I pretty much agree with what Moose said, especially the part I’ve quoted
below. I am reluctant in this kind of situation to add to what he said, but I
think in this case I’ll throw caution to the wind.
My view is that we list members cannot serve as editors/selectors because we
can’t see the totality of your work. You have already edited what you show us,
and so we don’t really know what else is there. We/I assume you are showing us
the shots you already have selected as superior in some regard, and are looking
for further comment to help refine the selection. I would say, and this is just
me (I know, language police, I _am_ saying rather than _would_ say, but would
say sounds softer and less intimidating), that in roughly 99 out of 100 shots,
you know as soon as it pops on the screen whether it is worthy. You’ve been
doing this for a long, long time, and your instincts obviously have served you
well.
Trust your instincts, not us.
Disregard for the moment your work scanning older film shots. The specific
issue here is Cuba, and that’s digital. You have a lot of images. You are
overwhelmed.
Editing photos is a lot like editing text. You go over and over and over it
until you get it right. You do so with confidence and the competence born of
experience. Will you get it absolutely right? No. There are no absolutes in
this sort of thing. But you’ll get it better than “right enough.” Lightroom is
close to a perfect tool for the photo editor/selector. You have a variety of
ways to rate and rank images as you look at them. Use this tool. It will make
your life so much easier.
For example, when I took my kit to Scotland in 2013, I took a lot of images.
Not as many as you would have taken, but a lot. Each night I downloaded my
cards onto my laptop. Folders were created for each leg of the trip: Loch
Lomond-Killin; Glen Affric; Road to Skye; Skye, etc. Breaking them into folders
for each leg made the totality more manageable.
I did a bit of editing, post processing and posting while we were there, but
for the most part I left it until we got home. If you were to use this system,
you might sit down with Folder A in Library view, with the thumbnails across
the bottom of the screen and each image displayed large in the main portion of
the window. X marks any shot for deletion. I use it carefully the first time
through because I have trust issues with myself born of long experience. Out of
focus shots of the ground, my knees, the sky, as well as overexposed blobs and
dark fields get marked for deletion on the first pass. Sometimes I go ahead and
delete those so they don’t clog the LR windows.
On the second pass I begin to rate shots. If there aren’t many, which is
clearly not relevant to your situation, I flag (p-key) shots I like or think I
will like upon further examination. If I were in your situation, at this point
I would get up, get some coffee or tea, and come back to tackle the next
folder, limiting myself to only marking real stinkers for deletion and maybe,
maybe, flagging a few as potential keepers.
Then I’d go back to that first folder, and I’d go through everything not marked
for deletion. Upon second look, I might decide to unflag and few and flag a few
others. At this point I’m probably ready to select the flagged images and make
a collection of those images only. Everything else is still in Lightroom, but I
have collection set of only those images I think are likely to be keepers.
You probably know where this is going. After making the collection, I disengage
and turn my attention to some other task for a little while, maybe a few
minutes, maybe the rest of the day. Then I go back to the selection collection
and really dig in. At this point I usually switch to Develop view, even though
I may not make many, if any, actual adjustments for a few passes. I’ll start
looking at focus, objects of interest, etc. But here again, you and I differ.
When I was doing this, it was for the purpose of finding a very few images out
of the set that might make acceptable prints for sale to third parties, i.e.,
pretty pictures for tourists. I never did stock, so my numbers always have been
much lower than yours.
But I believe the principal is the same. You go over and over and over the
images, broken down any way that seems to make sense to you, and every time you
make a pass a few images don’t make the cut. What does and what doesn’t is
entirely your choice, based on your perceived use of the images. If it’s stock,
you have one set of criteria. If it’s fine art, you have another. (Images that
you know will make good stock photos, and which you think_ might make the fine
art grade can get a separate rating which later can be used to create another
collection, this time maybe 100 images out of 10,000.) Only after a number of
passes through any folder do I start post-processing.
Many of your images look to me like stock photos, interesting or informative;
they do not stir anything in me. Others, such as the Cigar Lady and one other
of your Cuba shots (I said something about it, but at the moment can’t recall
which one it was), clearly transcend stock photography and elevate themselves
to the rare air of art. I look at them and it’s like a fresh cool breeze
blowing away a cloying fog. I can _see_.
But I’m getting carried away. You can disregard most of this and just determine
to trust yourself and get on with it. If anything I’ve said about using
Lightroom as an editing tool helps, so much the better. But remember, the
advice and suggestions here are worth exactly what you paid for them. <g>
--Bob Whitmire
Certified Neanderthal
On Mar 20, 2015, at 11:48 PM, Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 3/20/2015 7:18 PM, Tina Manley wrote:
>> Thank you, Scott. Obviously, I don't keep up. ;-)
>> I'm about to go over the edge.
>
> It seems to me that several things are going on here. My observations:
>
> 1. It seems to me there is a problem of definition confusing folks. You
> continue to use the word 'editing' to mean something more like parsing,
> winnowing selecting, rating - the process of selecting from a vast array of
> images those worth looking at a second or third time and possibly of
> processing into finished images.
>
> To many on this list, perhaps even most, 'editing' is analogous to the use of
> the same word in its original context, reworking the details of a text piece
> into a finished manuscript. In that sense, it tends to be synonymous with
> 'post processing'.
>
> So you keep saying you want help with 'editing', when you mean selecting, and
> many of us/we/I, hear 'processing into a finished product'.
<snip>
--
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