As a pro photographer I am sometimes called to upload images the same day they are shot - it isn't often that this is required but every once in a while a few assignments require it. One of the very nice new features of Lightroom (Version 1.3.1) is that it allows you to choose the exact preview generated on import. After a long day of shooting and hiking or climbing all over creation, having to edit and process images is about the last thing I really want to do.

So, in order to speed up the process, I generally choose "Minimal" or "Standard" for the initial preview settings. This will speed up the import process. If minimal is chosen the images are imported incredibly fast - in reality I normally choose "Standard" though as this is the minimum setting to really edit images or at least to do a cursory edit.

Thankfully in most cases when images have to be uploaded the day of the shoot the client only needs a select few - the best of the best or certain images that illustrate a part of an event. Hence, I only need to process four or five images max. So the editing process is fast. Find the best of the best and don't mess around. I'll zip through images quickly without really zooming into 1:1 - if the sharpness is questionable I'll take a look before I declare the image one of the best.

Once the images are chosen, it doesn't take long to work up five images. Export the images and then make sure they are dust free - and off they go via FTP to the client for upload to their website (which is normally the case for the super fast turn around).

It also helps that Lightroom is quite zippy on my MacBook Pro laptop. The computers have come a long ways and all in all we have it pretty good these days. The biggest logjam of working up images quickly is oddly enough the download process - just getting the images off the cards. I normally don't carry a bunch of card readers with me on the road and most of the time I am downloading images from my Epson P2000 digital wallet which is decently fast.

So there you have it my quick and dirty methods for processing images on the road. Hopefully in less than an hour or so I can get the images off to the client.

And since it is the start of a new year...Happy New Year!

I hope 2007 has been a good year and 2008 is even better. I'd like to say thank you to everyone who reads this blog and has contributed to the communal learning process. And as usual it is the time of year to count your blessings. Normally between Christmas and New Years, I write up my goals for the coming year and take a look at how I fared with the current years goals. One thing I have noticed is that in the last few years, since Lightroom was released "optimize workflow for speed and efficiency" has not shown up on the list of goals as it so often did.

That's it for this session. See you next week.

Adios, Michael Clark