Photography Workflow Revisited

A Photography Workflow, or the sequence of steps one takes in processing a picture, is broadly fairly simple (capture; process, print and/or post). But within those steps tooling and personal preference can result in a number of variations.

After capture, the processing step is supported by many tools, including Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, Nik Software, etc.  Until recently Lightroom was my primary choice.  Not only does it provide strong tooling for processing it provides a searchable database to host the pictures.  However, its processing capabilities remain less than other packages such as Nik Software, Photoshop etc.  For example it (Lightroom 4) does not support HDR processing, creation of panoramas, etc.

Over the last few months I have introduced Nik Software tools into my workflow as an endpoint of a processing sequence that starts with Lightroom.   Lightroom, for example, allows me to make changes upon changes, overlaying them ad infinitum without actually changing the original picture.  So, like a word processor which has an undo button, changes made to the picture can be reversed.   it is this point (referred to as “non-destructive” editing) that is considered most compelling.  Nik Software on the other hand preserves the original by taking a copy of the Lightroom edited version and then applies edits directly to that copy.  So while the the original Lightroom version remains intact, the copy taken is physically altered.  There is no undo.  Thus it is an endpoint: process first with Lightroom, get things “right” then finalise with a Nik tool or Photoshop.

First impression one might view encoding  the picture into an un-revserable form as a limitation; a level of commitment many might be reluctant to make.   More recently i have considered some of the benefits:

• A means of finalizing the processing or at least hardening a version.
  This is not  dissimilar from making a print. Once committed to paper the picture is set. 
• A means to share a version among other tools
  The edited Lightroom copy cannot be directly shared with other packages. But the Nik Software stores the files in a tif format which is widely supported by other packages.  This enables one to share the fully processed version. This is handy to leverage capabilities not available in Lightroom

While similar hardening of pictures can be got within Lightroom, if one needs to use other tools then it is important to figure out how to fit their artifacts into your workflow.