In the garden in May last year

GardenersHelper

GardenersHelper

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Nick
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I have dipped into my backlog again. These are from a day in May last year. The images were captured hand-held as RAW with my FZ200 bridge camera and a close-up lens, probably a Raynox 150 for most or all of them, and a KX800 twin flash, at 1/1600 sec and f/8 (equivalent to f/45 on full frame).

Processing involved:
  • Picking a longlist in Faststone Image Viewer
  • Batch processing the longlist raw files in DXO Optics Pro, output as DNG files
  • Batch processing the DNG files in Silkypix Developer Pro, output as TIFF files
  • Shortlisting the TIFF files in Lightroom and applying image-specific adjustments
  • Outputting the shortlist from Lightroom as 1300 pixel high JPEGs
  • Quality and consistency review of the shortlist JPEGs in XNView, and for some
    • Adjustments of the TIFF file in Lightroom and reexport as JPEG
    • noise reduction of JPEG background in Nik Dfine
    • rejection
  • Reordering and renaming the JPEGs in Faststone Image Viewer
Of the 450 captured raw files 165 were in the longlist, 45 were in the shortlist and one was rejected from the shortlist. There are 1300 pixel high versions of the 44 final images in this album at Flickr.

#1

1061 04 2016_05_25 P1240086_DxO RAW01a100 SP7 LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#2

1061 07 2016_05_25 P1240090_DxO RAW01a100 SP7 LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#3 This unfortunate one was in a very sorry state. Not a pleasant image I'm afraid. It looks like something had taken a big bite out of it and it had managed to escape.

1061 12 2016_05_25 P1240150_DxO RAW01a100 SP7 LR 1300h Df by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#4

1061 17 2016_05_25 P1240220_DxO RAW01a100 SP7 LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#5

1061 21 2016_05_25 P1240259_DxO RAW01a100 SP7 LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#6

061 33 2016_05_25 P1240408_DxO RAW01a100 SP7 LR 1300h Df by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#7

1061 36 2016_05_25 P1240433_DxO RAW01a100 SP7 LR 1300h Df by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#8

1061 38 2016_05_25 P1240438_DxO RAW01a100 SP7 LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
 
Wow, some very detailed sharp images
 
alfbranch said:
Very nice as usual Nick
The last shot is my fave
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Thanks Alf.

davholla said:
Very nice, the cockchafer I really like as I rarely see them.
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Thanks David. It was a pity it was in such a sorry state, but that is nature at work I suppose. Given the springtail on it, I think it may have been hanging there for a while. I certainly didn't see it move, and I spent a fair amount of time trying to get a good shot of it.
 
ChrisA said:
All very well shot Nick as usual. Love the pose on the cricket. Face on the spider is excellent.
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Thanks Chris.

ChrisA said:
Is there a reason you don't just pick the shortlist before the batch processing ? I tend to delete to a small number before processing personally.
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I typically eliminate the majority of the images in the first run in Faststone (in this case rejecting 285 of the 450 captures). This is very fast as I am skipping through the embedded JPEGs so there is no waiting time between shots. If there is nothing immediately obviously wrong I press the tag key otherwise the arrow key to move to the next one. So I sit there with one finger on each key and move through at about 1 to 2 seconds per image. If there is any doubt in my mind I select an image. I don't stop to consider or compare - I take each one on its own (de)merits. Even if I come across a batch of pretty much identical images which seem ok I just tag them all. So even for multiple hundreds of images this stage is quite fast. It is also very easy, on my eyes and my brain (I can listen to a podcast or whatever while doing this).

The tagged images are the longlist, which I then batch process. This takes some time when DXO is involved, 30 to 60 seconds per image depending on the camera. It took a couple of hours to do the 165 images in this longlist. This stage would obviously take much less time if I shortlsted first, but the shortlisting takes significantly longer if I do it before the batch processing, because until the batch processing is done I can't really tell what the images are likely to end up looking like, for example whether the images are going to be sharp/detailed/clear enough, and the batch processing evens out the brightness/shadows/highlights too, which I may have to take time adjusting if I do the selection before the batch processing.

The shortlisting is then done in Lightroom, where I can do a bit of adjustment on one image and copy the settings to other similar ones, which again makes it easier and quicker to do the comparisons and selection. Actually, I realise now that the process I described in the top post isn't quite right. The shortlisting is a two stage process. When I'm going through the longlist in Lightroom I decide not to proceed with some (often a lot) of them, typically because I don't think the image quality is adequate or I can't make a decent composition out of it. I mark up the ones that do look ok. This may still include a number of near duplicates/very similar images. I export all the marked up ones to 1300 high JPEG and then go through them in Faststone, reordering them in a sequence that I think looks ok. I then pick one of each near duplicate/very similar subset and drop the others from that subset.

So I end up with a sequence I'm happy with in the sense that it doesn't feel too repetitive to me. I'm sure other people look at the Flickr albums and think there are far too many similar images and I should just pick the best ones. I try to do that when I post on forums, but at Flickr I prefer to keep the same images and sequences that I have on my PC, the choices of images for which are for my personal taste and preference - and I like sequences. And I can pick from these more extensive sets later for display on forums, and select different ones for different forums or purposes, e.g. sometimes using a whole subset/sequence if there is some interest in it as discussion evolves.

So I do the batch processing before selecting down from the longlist to the shortlist so as to minimise the amount of time I spend on the the images. The PC spends a long time chuntering away, but this elapsed time doesn't matter to me. I can be doing other things, on or off of the PC. DXO is well behaved. Although it uses all the processing power it can get its hands on, it yields to other processes very quickly and politely. In performance terms when I'm surfing, drafting, doing image-specific processing etc I don't notice the difference. The only slight issue is that the fans are noisy as the PC is working full pelt the whole time. But I can live with that.

Overall, in terms of the amount of time I have to put into the process, this current process is the least demanding of my time and effort of any I have yet used, despite the fact that it sounds so long-winded and complicated.
 
The first stage sounds similar to what I do. Note I use bridge.

1) Open them all up - hammer the delete key on all out of focus/missed/ or I immediately dislike.
2) Open up all remaining and see if any are stacks - output to seperate folder and stack. If good keep / else delete. I can do this later or at the time I do it. Depends.
3) Open up all remaining and remove duplicates - selecting best / sharpest.
4) Open up all remaining ( which should now be a small number ) - do ACR adjustments.
5) Tag keywords
6) Save to JPEG. And then maybe adjust some stuff in Photoshop.

I tend to listen to stuff whilst doing this. I don't batch unless stacking - but then Helicon is pretty fast even with a few images.

Always good to hear how others work. Thanks for the info Nick.
 
ChrisA said:
The first stage sounds similar to what I do. Note I use bridge.

1) Open them all up - hammer the delete key on all out of focus/missed/ or I immediately dislike.
2) Open up all remaining and see if any are stacks - output to seperate folder and stack. If good keep / else delete. I can do this later or at the time I do it. Depends.
3) Open up all remaining and remove duplicates - selecting best / sharpest.
4) Open up all remaining ( which should now be a small number ) - do ACR adjustments.
5) Tag keywords
6) Save to JPEG. And then maybe adjust some stuff in Photoshop.

I tend to listen to stuff whilst doing this. I don't batch unless stacking - but then Helicon is pretty fast even with a few images.

Always good to hear how others work.
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Indeed so, so thanks for sharing your workflow Chris.

Presumably you keep the originals in case you want to have another go at them some other time? (Archive organisation and backups - another whole story!)
 
Tintin124 said:
Some cracking shots you have been hiding Nick.... :D

The last Crab spider is awesome (y)
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holty said:
stunning shots
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Thanks both.

The backlog is getting smaller Bryn, but rather slowly. I haven't counted but hopefully there are a few more half decent ones hiding away in the pile. Possibly even a few more closer in ones like the last Crab spider one, although as you know that isn't really my thing.
 
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