Lesson 6: Digital Workflow

Introduction to the digital workflow.

This week we’re going to talk about (almost) everything that happens after you’ve hit the shutter and taken an image. This is what we call a workflow, which you can think of as a pipeline or a conveyor belt. Each step takes the result from the previous task and modifies the image, giving it to the next task in line. The whole process of organising your images and other multimedia files in something relatively organised bears the somewhat pompous name of digital asset management (DAM). You will have to pay attention to it sooner or later. The earlier you organise yourself, the easier and less time-consuming it will be.

Most of this lesson will be aimed at those shooting on mirrorless or DSLR cameras who want to organise their images onto a computer. There are some completely cloud-based options for mobile shooters, but we’ll mostly consider this outside this lesson's scope.

Chelsea London © 2024. iPhone X | Automatic settings; edited in Lightroom Mobile

Software

Before we look at the things that we can do with your images after capture, we need to look at one of the most critical pieces in your workflow; the software. Yes, you can simply copy your images into dated folders on your hard drive, but digital asset management (DAM) software is incredibly powerful and can provide a lot of worth in organizing your images, and in finding them afterwards.

Ever tried to find that one photo taken 5 years ago, but you can’t exactly remember where you took it or where it’s located on a pile of hard drives or a mess of folders on your computer? DAM software (and a little bit of organisation by you) should help you find photos in a situation like this and make your life easier. These pieces of software are in another class from those that can simply read and allow you to edit a raw file - though most of these have those capabilities also. These applications allow you to organize your images, apply and use tags, search and edit metadata, and many other powerful tools.

Here is a short, but not completely exhaustive list of DAM software:

Which particular software you choose is almost completely up to you. The majority of professionals are still using Adobe Lightroom or Capture One, though other players are emerging in ON1 and DxO PhotoLab. Options like Darktable, Ansel (a fork of Darktable), and digiKam offer great free and open-source solutions for enthusiasts who aren’t sure about dropping a chunk of cash on software - or adding to the seemingly ever-increasing list of monthly subscriptions.