{"id":739,"date":"2008-02-16T23:37:23","date_gmt":"2008-02-16T14:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2008-02-16\/739"},"modified":"2008-02-16T23:37:23","modified_gmt":"2008-02-16T14:37:23","slug":"my-photo-and-blog-writing-workflow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2008-02-16\/739","title":{"rendered":"My Photo and Blog-Writing Workflow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f\/3.5-5.6 VR @ 105 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>40 sec, f\/5.3, ISO 1600 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\nLong Escalators at the Kansai International Airport<\/span>\ntwo years ago, just after getting my Nikon D200<\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n

I'm occasionally asked about my photo and blog-writing workflow, and\nhaving just been asked twice in as many days, I thought<\/span> I'd just go ahead\nand post about it.<\/p>\n\n

Unlike this post, most of my non-technical posts have a lot<\/span> of photos,\neither to tell a story<\/span> (like this<\/a>) or to just\nshare pretty photos (like\nthis<\/a>). In either<\/span> case, I start<\/span> with the photos.<\/p>\n\n

Photo Workflow<\/p>\n\n

My photo workflow is pretty much the same whether it's a subject<\/span> I intend<\/span> to blog about or not...<\/p>\n\n

  1. I download<\/span> the tracklog from my GPS unit<\/a> to my PC.<\/li>\n\n

  2. I transfer the photos from the camera's memory card to a folder<\/span> with\na “YYYY\/MM\/DD-description<\/i>”<\/span> name. For example, my most\nrecent set of photos, from which More Snow in Kyoto: Pretty\nPictures This Time<\/a> was populated, are in\n\nC:\\photo\\2008\\02\\13-North-Kyoto-Snow<\/tt>.<\/p>\n\n

    The script that moves them also syncs up the photo times with the GPS\ntracklog, adding geoencoding metadata to the photos as they're moved. It also renames<\/span> the image files to get around the camera's four-digit filename\nlimit, putting the number the image should really have.<\/p>\n\n

    Update:<\/b> I now<\/span> geoencode within Lightroom, using my GPS Support\nplugin<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<\/li>\n\n

  3. I then import these into Adobe Lightroom using the “import at\ncurrent location” option, applying a metadata<\/span> preset that inserts things\nlike my blog url.<\/p>\n\n

    You can see an example of how these kind of folders appear in Lightroom\nby clicking though to a bigger<\/span> version of the first screenshot on this Lightroom post<\/a>. I find the<\/span> “year\/month\/date-description<\/b>” layout to work out quite\nconveniently.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  4. In Lightroom, I select<\/span> the folder I just<\/span> imported to, set the filters to show “Picks and Unflagged Photos”, which is another\nway to say “exclude rejected photos.”<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  5. I make a quick pass through the images, rejecting anything that's\nobviously trash. When I'm done, an application of “Photo > Delete Rejected Photos<\/b>”<\/span> gets rid of\nthem all.<\/p><\/li>\n\n<\/ol>\n\n

    Blog-Prep Workflow<\/p>\n\n

    Writing a post starts with selecting and uploading the photos to my blog\nsite...<\/p>\n\n

    1. I go through the relevant photos in Adobe Lightroom, throwing\ncandidates for publication into the quick collection.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

    2. I often end up with 30 or more photos, and although I've been bad\nabout keeping to it lately, I try to<\/span> limit myself to 10 photos per post.\nSo, I have to<\/span> go cull them down, which is usually a difficult<\/span>\/painful\nprocess.<\/p>\n\n

      If it's a story-based post, I'll use this image-selection process to\nstart forming how I'll present the subject, and then turn around and use\nthat presentation to further refine the selection process. I'll cut out\nphotographically-interesting shots if they don't contribute much to the\nstory, although I don't<\/span> mind if a few<\/span> nice shots sneak in. Some of the more\ninteresting shots that don't make it to the post will be marked with a\n“2blog” keyword, which means I may<\/span> revisit it for a post<\/span> at a later<\/span>\ndate.<\/p>\n\n<\/li>\n\n

    3. I then go through the final photos and do any image-processing\ntweaks that are needed, such as cropping, rotation, brightness, etc. For the most<\/span> part this is all done from with in Lightroom. These days, I use Photoshop<\/span> rarely.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

    4. I export all the photos from Lightroom using two export presets. One writes<\/span> large versions (jpgs with a quality<\/span> of 72, resized so the long edge\nis 1,800 pixels), and one writes smaller versions (jpgs with a quality<\/span> of\n53, resized so the long edge is 690 pixels).<\/p><\/li>\n\n<\/ol>\n\n

      Post-Writing Workflow<\/p>\n\n

        \n

      1. I then run a script that grabs the photos just exported, removes\nsome of the metadata (such as embedded thumbnails that just take up space),\nthen copies them to my server machine. It then deletes<\/span> the exported copies from my local machine.<\/p>\n\n

        The script continues on my server where it then creates the text file\nthat I write<\/span> the post in, seeding it with all the images and the metadata\nseen under each picture.<\/p>\n\n

        (I actually compose my blog posts in a text<\/span> file, using Emacs (a text<\/span> editor), then link it into my blog with my WordPress\nFile-based\nPosts Plugin<\/a>.)<\/p><\/li>\n\n

      2. I try to pick a lead photo that stands on its own for its\ninterestingness or photographic qualities, or that tells the whole story in\na nutshell.<\/span> Sometimes it's clear what photo I should<\/span> use, but it's often\ndifficult to select the lead image. Sometimes I'm thinking about this when\nculling images for the post, in which case I may<\/span> pick one that doesn't add\nto the story, but that's representative of much of the story in a single<\/span>\nimage. The first<\/span> image on the Intense Burn: Shinto Rite at\nthe Heian Shrine<\/a> is a good<\/span> example of that.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

      3. Since I'm posting mostly about daily events in my life, many posts\nare directly related to something I posted<\/span> about earlier, so actually\nwriting the prose usually starts with a visit<\/span> to my blog's Full List of Posts<\/a> to get the links\nthat I often<\/span> need in the post's first paragraph.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

      4. I then write the prose for the post, adjusting the order of the\nimages as needed. While doing this, I'll often sprinkle in links to\nrelevant pages on Wikipedia or elsewhere on my blog. Sometimes this entails\nquite a bit<\/span> of research, because I prefer<\/span> not to look like too much of an\nidiot when I write<\/span> about something.<\/p>\n\n

        For example, in writing my first post about our trip to Amami (Amami Islands, Southern\nJapan<\/a>), I spent<\/span> hours researching all kinds of things. For the sentence<\/span>\n“The flight back from Amami was just an hour and fifteen minutes (about\n575 miles)...<\/i>” I inspected<\/span> my GPS tracklog to get the duration and\ndistance. I tracked<\/span> down the islands' populations on a Japanese<\/span>-government\nwebsite, and made maps for posting. I read all<\/span> kinds of stuff about the\nhistory of Amami (such as it being under United States rule after WWII,\nbeing returned to Japan in 1953) that never made it into the post.<\/p>\n\n

        This step can eat hours of my life.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n\n

      5. While writing the prose, I'll also caption the images, and adjust\nthe spacing before and after the image to match the text: less space when\nthe text is directly related to the image, and more space when there's a\nconceptual<\/span> step between the two.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

      6. Once I'm generally done, I'll reread the post, make corrections,\nspellcheck. Repeat a few<\/span> times.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

      7. Once that's done, I have some<\/span> drudgery work that is never enjoyable (and so sometimes I skip<\/span> it):<\/p>\n\n