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2 minutes ago, aphperspective said:

Not a great lover of caption and tagging either I do sometimes find myself going over possible key words and captions in my head driving back from a shoot or just out and about. How sad is that, anybody else suffer from this affliction.🤨 

 i'll be lying at night in bed and going "i should do search on AIM for "Placard -Sign" to make sure I have them all..".. or "forgot UK people call Squash, "Pumpkin" need go add that..."...  "did i lock the front door"  (ok, so i am a bit obsessive)   

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5 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:


Ottawa features with Snow (playing on stereotypes) , and developing bird photo skills....


Ottawa was my “home” town for 27 years Winterlude, Rideau Canal Skating and Christmas lights on the hill and a great opportunity with beavertails a low calorie treat!

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2 minutes ago, Normspics said:


Ottawa was my “home” town for 27 years Winterlude, Rideau Canal Skating and Christmas lights on the hill and a great opportunity with beavertails a low calorie treat!

 obviously no winterlude this year, but all the canal skating cabins are up, and Landsdown is lighting up officially tomorrow....    If people are as over the top on Xmas decorations as they were for Halloween, this should keep me busy.

2D8MYA5.jpg

 

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1 hour ago, Sally R said:

For me it is the culling of images. I'm getting better at not taking too many to start with, but with some natural subjects, such as a grasshopper I've just spotted on a leaf, I might stand there for some time on manual focus trying to get the best shot. This can quickly lead to 50+ images. Then I end up regretting knowing I'll have to go through them all for the best one. Given that insects are not likely to be great sellers, I need to spend less time on this. Even with things like events though, it is easy to take a lot leading to the necessity to cull while picking out the best few. I'd like to get better at being more economical at the time I'm taking the images and therefore more economical with time spent culling and selecting in PP. Once I've selected what I want to keep, I generally enjoy the processing part.

 

I actually don't mind tagging in itself and have learned heaps about so many subjects from having to do it. But I do prefer to tag a few at a time rather than a lot.

 

 

had the same issue, problem as i'll have 100 shots of same sets of birds so here is my process

 

1) Upload all images 

2) Quick run through with Focus Mask ON (i use C1, assume other software have something similar)

                anything of interest gets 1 Star, any obvious fail 4 stars (don't ask i discovered i never used 4 so it became my trash, find something that works)

3) Delete all the obvious fail

4) Filter all the one stars.  Second look, all the ones with potential get 2 stars.

5) Filter the 2 stars, All the ones for processing get 3 Stars. 

6) I then use colour labels to determine if the are a work on Now, or later . Note not all of them will be process.  I have a bunch labelled secondary importance, or wait see if i get better later that hang for a rainy day (like today) 

 

Some times later, maybe a few days,  i will go back through the 0 stars and 1 stars see if there was any miss, an angle, a story that i didn't see,  I will also cull the ones that there is no way i would ever used, and ones where it brings nothing else to the 3 Stars i've done already.  

I'll also assign a 5 stars rating to my favourite images..  

 

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I too dislike culling -- i.e. choosing which images to keep and which to trash -- the most, probably because I'm indecisive by nature (story of my life). I actually enjoy captioning because I like doing research, and I often learn something new when devising captions. I have backgrounds in both teaching and freelance writing, so this might have something to do with this. Repetitive keywording/tagging does of course get tedious. I don't think there is any way of getting around this. You just have to grin and bear it. However, keywording can also be an educational experience. I always add captions and essential keywords before uploading so my images are ready to send to my own website or elsewhere if needed.

Edited by John Mitchell
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3 hours ago, meanderingemu said:

 obviously no winterlude this year, but all the canal skating cabins are up, and Landsdown is lighting up officially tomorrow....    If people are as over the top on Xmas decorations as they were for Halloween, this should keep me busy.

2D8MYA5.jpg

 

 

Great find. It should be a challenging one to caption and keyword. It says a lot about a lot of different things. 🙀

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I'm pleased to see you can happily type with one hand Edo.

 

For me, selecting the keepers is what takes the longest. I shoot way too much even when it's not birds. Slightly different angle, second shot just in case there's slight camera shake, etc.

 

Tagging is a breeze as I've spent quite a lot of time researching and building templates and keywords hierarchy in Bridge. Most of my shots are landscapes. So for example, it would take me a grand total of TWO ticks to select the subject and location templates:

1. Landscape, View, Vista, Scenic, Scene, Picturesque, Australian, Nobody, Nature

2. Queensland, QLD, Australia

Only one more tick if it's a sunset/sunrise:

3. Sunset, Atmospheric, Moody, Ethereal

Job done.

 

As for birds:

1. Bird, Birds, Australian Bird, Fauna; Wildlife; Wild; Animal; Animals; 1; One; Single; Only; Nobody

2. Queensland, QLD, Australia

3. Tick name and scientific name in keyword hierarchy.

Job done.

 

I reckon it takes me less than 5 sec to tag one or a group of similar photos and they go directly on sale upon upload. I can always do the super tags later if I'm squeezed for time.

 

What takes me longer to tag is when I'm out of my depth, i.e. an unfamiliar subject. People (not my forte), concepts, cityscapes (to some extent). I have to stop, think and do some research.

 

Editing depends on how clean the sensor is. Recently, it had reached unmanageable levels of filth. I got my D4 cleaned yesterday at Nikon's. I was told it was filthy! I knew it because I had to change lens in the desert while dust was blowing.

 

 

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6 hours ago, John Morrison said:

 

I'm even worse... keywording as I press the shutter...

 

I once thought my mind was fried. I caught myself looking at a friend. Instead of listening to what she was telling me, that's what ran through my head: blue shirt, blonde, long hair, curly hair, female.... Arghh!! What Alamy does to us....

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I quite enjoy waiting for the moment to press the the shutter release, maybe for the pattern of people to fall into place, the sun to break through the clouds or the moving object to arrive at the location. It's one of the few times that I am completely relaxed, there is nothing to be done but wait. While I enjoy my wife's company I prefer to be alone for photography, as I don't have to worry about time passing.

 

Like John I also enjoy the research involved in keywording, and trying to cover as many possible market requirements as possible without spamming. I get a sense of pleasure in discovering a new concept that can be illustrated by an existing image, and for that reason I look carefully at the detail of the searches most days.

 

As others have said, culling similars is a chore, I try to do it in camera, but inevitably there are decisions to be taken back at the fort. I've got to be more ruthless as time has gone on, but my hard drive contains far too many also rans which should be relegated to the bin.

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1 hour ago, Bryan said:

I quite enjoy waiting for the moment to press the the shutter release, maybe for the pattern of people to fall into place, the sun to break through the clouds or the moving object to arrive at the location. It's one of the few times that I am completely relaxed, there is nothing to be done but wait. While I enjoy my wife's company I prefer to be alone for photography, as I don't have to worry about time passing.

 

Like John I also enjoy the research involved in keywording, and trying to cover as many possible market requirements as possible without spamming. I get a sense of pleasure in discovering a new concept that can be illustrated by an existing image, and for that reason I look carefully at the detail of the searches most days.

 

As others have said, culling similars is a chore, I try to do it in camera, but inevitably there are decisions to be taken back at the fort. I've got to be more ruthless as time has gone on, but my hard drive contains far too many also rans which should be relegated to the bin.

 

One good thing about being a culling procrastinator is that you always have a good selection of old images to go back and fiddle with when the winter gloomy weather sets in (not to mention global pandemics).

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19 hours ago, Michael Ventura said:

For me, it’s the tagging and captioning. Well at least that is the part I least enjoy and find it a real chore!

 

For me it's just time consuming, which is why I have a large backlog of either culled RAW or edited JPG's that aren't time critical.

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I really enjoy all the planning, pouring over maps, researching etc traveling and taking the images. I am not interested about post processing and do as little as possible. I don't mind captions and tags, I simply describe the image and generally use very few tags, all done in Bridge before I upload

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16 hours ago, meanderingemu said:

 

 

had the same issue, problem as i'll have 100 shots of same sets of birds so here is my process

 

1) Upload all images 

2) Quick run through with Focus Mask ON (i use C1, assume other software have something similar)

                anything of interest gets 1 Star, any obvious fail 4 stars (don't ask i discovered i never used 4 so it became my trash, find something that works)

3) Delete all the obvious fail

4) Filter all the one stars.  Second look, all the ones with potential get 2 stars.

5) Filter the 2 stars, All the ones for processing get 3 Stars. 

6) I then use colour labels to determine if the are a work on Now, or later . Note not all of them will be process.  I have a bunch labelled secondary importance, or wait see if i get better later that hang for a rainy day (like today) 

 

Some times later, maybe a few days,  i will go back through the 0 stars and 1 stars see if there was any miss, an angle, a story that i didn't see,  I will also cull the ones that there is no way i would ever used, and ones where it brings nothing else to the 3 Stars i've done already.  

I'll also assign a 5 stars rating to my favourite images..  

 

 

I have sort of similar workflow. 

1. Read from memory card in ACR

2. Rate 5 stars for potential edits

3. Delete rubbish ones

4. Sort views by ratings

5. Go through 5 stars again, demote some to 1 star or delete.

6. Download the lot to a "to do" folder by location.

7. Wait a day or two. 

8. Go through 5 stars again and make final selection.

9. Edit 5 stars, move 1 stars to a "similar not used folder". Not sure why. Maybe one day I'll need them. Hummmm...

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30 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

I’m awed by Gen’s organisation skills. I have none. 

 

I enjoyed analyzing Alamy Measures when I built my hierachy. It used to take me half a day every day for a long time.

Now I have smart strings associating keywords I might otherwise overlook if I had stored them individually. It was a lot of work but highly worthwhile. I'm reaping the benefits now.

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16 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

On most subjects, I don't snap many frames. I've never considered culling an issue. Tagging is work heavy and often complex. However, it's also interesting and educational.

 

Along with birds on burst mode, I am quite incapable of stopping myself shooting waves patterns. I can hear a voice in my head 'stop it' but I can't. The foam on that one is more appealing. Oh it hit the rocks differently. Now let's try a different shutter speed. What a nightmare to cull !!

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2 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

Also, I do very little planned shooting. I just go for a walk with a camera. Things were different when I did assignments. 


That’s the joy of stock photography just exploring a city with a camera and see what I discover, if it’s a new city I will arrive with a shoot list but will start with an aimless wander to get the lay of the land. Really nothing about contributing content to Alamy is a chore.

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