My photography workflow

Step1: taking photos

Here is what I use to shoot photos these days:

Canon EOS 40D digital camera, with the following lenses:
Canon E-FS 17-85mm
Sigma 70mm 1:2.8 DG Macro
Sigma APO 120-400mm f/4.5-5.6 DG OS HSM
A quite old Canon EF 75-300mm 1:4-5.6 III
SanDisk Ultra-II or Extreme-III 4Gb cards
QStarz Q1300S GPS recorder
LowePro Primus AW bag

I shoot all my photos in RAW format.

Step2: transfer photos to the computer

I’m using a PC running:

Windows 7
Adobe Bridge CS4
Adobe Photoshop CS4 (64-bits)
GeoSetter
CR2 Codec (64-bits) by Ardfry
Microsoft Excel :)

I’m using the “Download Photos” option from Adobe Bridge CS4 to transfer and organize photos on my desktop.

Step3: geotagging photos

When I come back having shot a few dozen photos, I download photos using Adobe Bridge and download the GPS track, convert it into a GPX file using the Travel Recorder software provided by QStarz. I then use GeoSetter to map photos and GPS track using timestamp. Geo coordinates are then stored in .XMP files along .RAW files.

Step4: basic keywording

I use Excel to build and manage my own taxonomy, containing a list of countries, mountain ranges names, lakes names… I regularly import the updated taxonomy into Adobe Bridge, and do the basic keywording with Bridge. Keywords are also stored in .XMP files.

Step5: developing photos

I use Camera Raw (part of Adobe Photoshop) to apply non-destructive changes that are stored in .XMP files. Then I sometimes perform further adjustments in Photoshop, to come with a “developed” version of the photograph that is stored as a JPG file (with no compression at all).

Step6: publishing photos

I use a set of scripts that I have written and Adobe Configurator to easily produce JPG versions of photographs to be published on Flickr. Those scripts do the following operations: