and my old favorite Porta to make a web album. I'd like to find a way to do the select and web album steps in Metro too, that might take software not made yet. And, I'd like to have some sharpening tool in the Metro Photos app, but the rest of it works really (surprisingly) well for basic editing. No, it's not LR+PS+Topaz+etc., but it seems to fill the bill, JPEGs to the web.

What it came down to was, I was looking for a fast, convenient alternative for basic raw conversion, and what I found is that the camera is both. Also, the PP I need most is for straightening, cropping, and some exposure optimization, and the lightweight programs like Picasa or the Windows Photos app work just fine for that.

All that said, I still would like to have the NEF in case I get a particularly good picture that might see other final formats such as printing. So, I may have found use for the camera mode where NEFs go to one card and JPEGs to the other; at the end of the day I can just throw the NEF card in the bag for archiving later, and have a card with just the JPEGs to mess with.

I'm posting these thoughts and experiences because, when I stepped up my photography past snapshooting, the alternatives just exploded into a vast quagmire, one that has stymied my shooting progress. I'm finally settling into a workflow that should get me back to productive shooting, and I want to both lay it out for others going through the same thing, and to get the feedback this forum is so good at producing...

sevencrossing

I

.......... I still would like to have the NEF in case I get a particularly good picture that might see other final formats such as printing. So, I may have found use for the camera mode where NEFs go to one card and JPEGs to the other; at the end of the day I can just throw the NEF card in the bag for archiving later, .......

That seems an excellent idea to me
Just make sure your numbering, storing, back up and filing makes system, allows you to quickly and easily to find that all important NEF file from the information on the jpeg

Pistnbroke

Well I dont like the 640x480 you should stick with the max your camera will produce but certainly JPEG large basic at +9 sharpening is where I live and I am not moveing house anytime soon.
Everything is run though lightroom for crop/exp adjust if neccessary and often Perfectly Clear to up the shaddows.

ggbutcher

@Pistnbroke, I'm generating max jpegs with +9 sharpening in the camera. After looking closely at last night's images, however, I might back off the sharpening a bit, getting artifacts. I end up with 640x480s for posting, but I'm keeping the original jpegs, for now...

I'm glad you responded; it's your previous posts that got me to considering this approach.

@sevencrossing, I've written an exiftool command to rename my files with the date/time of capture and a few other tidbits. I'm going to test it to make sure I get identical left-hand-sides for the NEF and JPEGs.

Pistnbroke

Well you can get what in the video world is called ringing ..like a white halo around contrasty objects .I find that 100% crops (1/10 sensor area) are quite acceptable and you need to go in to 400% to see any ringing. Even going down to +7 will give a big reduction in sharpness.

Pistnbroke

I spoke to GG and he said he artifact turned out to be a line .....so he is back to +9 and happy.
Thought I would say that so that the told you so brigade could re test there kit...

ggbutcher

+9

KnockKnock

I can't speak to the Surface, but my portable workflow definitely involves shooting RAW to one card, and shooting small or medium JPEG to another, specifically an Eye-Fi which transfers small images to tablet quickly.

RAW should always be captured full resolution.

If there's anything I truly love from working with the JPEG's, I can put on my reading glasses, and actually use the camera to "develop" the RAW in-camera. The tools I want are all there including Nikon's special sauce - the best RAW conversion that exists + white balance, ADR, distortion correction etc. Then save that as a JPEG and transfer it to the tablet in whichever size is required.