This is one of many articles to come on the Digital Photography Workflow and we will call this series “Workflow Wednesdays”. The assumption here will be that the posts will be on Wednesdays and that they will primarily focus on digital workflow.

So what is “workflow” anyway?

I’ll spare you the academic definition, ahem, we all know what that definition says. Workflow for us, will be what we do to get the most out of our photos. Sure, that seems like a pretty nebulous definition, so we’re going to constrain it even further :

Workflow is the steps we take to manage our photos, edit our photos, and create things with our photos.

This series will attempt to decompose each component of this workflow (manage->edit->create) so that we can realize that the fun hasn’t even started yet – and that once we understand how to work in a consistent and predictable manner, we can do things with our photos that we’ve never before imagined. We will then have a level of efficiency and control that makes us feel happier about our digital photography, and a nice side effect is that we’ll end up better photographers (promise)!

Our workflow begins with Management. Management of our photos is extremely important, because there isn’t any fun in taking photos and not knowing what to do with them, how to take care of them or how to categorize and tag them. Photographs can be important historical artifacts, but they’re useless if they can’t be easily found. Photographs can also have significant aesthetic value – a great photo of something needs to be taken care of by appropriately managing it.

Management really has three core components :

• transfer/import
• catalog
• backup

This series will discuss, in depth, each of these workflow components. While we will make every effort to keep our techniques generic, it is impossible to manage images without some kind of tool. In the spirit of keeping things accessible, we will focus on the increasingly popular Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0 (Windows/Mac). We find this tool has a very mature set of features for all aspects of the workflow presented here.

As for the Editing component of the workflow, we’re definitely going to take our time to touch in on some of the important techniques for turning a good image into a great one, including some of the increasingly popular techniques and tools for panoramic and HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography.

Finally, doing things with our images is where the fun really begins – and we’ll be bringing attention to the myriad of possibilities, from emailing photos, creating slideshows, making poster-sized prints, T-shirts, customized photo postage, soft and hard-bound books and slideshows to name a few of the many possibilities to Create exciting things with your photography.

This series will be fast-paced and exciting! We’re looking forward to diving into the wide range of topics that will be covered, so hang on for a grand tour of the digital photography workflow.