Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® 2: Streamlining Your Digital Photography Process

Chapter 2. DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY WORKFLOW

There's a lot of talk about workflow these days. Sometimes it seems that everybody's promoting a different one.

Though circumstances will vary, the basic steps in a truly efficient digital photography workflow always remain the same. Only the per-job variables change—usually accomplished by simply modifying a few soft ware settings.

Developing a good workflow is important: it will enable you to process more images in less time, leaving more time for working on your favorites. A good workflow makes photography more fun.

This chapter outlines the essential workflow you will use to process your photos in and out of Lightroom.

Criteria for an Efficient Workflow

Making high quality images today is an entirely digital process, from capturing the photograph to making the final print. Your workflow is the sequence of steps you follow to capture, process and present your photographs.

Today there's an overwhelming variety of hardware and software available to process digital images. Not to mention myriad, specialized solutions for different kinds of photography. Everyone has different equipment and is comfortable with certain ways of working with their photographs. So it's inevitable that one person's workflow won't be exactly like another's. And even for a single photographer, no one workflow will be appropriate in every situation. The "best" workflow is determined by circumstances and personal preferences.

With all this in mind, you still can—and should—use ...