Workflow - Step by Step

Step 1: The first step in a digital workflow is getting images from your camera on to your computer. Photoshop isn’t too much help on this step, so use your favorite importing application, or just copy your images from your card or camera from your operating system.

The most important thing to keep in mind when importing your images is where you are importing them too. A lot of people like to file their images in dated folders, but I tend to file them by location folders. Really you just need to find a organization system that works for you and stick to it. Your images aren’t worth anything if you can’t find them, so be consistent with your organization.

Step 2: Now to quickly rename all of your images open up your folder of images in the Photoshop file browser or Adobe Bridge depending on what version of Photoshop you have. You can quickly get to the browser or bridge by pushing command shift and “o” while in Photoshop on a Mac or control shift and “o” on a PC.

Step 3: Once you are have the folder of images up in the browser or bridge, go through your images and delete the images that are totally unusable. Then select all of your images by hitting command and “a” keys on a Mac or Control and “a” keys on a PC. Or if you’re a menu person just go to the file menu and hit select all. Now control click on one of your images on a Mac or right click on a PC and select the “batch rename” option.

Step 4: A new dialog box will pop open with a variety of options that will somewhat depend on your version of Photoshop. The top part of this dialog will show your destination folder for the images. Since we already copied our images just leave this option on “rename in same folder.” The next section of the box deals with how we want the images renamed. I tend to rename my images with a descriptive word that relates to the shoot then the date then a serial number and the jpg or raw extension. Again how you name your images is mostly just a personal preference, but it is important to stay consistent. So pick a naming plan and stick to it. Basically you just select the naming criteria you want from pop up menus and add your own custom test to the text boxes in the dialog. Make sure to use an option like “serial number” or “sequence number” in one of the fields so each of your images will have a unique name. If you are using Photoshop CS 2 you will need to click the little plus button to the right of the first field to add additional options.

Step 5: When you have the naming options set to your liking, look at the bottom of the dialog box. There should be three little check boxes that say Windows, Mac OS, and Unix next to them. Clicking these boxes will insure that the file names work on these operating systems. I tend to leave all three boxes checked since you never know what operating system you might need to open your files on. Now click ok. Photoshop will now quickly rename all of your images in that folder.

Step 6: Now to add meta data to your images switch to Photoshop if you have CS 2 and are using bridge, if you have older versions you should already have Photoshop active. Since a lot of our meta data on our images like photographer, copyright, etc. doesn’t change, we are going to make a template of all the information we want to apply to all of our images. To make this template simply go to the file menu and select “new”. The settings for the image really don’t matter so just click ok when the new document dialog box comes up. We want a new document because we want a template based on an image that doesn’t have any meta data associated with it.

Step 7: Now go to the file menu and select the “file info…” option. A new dialog box will pop open. This box lets your set all the meta data for your image. For my template I filled out the IPTC Contact information along with the copyright fields in the IPTC status section along with my name and position in the description dialog. Fill in any field that will stay constant in all of future images you shoot. Not just the folder you downloaded. When you have all the fields filled out to you liking click the little arrow button at the top right of the dialog box. A little pop up menu will open, click the save metadata template option. Then enter a name for your template and click save.

Step 8: Now click ok in the file info dialog box and close the blank document we just made. Don’t worry about saving the blank document. We don’t need it anymore.

Step 9: Switch back to the file browser or adobe bridge and pull up the folder of images you just downloaded. Make sure all of the images are selected, then go to the edit menu in the file browser or the tools menu in bridge then select the append meta data option, then the template you just saved. This will apply the meta data from the template to all of your images, while leaving all the original meta data in your images intact.

Step 10: (optional) You can now select individual images in the folder to add more specific meta data like key words to each image.

OS X tiger users should be able to search for images based on the meta data in your images with spotlight, and windows vista users will be able to search in the same way with windows Vista when it comes out. Until then, you can seach images from within the file viewer using the search commands in the file menu, or the find command in the edit menue of bridge.

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