How often do you feel like all of your photos from the year are organized and edited by the time you reach the end of the year? If you’re like me, it’s practically never. I love taking photos! But when it comes to processing them? It takes time and discipline to do that!
And so that’s what this month’s photo assignment is all about. Helping you get the past 12 months of backlog organized and edited so you’ll be able to showcase your favorite shots from the year! In the following video, watch how a simple, 7-step process helps me and a special guest accomplish exactly that…
1. Organize the past 12 months of photos into manageable folders
There are really only three basic folder organizational structures: by date, by event, and by subject. Each method has its pros and cons. No one way is better than another. But as I explain in Lesson 7, Getting Organized!, of the How to Share Your Photos With the World course, what you can do is combine all three for a winning strategy that takes advantage of all the pros of each! That’s why I organize my photos in the way that I do. And when I know exactly where all my photos are, it’s easy to do the next step.
2. One folder at a time, pick out photos with potential
In the video, I created a Collection called “Calendar Possibilities” in Lightroom and set it as a Target Collection. This makes it super easy to collect photos into one location from multiple folders. If you don’t have that capability, you could use star ratings or, better yet, a special keyword. What you don’t want to do is move or copy photos to a different folder.
Also, I don’t do any editing at this point. That’s the best way to get distracted! Just select photos that you think might have potential of being a favorite. Is a photo well composed, but underexposed? Pick it. Are there 3 or 4 similar photos that have potential? Pick them all! You will be narrowing things down in future steps.
3. Lightly edit the possibilities
After you’ve painstakingly picked through each folder to find the usable photos (and it’s fine if each step takes hours and hours!), you can now take the time to do some photo editing. A lot of folks don’t know where to start when it comes to photo editing, but hopefully the tips in Section 1 of the Secrets to Photo Editing course will help out there.
4. Narrow down the possibilities to actual candidates you really like
Again, if you don’t have that many photos, you can skip this step. But if you have hundreds of possibilities in your “Calendar Possibilities” Collection, you’ll want to take some time to narrow things down. In the video, I used a 5-star rating to accomplish this, but use whatever method works for you.
Narrowing things down isn’t always easy. If you’re not sure if a photo is good enough, I suggest going by first-impression or gut-feeling. Photography is art. Even if you can’t explain why something ordinary looks nice, keep it. And even if you can’t explain why something extraordinary looks plain, don’t keep it. And if you’re picking photos out for a calendar, think about whether a photo is interesting enough to look at for an entire month. Not busy, but full.
5. Look at common threads through the candidates to choose a theme
Let’s say you’ve narrowed things down to 50 nice photos. They are all great, but you can only choose 12. How do you know which 12 to choose? That’s when you step back and observe whether or not you see any common threads through the candidates. Is there a nice collection of animal photos? B&W photos? Vacation destination photos? Macro photos? Landscape photos?
If you have a lot of landscape photos, is there a theme that you could extract from them? Perhaps there are some that clearly illustrate Scripture verses. Perhaps instead of a theme you could use intentional variation. Choose the best waterfall photo, the best covered bridge photo, the best sunset photo, etc. That will help you narrow things down so you can . . .
6. Make the final cut!
What 12 photos go together best?! Downgrade photos to a 4-star rating until there are only 12 5-star photos remaining.
7. Edit the final 12 to perfection!
This is what Section 2 is all about in the Secrets to Photo Editing course! The idea is now that I know what photos I’m actually going to display, I can justify taking the time to really make those photos perfect. I can edit out telephone wires and other small distractions. I can take care of lens flare issues. I can add local adjustments. I can remove noise in the shadows. I can sharpen everything properly. I can tweak the photos to perfection.
And for those of you who actually want to take your 12 calendar-worthy photos and get them printed in a physical wall calendar, you can check out the options for Artist’s Calendars here!
Now It’s Your Turn!
But now it’s your turn to fulfill this assignment! Click here for all the nitty-gritty details. Looking forward to seeing everyone’s 12 calendar-worthy photos from the past 12 months!
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