ISSUE 122
28 / WORKFLOW
Invest in smart solutions to revolutionise workflow
Making faster edits, sorting your colours, managing your catalogue of images and retouching like a pro are all within your grasp
Ask the layman what it’s called to digitally alter a photo, and
the word Photoshop will likely be the term bandied about. That’s for good reason, as it’s the most well-known digital manipulation software that can do loads of different things. It’s packed with features, but that also makes it complicated to learn fully. Its stripped-back sister software, Adobe Lightroom, can do much of the heavy lifting that Photoshop can, and also adds smarter cataloguing features to help you find and rate your work. It’s cheaper and simpler too. If you’re happy with the Adobe suite and can afford its monthly subscription fee, then you have lots of power at your disposal. But it’s far from the only way to make great edits, and in many cases doesn’t go far enough for more specialist needs. There are loads of other hardware and software considerations that can make your life easier or your final results more polished. So let’s take a look at what you can do to make some seriously good changes. Garbage in equals garbage out It’s imperative to get your images as close as possible to what you want at the taking stage, rather than fixing it in Photoshop. That means the right exposure and white balance – even if you’re shooting Raw. When serious photographers all shot on slide film, you really had to get it right at the taking stage in terms of
and flash. Powered by a smartphone app, it means your colour and exposure will be correct every time. That helps significantly when it’s time to get the images onto the computer. Stay clutter-free If you’re like so many photographers, you’ll have thousands of images cluttering up lots of different external hard drives. Now, there’s a smarter way to search, sort and cull them. Excire Foto’s AI-powered photo organisation software scans images and generates precise, descriptive keywords for you. It recognises subjects, objects, colours, scenes and more. So there’s no need to remember folder or filenames. Simply type in what you’re looking for – such as ‘black motorcycle’ – and let the software find it instantly. Excire’s duplicate photo detection groups identical and similar images together too, so you can easily compare and delete what you don’t need. Facial recognition and filtering lets you search for individuals or group shots based on age, expression or even emotion. Consistency is key Now it’s time to actually look at the images and start working on them. For that, accurate colour is essential, so you need to carefully calibrate your
monitor. Editing images on a display that has a colour cast, is too bright or too dark means the final output will look different from what you intended. Monitor, phone and printers all interpret colour differently. Over time, even the best monitors will drift out of whack as well, so calibration needs to become part of your regular routine. You can buy dedicated colour devices from Datacolor and Calibrite, which can work on many kinds of monitor – although not all screens offer complete adjustability. But a really sleek solution is to invest in one of Eizo’s latest Coloredge monitors, built specifically for creative use rather than general-purpose computer monitor screens. Eizo’s latest offer a wide colour range – including Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 for HDR – uniform brightness and superb reproduction. The CG Series comes with their own built-in sensor and Color Navigator software, allowing for automatic calibration without needing anything else. So you know you always have the right colours when starting your edit. Use the power of AI tools Truly mastering photo editing takes years of learning, but there’s a way to not only speed up your editing, but
exposure and choosing the right film stock to match the light. You needed a decent light meter, and it was largely down to experience to select the right colour stock. Nowadays, you can simply check your exposure on the LCD screen, but it’s best to use the histogram, blinking highlights and to set a custom white balance. Or invest in a device like Datacolor’s Lightcolor Meter, which measures both intensity and colour temperature for any light source. That includes natural light, tungsten, LED
SCREEN TEST Monitors like this Eizo Coloredge (above) come with built-in calibration and Zoner’s software (below) makes masks quick and easy, with help from AI
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