DON'T Lose Images If you are not careful with your digital work-flow you can easily end up losing images.
This is NOT an option for a professional photographer.
The good news with engagement sessions is that if you happened to (somehow) lose a number of the images from an engagement session -- you can (likely) redo the session! Weddings, on the other hand, are practically impossible to redo.
If you should happen to encounter data corruption while photographing the couple, or while downloading the images -- do not panic! If it occurs in-camera, take the card out and move on to another card.
I have had this happen several times over the years and have only lost the 1 corrupt image and however many images were in the buffer at the time I had to switch to a new memory card.
The more common corruption has occurred when I am downloading the images to my computer.
There are a number of software tools you can run on the memory card to restore the images.
I don't have room in this article to write in-depth about recovering lose/corrupted/deleted images, but I would recommend you purchase "Photo Rescue" version 3 (a Google search will find the software).
I held off on buying the software until I had a need, and when I had a need (an entire memory card from a family photo session that had become corrupted during the download process), the $29 price was well worth it! Since buying the software I have used it a number of times to recover deleted or corrupted files from a memory card.
Safeguard the Images The first thing I do when I get back from a photo session is download all of the images to my computer.
I then do some basic checking to make sure there are no images missing from the session.
I will check the file number of the first image and last image from the session -- subtracting the two to find out how many images were shot.
Then I will check the actual files on my computer to make sure it matches.
Such a double-check would catch any images missing from the middle of the session, but you'll notice it wouldn't detect images that were missing from the very beginning or end of a session.
That is why I will also sort the images by "date" or even file number and scroll through the time stamps to make sure all of the time that I was shooting images resulted in actual files.
Once the "checking" process is done I will burn all of the images to DVD.
Actually, I create two copies of the files on DVD's.
One DVD is stored on-site and the other DVD is stored at an off-site location.
I also have an Excel file that functions like a database: I enter basic information about the photo session into Excel and assign a number to the DVD so it can found (easily) later on.
Removing "Secondary Photos" After ensuring the raw image are safely backed up I will start into my post-production process.
The first step involves removing bad photos.
I used to call them rejects.
Now I simply call them "Secondaries".
I create a folder called "Secondaries" and I move any photos that have problems to that folder.
Any images that are embarrassing to the couple (catching an odd look, or a blink, etc.
) or have mistakes that I made (motion blur, out-of-focus, blown highlights, bad compositions, etc.
) end up in the "Secondary" folder.
I want to keep as many photos for the couple as possible, so I try not to eliminate too many shots.
Although, I remember one engagement session where I took more than 1,300 photos.
For that session I very freely moved images "Secondary" folder! If the photo session resulted in a smaller selection of images or if the "pose" in question only had a few shots, I'll try to leave as many from that session or "pose" as possible.
The Renumbering Decision Let's say your photo session started with 250 images.
50 of them moved to the "secondary" folder.
You're left with 200 photos.
There are gaps in your photographic file numbers.
Some couples will not notice or care about the gaps.
Your photo numbers are probably not going to be 001-250 (with 50 missing).
They are more likely going to something like 6918- 7168 -- and the missing numbers will not very obvious.
But it still would be possible for a discerning couple to run the math and figure out that 50 images are missing -- or to notice, as they click through the images, that the numbers occasionally "skip".
You will need to decide whether it is worth the time to renumber your "select" images.
I use the freeware RName-It version 3.
1 (a Google search will find the software) to renumber my images, but most Image Editing software can also handle the renumbering of images.
I normally do not renumber the images.
I don't think I have ever had a couple ask me for missing images.
If they were to do so, I would explain the types of images I remove, and if they were really interested in seeing them I would likely send them over.
I have found that if you provide a large amount of top-notch photos, couples don't seem to worry about the 5%-10% that are not included.
There's a lot more to my after-photo-session work-flow, but I'll have to cover that in another article!
This is NOT an option for a professional photographer.
The good news with engagement sessions is that if you happened to (somehow) lose a number of the images from an engagement session -- you can (likely) redo the session! Weddings, on the other hand, are practically impossible to redo.
If you should happen to encounter data corruption while photographing the couple, or while downloading the images -- do not panic! If it occurs in-camera, take the card out and move on to another card.
I have had this happen several times over the years and have only lost the 1 corrupt image and however many images were in the buffer at the time I had to switch to a new memory card.
The more common corruption has occurred when I am downloading the images to my computer.
There are a number of software tools you can run on the memory card to restore the images.
I don't have room in this article to write in-depth about recovering lose/corrupted/deleted images, but I would recommend you purchase "Photo Rescue" version 3 (a Google search will find the software).
I held off on buying the software until I had a need, and when I had a need (an entire memory card from a family photo session that had become corrupted during the download process), the $29 price was well worth it! Since buying the software I have used it a number of times to recover deleted or corrupted files from a memory card.
Safeguard the Images The first thing I do when I get back from a photo session is download all of the images to my computer.
I then do some basic checking to make sure there are no images missing from the session.
I will check the file number of the first image and last image from the session -- subtracting the two to find out how many images were shot.
Then I will check the actual files on my computer to make sure it matches.
Such a double-check would catch any images missing from the middle of the session, but you'll notice it wouldn't detect images that were missing from the very beginning or end of a session.
That is why I will also sort the images by "date" or even file number and scroll through the time stamps to make sure all of the time that I was shooting images resulted in actual files.
Once the "checking" process is done I will burn all of the images to DVD.
Actually, I create two copies of the files on DVD's.
One DVD is stored on-site and the other DVD is stored at an off-site location.
I also have an Excel file that functions like a database: I enter basic information about the photo session into Excel and assign a number to the DVD so it can found (easily) later on.
Removing "Secondary Photos" After ensuring the raw image are safely backed up I will start into my post-production process.
The first step involves removing bad photos.
I used to call them rejects.
Now I simply call them "Secondaries".
I create a folder called "Secondaries" and I move any photos that have problems to that folder.
Any images that are embarrassing to the couple (catching an odd look, or a blink, etc.
) or have mistakes that I made (motion blur, out-of-focus, blown highlights, bad compositions, etc.
) end up in the "Secondary" folder.
I want to keep as many photos for the couple as possible, so I try not to eliminate too many shots.
Although, I remember one engagement session where I took more than 1,300 photos.
For that session I very freely moved images "Secondary" folder! If the photo session resulted in a smaller selection of images or if the "pose" in question only had a few shots, I'll try to leave as many from that session or "pose" as possible.
The Renumbering Decision Let's say your photo session started with 250 images.
50 of them moved to the "secondary" folder.
You're left with 200 photos.
There are gaps in your photographic file numbers.
Some couples will not notice or care about the gaps.
Your photo numbers are probably not going to be 001-250 (with 50 missing).
They are more likely going to something like 6918- 7168 -- and the missing numbers will not very obvious.
But it still would be possible for a discerning couple to run the math and figure out that 50 images are missing -- or to notice, as they click through the images, that the numbers occasionally "skip".
You will need to decide whether it is worth the time to renumber your "select" images.
I use the freeware RName-It version 3.
1 (a Google search will find the software) to renumber my images, but most Image Editing software can also handle the renumbering of images.
I normally do not renumber the images.
I don't think I have ever had a couple ask me for missing images.
If they were to do so, I would explain the types of images I remove, and if they were really interested in seeing them I would likely send them over.
I have found that if you provide a large amount of top-notch photos, couples don't seem to worry about the 5%-10% that are not included.
There's a lot more to my after-photo-session work-flow, but I'll have to cover that in another article!
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