Shoot More, Process Less

Try these simple rules, and you’ll be able to spend less time in front of your computer screen and more time in the field making photographs

By Nick Carver

Labels: How-To, Camera Technique, Computers & Periphals, Digital Darkroom

This Article Features Photo Zoom

Take A Break
4 Avoid “Monitor Eyes”
You undoubtedly spend a fair amount of time at the computer, no matter how much you work to minimize it; it’s the nature of digital photography. When working at your computer, be sure to give your eyes a rest. Eye fatigue is common and easily written off as a minor problem when spending hours at your computer. Your blink rate can drop to just one-third or less of the eyes’ normal rate when doing computer work, resulting in severely dry eyes. Additionally, focusing on a near object such as your computer screen for extended periods of time is strenuous on eye muscles.

To remedy these problems, eye professionals recommend the “20/20/20 rule.” This means that after 20 minutes of computer work, look at something at least 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds. This gives your eyes a chance to rest and regain a healthy tear film and helps avoid painful, bloodshot eyes. Ask your optometrist about eyewear specifically designed to reduce eyestrain from computer monitors. Availing yourself of these glasses is a great preventative measure even if you have perfect vision. Furthermore, beware of carpal tunnel syndrome due to extended periods at the keyboard and mouse. Help avoid it by taking frequent breaks, practicing good posture when typing and using keyboard and mouse wrist rests.

While computers give us a number of incredible tools for enhancing and improving our photographs, it’s only too easy to get distracted from the photographs and photography when we get too wrapped up in the digital side of things. If you find that your cameras are collecting dust while your computer is constantly overheating from rendering various Photoshop plug-ins, it’s time for a quick reality check. As powerful as Photoshop is, it primarily should be used for enhancing, not fixing, an image. Simple things like using a split ND filter or keeping your sensor clean can dramatically reduce the amount of time you spend using the computer. Bottom line: If you’re struggling with an image in Photoshop, it’s probably time to reshoot. After all, isn’t taking pictures really more fun anyway?

Keep in mind that postproduction isn’t a step to be despised or avoided. It’s a necessary and vital tool to creating great photographs. But if it’s behind the viewfinder in the great outdoors where you most like to be, keep these tips in mind to help make postproduction just another element of the whole photographic process and not the dominating factor in your photography. After all, would you rather spend your time clicking the shutter or clicking the mouse?

5 Edit Efficiently
Even with an efficient workflow, it’s necessary to build up your editing speed so that your images go from capture to print (or upload) in the shortest possible time frame. If you’re like me at all, you can sometimes get a little too trivial in your editing process. The never-ceasing battle over which composition is better, which white-balance setting is most accurate, how much saturation is too much and, yes, even which cloud-cover pattern is best can consume an exorbitant amount of your time, often with very little return. Chances are these minor differences in a set of pictures won’t make or break the final image.

Have you ever truly regretted not picking “that other one?” Take the approach they taught you in high school for the SATs: Stick with your first choice. If one image seems like a winner to you, commit to it. The longer you sit and ponder over all the minor differences between shots, the more likely you are to overthink it and choose the wrong one. This actually is a skill and is something that you can practice and get better at. Although it’s important to be rigorous and uncompromising in your editing, don’t devote so much time to it that it begins to eclipse what really matters—getting new material. Thoroughness and swiftness aren’t mutually exclusive. The quicker you edit, the sooner your images can start making you money.

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Franco makes this comment

Thursday, 19 March 2009

hi im new to the world of photography and i want to know if you guys have any advice for me... i thought this article was very very goodo advice.
Roger makes this comment

Monday, 23 February 2009

This is a very timely article and well written. With all due respect to Kay, I agree with Tony's coment about shooting more in 'A' than 'S' because I believe he is referring to the Aperture Mode. What you were referring to as the auto mode is actually the 'P' mode. I also shoot most of the time in 'A' to control DOF rather than the 'S', unless I am dealing with motion. Otherwise combining 'A' with the exposure compensation passes it for the manual shooting mode. Roger
Tom D makes this comment

Tuesday, 10 February 2009

I needed this article to remind myself why I actually became interested in photography in the first place and it had nothing to do with the computer. Here's my advice. Take your camera with you every day and use every opportunity to shoot.
Kay makes this comment

Tuesday, 10 February 2009

Very good advice; I just don't agree with Tony on shooting more in "A" than "S". I know a lot of people shoot in auto and that's ok. My opinion on that is, to get the most you can out of your work, manual is the only way to shoot. Learn your camera and it's settings; become the photographer you know you can be and understand what each setting does and what it's effect will be to the final image. Auto mode is for people who aren't really serious about photography. That's my two cents worth.
Burt Crapo makes this comment

Tuesday, 10 February 2009

Digital took the need to pre-visualize the shot and craft the images and minimalized it by making everything available now on the LCD. With film you had to get the shot right. With digital the dominant attitude is 'if I don't get it right I can fix it in Photoshop'. I teach my students to visualize the shot first, then see it in the view finder and make the two match on the film/CCD. The less they have to do in Photoshop the better. I teach Photoshop as if it were a darkroom setup. Workflow is as key to successful results in using Photoshop and minimizing time at the keyboard as it is in the darkroom. Glad to see articles like this are being written. Burt Crapo
Tony makes this comment

Tuesday, 10 February 2009

1) "the best place to start is at the lens. Do as much to the image as you can in-camera and on location." That has to be the best advice here, to start improving (and time saving!) 2) "getting the exposure correct in the first frame" ... yip, and maybe relying more on "A" than "S"? Many thanks for these practical reminders. The only real post production fun is the saturation one, which you can do especially on the ones that didn't make it first time! P.S.love the Photo Zoom!
Steve makes this comment

Thursday, 22 January 2009

Very nice photos.

How-To

Shoot More, Process Less

Try these simple rules, and you’ll be able to spend less time in front of your computer screen and more time in the field making photographs

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