SoFoBoMo 2010: the editing process

Manila, June 2010
One of the SoFoBoMo 2010 rejects

As a progress report, I thought it might be useful to some to go through the edit ting process I've been using. I don't do bulk edits in this way very often and so SoFoBoMo is also an opportunity for me to hone my skills in that area, too. here is the step-by-step:

1. Having imported all the photos and catalogued as normal (I had 527 frames taken), I make first cut selections. I'm using Lightroom exclusively for processing and editing as it's a quick and easy one stop shop for the whole workflow. First cut is a fast process - anything that seems like it fits the theme and appears properly composed, exposed and in focus. 226 picked, took about 15 minutes.
2. Work on the first few to develop the visual look, exposure, toning, contrast etc. That takes a few minutes per photo, maybe I spent an hour sorting that out. The key parts of the development got turned into Lightroom presets, especially the toning, which speeds up the rest of the work.
3. Work through the first-cut to pick the ones to edit. Again, pretty fast and I develop a lot, rather than waste time mulling over selection. With the presets developed I spend only a couple of minutes on most photos. A few have local adjustments which take a bit longer but I doubt I spent more than 10 minutes on any one frame. As this is about a fast turn-around, I want good not perfect works of art. And consistency is more important to me than a few individual highlights. 102 edited.
4. I developed a Smart Collection to gather up the edits as they were completed, I'll use the collection for the final sorting and selection. I'm not into the book layout proper yet but I have a few distinct page forms in mind: double-truck, full bleed, single page, multiple per page. The 102 will get ratings based on likely page type and sorted into order of pages in the collection. I may or may not use them all.
5. From there, It'll be new export presets to turn the edits into the final images for the book. Part of that preset will be automated numbering and filing so they're all in order in a separate folder on my computer. Having them sorted that way speeds up entry into the book layout.

Even though I've been working on editing all week, I've actually spent very little time each day. 100 at, say, three minutes each is only 5 hours of work to get to the final cut plus the original hour to get the visual look right, meaning about an hour a night this week.

On a SoFoBoMo roll

I started my SoFoBoMo project today, going out and getting in the first batch of photos. Despite a short session, I got 287 frames to get me going. The most I've shot in one go for some time, helped enormously by my forward planning. It's also yielded probably enough to complete the project (although I'll be looking for more and better) which takes the pressure off. As I'm focussing more on the book part than the photo part, I don't need to be so choosy about completing a story or ultimate image quality.

I thought it would be worth sharing, for those new or struggling with this, the forward planning I did that helped make this first photo expedition easy:
1. Selecting a suitable subject. My book title "LineCurveTexture" is an easy way to encompass numerous forms of abstract image which makes getting the 35 relatively easy. that was important for me this year as I want more time for the book design. In the past, I've focussed more on story and kept the book simple.
2. Selecting a suitable location. Given the subject and way I'd be shooting, I had a good location in mind - in the modern vernacular a target rich environment. There are also 2 other ready locations I can use to gather more.
3. Selecting suitable equipment. In this case I'm hand-holding my 100mm macro lens.Abstract images using a macro lens means from a relatively small area I can gather a large number of different images. I only have to move a few inches in any direction to get whole new views.

Bringing all three of these together - subject, location, equipment - makes the photography part relatively easy. And I put some though into making it so.

Whatever your goal is, putting some thought into these three aspects, keeping it quite simple and choosing them to work together will greatly improve the success rate for gathering up enough photos.

As has been done in the past, I'll be posting my out of camera images as contact sheets so you can see the process as it happens.

The challenge of ambition

Recently I was thinking back to one of my favourite authors from around the time I left college, Piers Anthony (this will become relevant, promise). nothing to do with his writing (which I find a bit basic these days) or the stories (not for those of strong moral principles) but more of the pieces he used to write for the back of the books. Kind of like blog posts, or extended letters to his fans: stuff on story development, creative process, correspondence etc.

One of the things that stuck (and I would look it up if the books weren't buried in a box) was a piece he wrote about the marks of a successful author. He set them thus: moving from selling what one writes to writing what one sells (the idea of the advance on synopsis) and moving from title dominating the cover to author's name doing so (where one's name is enough to sell the book).

This came from thinking of motivations for continuing SoFoBoMo and producing many photobooks. It answered my question to self: where can a create a challenge? Two years in and I've done 6 books for SoFoBoMo (yep, I went a bit mad last year). But I can challenge myself in the following ways:

• Improving the photographic content
• Improving the layout and design
• More cohesive projects
• Creating physical books (although I've done one)
• Creating something others will buy
• Getting properly published (we've already had a SoFoBoMoer jump that hurdle)
• Creating a book as a synopsis for a bigger project
• etc etc

I'm not saying the goal is to become commercially successful (but if I sold one or two, that would be a nice boon) but it shows a line of progression, challenge that is ever present. And over time I'm sure electronic delivery will develop in ways tht will create new challenges.

There is enough scope there to keep me going for many years to come. so if you've done it before and are wondering where the challenge lies, think a little more - it's there if you look for it.

What he said

Paul Butzi just posted about his (lack of) SoFoBoMo blogging this year. Same goes for me, more or less. Most of my efforts in that direction are going into the SoFoBoMo website. There's more stuff going up daily, so keep going back.

Here, I'll be posting just some progress stuff about my project thoughts and progress as time goes on. Most of that will probably also turn up on the forums, too.

If you've not signed up, what are you waiting for?

New SoFoBoMo site is live

After quite some effort behind the scenes, the new Solo Photo Book Month (SoFoBoMo) website is live. Still some design tweaking going on and quite a lot of content to develop (hopefully with your help). New design, new logo, lots of new features added and planned.

Go check it out, go register, get involved.

Past participants are already in the system, you just need to go through a simple password reset process to get your account active on the new system.

Art of books, books of art

It has been occurring to me that there are possibly conflicting goals in the creation of a book of art, namely the function of serving up the art as the subject and the nature of a well-designed book as an object of appreciation in itself. At some point, one has to yield to serving the other.

As SoFoBoMo approaches, it's a conflict playing out in my thoughts about how to design a book. Until now, I've kept mine pretty simple, directed at serving up photographs in a simple manner: the old-fashioned one to a page, white border approach. But I've been toying with the idea of putting more effort into the design of a book as part of the work itself: spreads, bleeds, multiple images on a page etc. Something that might be more engaging to a viewer. Might that detract from the photography? Or might the photography serve as content to support a wider book experience? And can some fancy graphic and typographic design further enhance that experience?

My own collection of photobooks doesn't help in this regard. They're all pretty much traditional art books - all about the pictures, not the book as product. So they're all simple. And that's good, if you're serving up a collection of art photographs. One exception is the "History of Japanese Photography" which is as much an art history book as a book of art. It has all kinds of chnages in layout, white space around text, insert images, spread, bleeds, different background colours for images. But the overall experience sometimes feels a little forced - design for the sake of it, getting in the way of viewing the pictures. But not by much, I don't feel like I want the wh0le thing as simple text pages followed by simple pages of pictures. A balance to be drawn.

Difficult stuff, this, once you're past the basic mechanics. If I get the right idea, (one of) my SoFoBoMo contribution might be rather more novel than before, something of an experiment.

Harvey Benge on editting

From a few days ago come these words of wisdom from Harvey Benge on editting for a photobook. Worth reading, especially with SoFoBoMo 2010 (Solo Photo Book Month) on the way.

All about books

For those of you who are into the whole photobook thing, as I am, or have been contemplating putting one together, there comes this from the excellent Idiotic Hat. If you've been contemplating the notion of what a book is, go read that post.

Some label changes

I've decided to split up all my SoFoBoMo posts, largely to make it easier for me to manage them but also easier to find stuff. So now "SoFoBoMo" is used for general stuff related to the Solo Photo Book Month: advice, discussion, technical topics. Stuff specific to a particular year will be labelled "SoFoBoMo xxxx" where xxxx is the year number. That way, project specific stuff can be found separately and not get mixed up with the general advice.

Challenging processing

Swaledale morning, June 2009

I'm cracking through part 3 of my SoFoBoMo efforts, facing a processing challenge I've not done for a while. The final collection will be from my Swaledale pictures, which contain quite a lot of landscapes shot in mixed lighting. The challenge here is producing a colour balance that provides a natural look across the entire frame. Single white balance changes don't cut it.

Most of my processing these days is done in Lightroom but doing areal colour changes like this is quite slow and hard to control. This is where I turn back to Lightzone, which for a long time was my main processing platform but no longer. Returning for an extended spell a relive all its annoying foibles which make other programs more attractive. In this situation, however, Lightzone has a powerfully useful feature: selective white balance control. Sure, there are other ways to control local colour balance but I find the parameters of a standard white balance tool (colour temp & hue) to be intuitively photographic.

An aside: I note Bibble5 is out on pre-release. The publicity material suggest it might be a contender for my ideal hybrid between Lightroom and Lightzone. I'll certainly be trialling the full version when it comes out.

Judging ones own work

Run-off pool, Cumbria, May 2009
This one is an also-ran

Going through the process of selection of photos for my SoFoBoMo books and the evaluation sessions on the recent workshop has got me thinking about how I judge my own work. There are many ways one could do this, I suppose but here is my approach.

I generally think about my work in four tiers: the print work, the good, the almost and the rejects. Print work is what I consider to be my very best (at the time) and gets printed for display. A few make it onto the walls. The good are generally acceptable, OK for a book but missing something. The other tiers fall away from there. Of course my cut-off level for each tier changes over time. There is stuff from a couple of years ago that was print material then and would only get into the almost pile now.

But what is good? For me it is all about matching output with intent - that includes subject, the technical stuff like lighting and composition and most importantly reaction to the work. Garnering others reaction can be tricky. And I'm not always necessarily looking for high praise. Mixed reaction, positive and negative, is sometimes part of it.

Which then comes down to the material I've been choosing for SoFoBoMo. The first book has been pretty good, I feel, in terms of picture selection. Only a couple from the almost pile. The next one will have far more compromises. I am using SoFoBoMo much more about the process of book design than the actual images. The dilemma I face there is that I will also be using some of my very best recent work. And if I have a series that has some print material, do I devalue those by putting them in a book, or does it improve the book?

The ideas keep coming

Back in Norfolk again, camera in hand. Having completed my SoFoBoMo book on the area, I came up with another great idea that I can shoot in about an hour. So maybe that might be 4 (yes, four) submissions from me. This time, playing around with a whole different way of presenting photographs very much geared to online viewing.

It's very pleasant on a cool, clear morning taking a lone walk on the beach, watching the waves roll in. And that forms the basis of the inspiration. It also capitalises on that instinctive feel for pictures I was writing about in my last post.

What a great week

Just back from a photography workshop, another Advanced Landscapes with the ever-excellent Garry Brannigan of The Digital Dawn, this time in the Yorkshire Dales. it's worth mentioning a few early take-aways:

It is always great to be able to immerse yourself in photography like this, especially for me landscape photography. it's not just the making pictures but also the viewing and discussing that are juts as important.

This has probably been my most productive period for landscape work ever in terms of the quantity of quality results. I reckon I produced at least two of my very best landscape images ever and a whole pile of good work. I also feel that I'm achieving a consistency of clear vision and clean composition that I've not managed before.

There will be several more additions to my long-running Processes of Nature project. I also see a sub-theme developing from some of the work that is providing some far more personally unique work. It's not to everyone's taste but I like it a lot. More on all that in due course.

I finally get the attraction of macro work. I borrowed a 100mm macro lens and had a lot of fun using it, getting some pretty good results. Not good for curing gear lust.

I'm likely to create a third SoFoBoMo book (even though I've not really got going on the second yet) from the workshop results, mainly as motivation to work through some of the processing in a timely manner.

No pictures for this post, as I haven't even started uploading the files yet.

The words, the words

I'm almost finished the first SoFoBoMo book, just the small but tedious task of putting together some text to accompany the pictures. This is the part I hate the most. I'm not an avid writer at the best of times and coming up with something creative like this does not suite me well - reminds me too much of school English assignments, which I always hated.

Hopefully I can get the online version out this evening, ready for putting together a Blurb version tomorrow.

Scribus output, pdf and jpeg

This is aimed squarely at the SoFoBoMo crowd but should be useful for others putting together pdf books for the web. I know several will be using Scribus as their layout software.

I'm using Scribus as my layout software, as I have done in the past. Normally when I'm playing around with layouts, I export a partial book to pdf to see how it stacks up. Last night I made a minor error in the options I chose and felt it worth pointing it out.

There is an important option in the pdf output dialog (below) where the type of image embedded can be selected. I accidentally chose "Automatic". Running a layout with just 10 images in it gave me a 7MB pdf file, even using the "medium" compression setting. I then re-ran the export but with jpeg selected, suddenly the same material was only 1MB. An issue to note. I don't know what image format Scribus chose under "Automatic" but it clearly wasn't as compact as jpeg. Visually there was nothing different in the output.

Scribus pdf generation: several options for images - chose JPEG

It might be that other pdf generating software has similar options around the format for image embedding, I don't know as I don't have access to other options. If anyone else knows of similar options in other software, post a comment.

More on jpeg settings

Walcott beach, Norfolk, May 2009
From Lightroom, jpeg quality 50, 1200x800
click for full size

Ed Richards had comments on my suggestions on jpeg over at Paul Butzi's. So, as is my wont, I went off to test his points (and mine for that matter).

A few points to start: if one is creating jpeg images for displaying on a screen, then a lot of the original data is thrown away anyway. For a typical 10MP original, going to 1200x800 (I'll work with Ed's big image assumption) throws away about 90% of the original pixels. If you're an LF photog, it's going to be way more than that. So we can forget about on-screen versions ever getting to the fine detail and nuance of a really nice print from a really nice image.
The next idea is that higher quality settings really have an impact on the on-screen viewing quality. If I want to show the very best, I need the higher quality. But how true is that?

I ran a bunch of tests on a series of images with different jpeg quality settings. For this I used Lightroom but any jpeg generator would yield similar results. I ran film & digital originals. I tried detailed & mixed images (with some expanses of limited detail). I tried jpeg quality settings from 10 to 95. I visually compared the results versus quality setting and file size.

Lightroom jpeg quality 10, 1200x800

What did I find? Obviously, at low settings there were problems. Lots of artefacts around edges, detail blurring, pixelation in large, continuous areas. At quality of 30-40 most problems were gone. Some fine details started to go. At 50 most images were indistinguishable from the higher settings. The few differences needed a careful look and hopping between versions. Going from 70-95 showed no improvement on any image.
How about file sizes? At 1200x800, quality of 50 gave about 220kB per image. At 70 that was 350-400kB and at 90 all the way up to 1.5MB. Yet no visible difference between them (and I was looking carefully on a decent, calibrated monitor). 1000x667 images were proportionally (by area) smaller.

Of the hundreds of images I've posted, the average file size is around 250kB and I can't recall seeing compression artefacts or loss of detail in any of them at web sizes.

Like I say, for good, on-screen display, target a file size of around 150kB for 1000x800, up to 200kB-ish for 1200x800. The reason I've been suggesting 1000x800 is that's a 10"x8" at 100ppi, which is a decent size for a book image, working on the basis that we're talking embedded jpegs in a pdf.

Gorse, Cumbria, May 2009
Lightroom jpeg quality 50, 1200x800

Ed also made a point that he wants the highest quality to wow the guys with the huge, high quality monitors. Thus he ends up with a big pdf. Personally, I want a bunch of people to download my SoFoBoMo book, so I'd rather a smaller file size to encourage them to do so. And based on the above tests, I reckon a 5MB book file would be visually indistinguishable from a 15MB one anyway, on any screen.

SoFoBoMo 09 pt1: roll 3

The penultimate instalment of proofs. I'm at that stage where I'm not quite sure I took enough shots for a decent 35.
Final set should be up tomorrow morning.

A photographer's practical guide to jpeg

Stemming from the question on the last post about sizes of pdf books, I thought it was worth writing about JPEG images: sizes, resolutions, compression etc. This is based on a little technical reading and a lot of practical experimentation. Technically, I may be a little off in some areas but this will be good enough for the masses.

The aim of a JPEG image is to preserve as much detail as possible while compressing the file size as much as possible. By setting the quality/compression (these 2 are the reverse of one another - high compression gives low quality) value you are determining the trade-off between quality and file size. However,there is a general misconception as to how this works.

For highly detailed images (think lots of tree branches and small leaves) there is automatically less compression as the JPEG tries to keep the detail. If your image is highly detailed then you can actually use lower quality setting and still get an excellent image. In the other direction, large expanses of nothing compress very well. If you shoot a picture of a white wall even the highest quality setting will give a small file. JPEG is clever like that. The tricky stuff comes when there is a mixture of detail and even tones (e.g. trees against a blue sky). The even part compresses well, the detail is kept in the main but at the edges JPEG gets confused, throwing up those nasty artefacts. This is where judicious use of the quality level is needed. I'll come onto advice on values later.

The next part is the resolution or pixel size of an image. If you are printing, you'll want high quality files with lots of pixels. Typically 240-300ppi for the given print size. That means the total pixel size will be the paper size multiplied by 240 or 300 (e.g. if I print a 10"x8" at 300ppi, that'll be 3000x2400 pixels). Nice and easy.
The tricky part is on-screen display. To display on the majority of monitors, you only need an image about 1000pixels wide or 600 pixels tall. Maybe a bit more to cover larger displays. If your software works as a size & resolution then the size multiplied by resolution shouldn't be more than about 1000x600pixels (e.g. if I have a 10"x8" page for on-screen display, I need a resolution of only 100ppi to give 1000x800pixels). This is important for pdf generation, as pdf is designed to work in physical size and resolution. To cover most monitors today, you don't need more than 100ppi resolution (nor page size more than about 12"x8").

So what about recommendations for compression values? JPEG generation generally has one of three ways of setting quality: a high/medium/low scale; a JPEG compression factor (typically a number up to 100) or another numerical scle of some sort (e.g. Photoshop's 1-12).

For printing, go high. Photoshop 9 or 10 (11 and 12 really are pointless and don't practically give better results), JPEG factor 90 or 95. NOTE: JPEG compression factors are NOT percentages. the maximum value (from the JPEG standard) is 95 - any scale that goes to 100 is distracting you.

For on-screen display, you only need a medium level. Photoshop 7 or 8 (sometimes lower but go careful); JPEG factor 70-75. This will yield a files size about half that of the higher qualities and still give excellent on-screen display. Use the lower values unless there is a big mix of detail and even tones.

A final note on setting resolution versus compression, especially in pdf generation. The biggest win in file size (small being good) is a lower resolution. 300ppi has 9 times the pixels of 100ppi. To get that kind of compression with quality you need to go down to about 20-25 quality factor, which is barely recognisable. You could probably go down to 90ppi and give good display quality even on large monitors (a factor 11 smaller than 300ppi).

As for pdf books for the web (aimed squarely at the SoFoBoMo crowd) - aim for file size that gives around 50-60kB per page or 100-150kB per image overall (non-image pages generally take very little space in pdf). If you've gt 40 images in 55 pages (typical SoFoBoMo fare), that's 2.7-5.8MB total filesize.

All you gotta do...

is ask.

I read with a little dismay Bill Birtch's post giving up on SoFoBoMo for a little thing like pdf software. Fortunately several stepped in with free alternatives, I hope he reconsiders.

One of the points of doing SoFoBoMo in a short space of time is to get everyone doing it together. There is community around this thing. Don't feel alone, get connected. Don't get stuck, get help.

There are plenty of bloggers out there on this one, ask questions of them - post comments, ask open questions on your own blog. You'll be surprised at how friendly and helpful complete strangers can be.

SoFoBoMo: I think I've started

Yet another business trip, camera came with. Got out on a breezy evening to the coast and rattled off a roll in an hour. If I can get out for an hour or so each day the rest of the trip, I should have enough for a SoFoBoMo project.

Further to my earlier post on being less serious about SoFoBoMo, comes this from Colin Jago. I'd agree with him. This challenge is perfect for anyone with a camera (and a computer). Fancy gear not required. Weeks off work to shoot not required. As much as anything, I'm using SoFoBoMo as the excuse I need to get away from the office on time. The full-time job continues and SoFoBoMo isn't worth wasting my valuable vacation days on.

This current project I've started will only allow 4 after-work shooting opportunities, with a couple of weekends available for processing. I've got 6 rolls of film with me, if I can expose 5 of them I should be golden.

Last year, I put together 2 projects. Din't take a single day off work. My Kristiansund project took just 3 rolls of film (72 frames) and a couple of hours walk to do the shooting. Used an old film camera. Pictures taken in some off time on a business trip with long hours in the office. Processing was evenings and weekends.