Processing a batch of images for web.

[Deano]

I’ve just processed a batch of images for upload to PBase using Photoshop Elements 3.0. I just want some advice as to whether my workflow is a good one.

Here’s the drill:
1. Open and process the NEF in PSE 3 using Adobe Camera Raw
2. Do the usual crop, levels, curves, saturation etc. using layers as much as possible
3. Save as .PSD
4. Resize to 800x600 using bicubic resampling
5. Apply unsharp mask (100%, 0.5 pixel radius, 0 threshold)
6. Save for web (JPEG, 75% quality)
7. zip up batch and upload to PBase

Previously I was using PSE’s (and before that PS Album’s) export function for steps 4 and 6 to create resized JPEGs en masse. I’m now using the above process, one image at a time, because I’m not sure what resampling method is used by the export (do you know?) and I also don’t want to sharpen a JPEG and save again with the quality loss I think will result.

Unfortunately PSE 3 doesn’t have actions so I can’t automate this process.

The problem I appear to have with this approach is that the EXIF data goes west and PBase therefore doesn’t provide this useful info. Using the export seems to retain the EXIF.

Can anybody offer me any advice?

Here is the gallery in question: http://www.pbase.com/deanroberts/ocean_park

Comments, critique and votes most welcome.

Cheers
Dean

[gstark]

Dean,

Here's my workflow, FWIW. Within the context of this thread I'm only talking about web presentation of bulk images; if I'm doing something that's relatively important, I'll use NCE and careful, bespoke PP, on an image by image basis.

I'm mainly using NikonView for my browsing of images, and Nikon Editor (note - not Nikon Capture Editor) for simple changes and resizing of the images. What I've found is that a simple contrast adjustment is often enough for web presentation.

To start with, I shoot in raw + jpg; I move the images down to my pc, and then move the jpgs into a separate folder. For web presentation, I'll start with the jpgs and have a quick look at them using NV.

Hopefully, most of the images will be reasonably well exposed and have reasonable wb applied at the source. Using NE or NV, I'll start by using the batch resize function, and simply process all of the jpgs (or maybe just a select few) down from full size to 1/16, which seems to be a reasonable compromise for web display in terms of quality, image and file size. I'll place this batch output into yet another folder, thus preserving my original (out of camera) images.

At this stage most of the work will (hopefully) be done: NC automagically handles orientation, and everything that's fitting within my exposure and wb parameters (at original exposure) has been taken care of.

Now I need to address the lesser images. If I need to deal with more than lightness/contrast, then I will probably need to revert to the raw file to address the problems, but if the adjustments are simple, then I just go back to my source image (the original jpg), make the adjustments, manually resize, and then save over the top of the batch resized file.

If the adjustments are more complex (incorrect wb) then I'll revert to the raw file, bring the image to a satisfactory appearance, resize, and finally save as jpg, again overwriting the file created through the batch resize process.


For display, I'm using Singapore, hosted on the same server as these forums, and an internal system within my network at home. This part is just so easy - once I have the images ready, I just copy the whole of my output folder into the appropriate gallery area within my Singapore directory structure, rename the folder to something relevant, and that's it.

Singapore picks up the change in the directory structure and automatically recognises that as a new "gallery".

Does this help?

It probably helps explain why my images look so poor - I don't usually have enough time for bespoke PP on the images I like.