My iPhoto Workflow

As mentioned previously, I've just switched back to iPhoto after a few months using Aperture 3. One of the reasons for doing this was that I found the workflow in iPhoto to be as good as, if not better than, the most-recommended workflow in Aperture.

I promised to explain my workflow in iPhoto, so here it is. I hope someone finds this useful.

Step 1: Import

iPhoto's import process is pretty smooth, so this step doesn't need much comment. When you plug in your memory card it jumps to the import screen right away and starts bringing up previews of the contents of the card.

I usually don't bother to type the event name at import time, as there are often multiple events on my card, but I always choose Autosplit events after importing and Hide photos already imported. My events settings are shown below, with Autosplit set to Eight-hour gaps. I find this is a good middle-ground setting to use, but this is really a personal preference and doesn't really affect the workflow much.

I always use the Import All... button to get everything off the card quickly. You don't want to mess around with picking out images while they are still on the card. Just get them onto your hard disk and have iPhoto wipe the card when prompted. (Note: if you are really paranoid, you can kick off a Time Machine backup when iPhoto shows the Delete photos from your card? prompt.)

Step 2: Event Merging & Splitting

The first thing I do once I have the images in iPhoto is clean up the boundaries between events. Usually, with the 8-hour gap setting above, iPhoto gets it mostly right, but depending on the shoot it might split them up too finely or clump multiple things together. If the photos are from a multiple-day trip somewhere, I prefer not to put them all together into a single event, but rather have each event in iPhoto represent an activity or episode of the trip. (Note: one advantage Aperture has here is the ability to group events into folders. In iPhoto you just have to rely on the chronological proximity of the events to keep them together. However, I don't find this to be a problem at all.)

The best way to do this is on the Last Import view that is shown automatically after importing. Make sure you have event titles displayed (View > Event Titles). Just use drag-and-drop to merge events, and the Split button at the bottom of the screen to split them. Give the events titles – preferably the title you would use to publish a Set to Flickr.

The rest of the workflow is per-event, which is useful for breaking the work of processing images into manageable chunks.

Step 3: First Pass - Picks and Garbage

This step is equivalent to the "stack sorting" and "rejection" steps of the Aperture workflow, rolled into one.

I select the first image in the event, and hit the Space bar to blow it up to fill the iPhoto window. Then, I simply use the Left/Right arrow keys to quickly flick through the images, and the Delete key to "reject" unwanted ones.

This works great for "stack sorting", because it is very easy to find a sequence of shots that are very similar (e.g. where I have been trigger happy with the high-speed shutter on my 50D). I love being able to quickly flick back and forth between shots in-place to decide which is better. I find that comparing images side-by-side makes this harder, but by flicking between shots in full-screen lets me keep my eyes on the focus point, or notice subtle differences.

The reason I delete the non-picks is because I never want to see them again. If I make a mistake, I can easily fish them out of Trash. Better yet, when I finish processing a session I can empty the Trash and recover tons of disk space.

Apart from non-picks, I also use this step to get rid of "rejects", i.e. photographic failures like closed eyes, unrecoverably wrong exposures, out-of-focus shots, and accidental shots.

The key with this step is ruthless efficiency. I want to cut down the number of images as early as possible, so I try to rip through them quickly and just delete as much as I can stomach.

iPhoto just wraps around when it gets to the end of the event, so keep an eye out for that to avoid going through them all again. You can always hit the Space bar to quickly go back to thumbnail view to check where you are.

Step 4: Second Pass - Name Faces

The Faces feature in iPhoto '09 is pretty good but not 100% automatic, so you need to actually confirm the faces it finds. Trying to do this retrospectively over an entire photo library is extremely painful, and the lack of a "show me all the unnamed faces" feature makes it even worse. So I like to get this done on a per-event basis as I add them to my library.

In thumbnail view, select all images with Cmd-A and choose Detect Missing Faces from the right-click popup menu. Watch the little spinning arrows next to the Faces folder, and when it stops, click the Name button at the bottom to go into face naming mode.

I like to use the keyboard as much as possible here. You can press Tab to move through all the faces found in each photo, and type or accept iPhoto's guesses with Enter. Unfortunately I haven't found a keyboard way to remove faces iPhoto has detected; you have to use the mouse for those. And of course you need the mouse to use Add Missing Face.

Step 5: Third Pass - Editing and Losers

At this point, I have weeded out all the photos that will never make the final cut, and iPhoto now knows where all the faces are (which is important, as we'll see). Now we are down to serious photography, so it's time to go full-screen (Cmd-Opt-F) and make use of that nice big shiny Mac monitor. (It might be a good idea to lower the ambient light in the room to minimise reflections on that nice big shiny Mac monitor, too...) At full-screen, this is the biggest the photos are ever likely to be displayed, so if they look good here, they'll probably look good everywhere.

The objective of this step is to make photographic adjustments, and decide the final cut. iPhoto's full-screen mode is its edit mode. I look at each image, make adjustments if needed using the editing tools, and decide if it's a winner or a loser. If it's a loser, I use Cmd-L to flag it as "hidden", which removes it from view and goes to the next image. (Note: if iPhoto doesn't move to the next image when you hit Cmd-L, you probably have it set to display hidden photos. Use Cmd-Shift-H to turn this off.)

A few tips for making adjustments:

• If you shoot in RAW (you should if you can), you can recover a tiny bit of detail from washed-out areas by holding Option when using the Adjustments window. The Exposure slider changes to a Recovery slider.
• The magic wand Enhance button is pretty damn good considering the difficulty of its job. I often use it as my only edit, or at least as an excellent starting point. It is particularly good at finding the correct white balance.
• Having all the faces identified is a big help for editing, since photos containing faces automatically have the Avoid saturating the skin tones option checked.
• Cropping is often a great edit. iPhoto's cropping tool includes the 3x3 grid so you can find those "rule-of-thirds" sweet spots. But don't crop too much, because obviously this will reduce the resolution of your image.

I try not to make too many edits, because it reduces overall image quality (no matter what tool you use), and as a general philosophy I think it's better to try to get good shots to begin with. If I find a photo is still not satisfactory after 3 or 4 edits, I usually give up on it and mark it as a loser.

Update: As pointed out in Larry's comment below, it is important to note that editing doesn't affect the quality of the original image at all. You can always revert to the original if you mess up. The point I was trying to make here is that trying to squeeze too much out of a photo with edits can impact the output image quality.

Step 6: Pick of the Shoot

By this time, I usually have a favourite shot in the event, or at least a couple of candidates. I go back to thumbnail view, maybe preview them with Space if I need, and choose my overall best shot. I make it the "key photo" of the event by right-clicking and choosing Make Key Photo.

The nice thing about this is it means my Events view is automatically a single view of just my best shots.

Step 7: Places

I don't usually bother to get my places down to exact coordinates, so at this point I finish off the event by going back to the Events view and clicking the little "i" icon in the corner of the event tile to set a location for the entire event. This will apply to all the photos inside.

Step 8: Publish & Share

As I've noted before, it's important to get your photos polished and put them out there as soon as possible after the shoot. Personal photos are like fruit; they are much better fresh.

Since iPhoto has built-in ability to share on MobileMe, Facebook and Flickr, and it can even keep the online albums up-to-date automatically, I tend to just publish to all three. In a way, it's like having three online backups of all my photos in addition to my Time Machine – that's pretty safe!

I also like to create & purchase photo books from Apple if I want to keep the photos out on my coffee table for visitors, or send a copy as a gift to people who were on the trip with me. This is especially suited to non-technical family members.

You could even make a slideshow and export it as a movie for iPhone, MobileMe, YouTube, or a DVD. Whatever it takes to get the photos out into the world where they will actually be seen. After all, that's the point isn't it?

OK that's it! Repeat steps 3 to 8 for each event.

Ratings

Although iPhoto has the same 5-star rating system as Aperture, I find I don't really need them. The rating system most Aperture users recommend maps to my iPhoto workflow as follows.

• × (rejected; something photographically wrong) = Trash
• Non-pick of stack = Trash
• ★ (technically OK) = Hidden
• ★★ (might be OK with processing) = Hidden
• ★★★ (Flickr-worthy) = Not hidden
• ★★★★ (pick of the shoot) = Key Photo of event
• ★★★★★ (one of all-time best) = "Best Shots" album

I have an album set up called "Best Shots", where I put my all-time best pictures. I don't use Albums for anything but this, as I find Events have pretty much replaced them functionally.

So there you have it – that's my iPhoto workflow. I hope you find this helpful. Let me know what you think in the comments.