Easier Archiving/Workflow

[nightfly]

I'm sick of my workflow. It takes forever and has become a burden that keeps me from working with my photos. I'm hoping someone might have something easier.

Here's what I'm doing:

1) Shoot film (fun)
2) Develop film (moderately fun or at least meditative)
3) Dry film and sleeve, label sheet by year-roll (2008-001)
4) Scan negative sheet on flatbed
5) View sheet at 100% or more in Photoshop to find selects
6) Scan selected frames using Epson 4990 in Photoshop with Epson TWAIN driver (can do about 6 frames in 10-15 minutes or so)
7) Crop/spot
8) Create adjustment layers for levels and curves (and colors if color)
9) Save as PSD with layer (huge file)
10) Flatten file and lower bit depth save as TIF for printing (half the size)
11) Re-size file down to 800 as the longest dimension, save as JPEG for web

So no I have 3 files with the same name roll-frame in a folder of year/roll but different extensions (.psd,.tif,.jpg). So (001-25.psd, 001-25.tif, 001-25.jpg in folder 001)

12) Open up iViewMedia Pro and proceed to label/tag/etc (this step often happens much later if at all)

Occasionally, I actually print one by sharpening the TIF version.

I envy people who plug their little point and shoots in and suck everything into iPhoto.

Is there an easier way?

 

[Maxapple88]

Well..

I shoot, develop, dry, archive in folders noting down: date, film type, rating, developer and developing time, then i look at the negatives under a loupe, preview scan most of them and finally scan the ones I want digitalized. Doesn't take very long.

I barely do any retouching, I get very good results straight from the scan I'd like to think. For the scans I simply have a folder archive for year, month, maybe week on an external HD. I only resize a selection for the ones I want to post online, the rest are scanned at 3600dpi.

 

[jlw]

You could use VueScan to do your scans, which would allow you to save them in DNG format, and then manage your DNG masters in an application such as Adobe Lightroom. This would eliminate the need to generate and store so many different file formats for different purposes.

You'd still have to do cropping/curve setting, and you'd have to open the files in Photoshop to spot out all the dust specks, so there still would be a lot of tedium in the process.

This is exactly the sort of thing that drives many of us to use digital cameras. If you're committed to film, you might be better off sticking to the traditional "wet" workflow to make contact sheets and prints of your selects, then just scan the prints if you need an occasional digital image.

 

[CraigK]

A few suggestions:

1) Shoot film (fun)
2) Develop film (moderately fun or at least meditative)
3) Dry film and sleeve, label sheet by year-roll (2008-001)
4) Scan negative sheet on flatbed
5) View sheet at 100% or more in Photoshop to find selects

In many cases, I avoid all of the above by shooting XP2 (or NPH for colour) and having it developed and scanned at the local Shopper's Drug Mart (a chain of drug stores in Canada...not sure of the US or overseas equivalent). The price for the C41 dev. + a disk of all negs (no prints) is a penny less than 3 bucks. I usually bring in my own printfile sleeve for them to use instead of their sleeves.

When I get home, I pop the disk in and save the images to a folder marked with the necessary data. I import the files to Lightroom and rename them. The scans are usually pretty good, certainly fine for web use and for looking to see which ones I want to print. The only real caveat is that once in a while I've had some scratches on the roll..but for three bucks, I will live with that. Really important rolls I do myself, by hand.

6) Scan selected frames using Epson 4990 in Photoshop with Epson TWAIN driver (can do about 6 frames in 10-15 minutes or so)
7) Crop/spot
8) Create adjustment layers for levels and curves (and colors if color)
9) Save as PSD with layer (huge file)
10) Flatten file and lower bit depth save as TIF for printing (half the size)
11) Re-size file down to 800 as the longest dimension, save as JPEG for w

Two words: Light+room. Make it your friend. Once your images are imported, from your scans or the store's scans, you can do all of the above without making huge psd files and then save them in whatever format, size, drive, folder etc. etc. you wish with a couple of clicks.

12) Open up iViewMedia Pro and proceed to label/tag/etc (this step often happens much later if at all)

Occasionally, I actually print one by sharpening the TIF version.

I envy people who plug their little point and shoots in and suck everything into iPhoto.

See above. Feel the love from the folks at Adobe

Is there an easier way?

I probably sound like a fanboy of Lightroom by now, it is not without its faults, but since I have been using it, the chaotic pile of negs/scans/folders disks and drives that used to be scattered around my room is now....well it is still a chaotic pile, but it is in recovery....

Oh, I should mention that the 60K negatives I took before I began going the XP2 scan to disk route are scanned one sheet at a time on an epson 4990 as well. The scans are then imported to lightroom and dealt with there. I should be done all of them by about 2057.

 

[nightfly]

I will look into Lightroom. Just dropping a step or two out of the process would really help. I know I'm always going to want to adjust curves and levels, since there is a certain look I like. If Lightroom or Aperture had a TWAIN driver, so I could scan right into it, that would help a lot so the organization would come before the saving but they are both made for digital folks.

As far as XP2 goes, I really don't like C-41 film. It looks too grey and lacks the grit and punch of real black and white film for me. If I were going to go that route, I'd go digital since I feel like digital black and white has much the same look as C-41 film.
I also don't trust anyone to develop my film. It's really the scanning, not the developing that kills me.

I'm very happy with the quality of prints that I get digitally, and there is no way I'd go back to a wet darkroom, it's just the tedium of organizing everything that gets me.

Thanks for the hints.

 

[jslabovitz]

Auto-import!

Auto-import!

If Lightroom or Aperture had a TWAIN driver, so I could scan right into it, that would help a lot...

LR has an auto-import feature (aka "hot folder"). If you set up your TWAIN software to save scans into a certain folder, you can configure LR to automatically import the scans. You can even have LR assign keywords, perform developing presets, and set metadata.

I haven't actually used this feature yet, but it does look cool.

 

[projectbluebird]

...
10) Flatten file and lower bit depth save as TIF for printing (half the size)
Is there an easier way?

TIFFs are extremely time/resource intensive, is there a reason you can't print directly from photoshop? You've already got a non-lossy format with the .psd, if you're concerned about image quality.

 

[nightfly]

I just figure if I need to send a file to be printed or if I just want my last final version, it's nice to have the tif and faster to open and use than the psd. I can bring it into iPhoto if I want an Apple book or card or something and the format is more amenable to this than a PSD.

I think of it as the sort of dodged and burned final while I think of the PSD as the negative itself. Probably just my old fashioned thinking. But since I compress the layers and half the bit depth, it's half the size of the PSD. The PSD is actually the real resource intensive file.