Best method to acquire album photo selections if shooting RAW?

[marissa_c._boucher]

Hi there,

 

I've racked my brain trying to think of the most efficient way to handle client

album orders when it comes to gathering their album photo selections, and have

continued to come up short. Hoping that my fellow RAW shooters can offer some

better methods.

 

Being a RAW shooter, I've found it very difficult to quickly assemble client's

album image selections once they've been submitted/chosen.

 

Currently I proof my images online with Collages.net and their software will

actually take a clients album selection folder online and assemble those images

from my actual hard drive into a folder. Perfect right? Wrong, since I shoot RAW

I need to be working/processing off of the RAW files, not the JPEGs. The JPEGs

are only used to get their images online quickly for proofing. I'm not going to

process my album images from quickly processed JPEGs that were made from basic

RAW image adjustments so you can see my dilemma.

 

If they choose 100-200 images for their album you can imagine how long it would

take to find the corresponding RAW files even if I have the filenames or JPEG

files in a folder already. Especially since the weddings have already been

categorized into different folders (pre-ceremony, ceremony, reception, etc.)

 

One method that I've used (which feels pre-historic, lol) is having the client

send me a word doc with their album selection filenames in comma separated

format. Then I take those image numbers and paste them into windows' search

feature and select the client's main wedding folder as the search area. This

brings up the JPEGs and RAW files at the same time. It works, but it still

leaves some room for error by my employees because you have to be pretty tedious

with it all.

 

What I would love to see as far as new features in Lightroom or Bridge is a way

to find the corresponding RAW file for a JPEG created from that RAW file.

 

Anyway, I'm dying to find a better way to handle client album image selections

so maybe some of you raw shooters have a method to relieve my pain? :)

 

Thanks,

Weston

[michaelkh]

Hey ;) I've wondered about this. I'd imagine it is something that will eventually get resolved

with Lightroom plugins, but I've not seen anything yet. For the few situations where I've

shown someone a gallery for them to pick an image, it has been generated out of Capture

One and I leave the filename in for them to tell me.

 

Questions I think others will ask:

 

- PC or Mac?

 

- which software are you processing your RAW files in?

 

With a list of JPEG filenames it might be possible to script your processing software to

select the corresponding raw files (for instance I think this might be possible for someone

to do in Adobe Bridge with the Javascript interface).

[michaelkh]

Oh, doh. Lightroom, sorry. This has been an inadequately caffeinated reply.

[anndee]

One of the things you can do when you export your selected images from Lightroom to the gallery is to rename them in such a way that you can identify the original raw file. For example, you can rename your raws before you export. Or you can use a 2 part name - the first part that has a sequence number and a second part that has all or part of the original raw name.

 

For example, you want a 001.jpg that originally came from IMG_3745.CR2 Consider on export naming the jpeg: 001-3745.jpg Then if the client wants picture 001, you know that it came from IMG_3745.CR2 This is very easy to do in Lightroom.

 

Also, consider making either a Lightroom collection of all the chosen Raws (or select them with a RED flag) and then filtering on that before you do your Export.

[marissa_c._boucher]

Hi Michael, Ann,

 

Thanks for your responses. To clarify I am running on PC's, processing in Bridge/Photoshop CS3 and have purchased Lightroom recently and intend on using it ASAP. Bridge is awful and I know I should've switched over a long time ago.

 

My filenames all correspond, I've already taken that step so that my RAWs and JPEGs have the exact same name with a different extension. The problem lies in that we're talking about 100-200 images per album order so simply knowing the filenames doesn't save me enough time at this quantity per album order.

 

I have no time to invest or knowledge in the area of scripting in JAVA but I will keep it in mind as an option if it comes to that.

 

Initially gathering the chosen RAWs is what the issue is; not after the fact in regards to RED flags.

 

More ideas? Thanks :)

[desiraelynn]

I think that some of your confusion may be with your workflow. Our studio edits from the RAW photos and then files away the RAW images. If you are designing your albums from RAW then you are doing twice the amount of work, and your images won't reflect the same editing as the JPEG. I have a folder of RAW, jpeg, and thumbnails for each event. I've never had a problem working with the files.

[austin wedding photography]

You should just use your jpgs (full res) for the album. The printing of album pages is likely to be done in sRGB anyway.

Plus I find that getting a client to select 100-200 images is like watching grass grow.

I select the images for the album - and they have a chance to review it and ask for changes.

It makes things go much faster... Including getting paid for the album.