Obviously everybody does their own thing but some tasks are probably fairly common and I wonder how different people do these…
To start with, if you are combining pics from multiple cameras (including cameras from different people) then they will prob99 be out of sequence because different cameras are likely to be set to different times. Even if all are “right”, you might get one on UTC, one on local time, etc. So the “minimum version” of this problem is that you have to fix some up by exactly 1 hour. The best thing is to directly fix up the EXIF data because that doesn’t get modified by subsequent editing and I use a little free prog called JPGtime
and if you tick the three checkboxes that does the lot, instantly. This is one of the most useful progs I have ever found for doing trip writeups.
Afterwards it all depends on what (if any) editing is required. For best quality I am tending to use my Pentax K3 DSLR because it does the DNG raw format, but it is too heavy to carry around outside the aircraft – unless (a) I am going somewhere spectacular and (b) I don’t care if I look like a tourist.
A raw format works well with looks like Lightroom, where adjustments e.g. cropping and the “blacks” function as a quick and dirty way to reduce airborne haze come in handy. Then I batch output to Jpeg.
LR doesn’t have all the required features. A typical operation is fixing-up the last-modified date/time from EXIF data (if you edited a file, you don’t want the edited date on it) and batch renaming to e.g. file-0012 and these I do afterwards in ACDSEE PRO v7. An ancient ACDSEE v5, which came on a free magazine cover CD about 10 years ago, can do all this and is far faster but it won’t open DNGs. LR will do the renaming but it appears to not support packing the numeric filename with leading zeroes so a name-based directory listing ends up out of order. Also LR is very expensive to buy, and Adobe are going towards an IMHO outrageously expensive annual-license-only means of selling their products. I think Adobe will lose business to other products and ACDSEE will be one of them.
This is a reasonably quick workflow but needs a camera capable of a “raw” format because for some reason the Blacks function is not available for Jpegs (in either Lightroom or Photoshop).
LR doesn’t have all the required features
In Library mode, Lightroom has a function called ‘Edit Capture Time’ under the ‘Metadata’ menu which if you filter on one camera in the Exif which you know is different to the other, you can ‘shift’ the times en mass. It’s one of those little known features. LR isn’t that expensive now, I’ve got a deal with Adobe for Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop CC for £7.49 a month and there’s no real restrictions.
Interesting… thanks. I did a Lightroom course recently and didn’t pick this up. Does it work on Jpegs too, not just Raw?
I would never pay ~ 100 quid a year for this stuff 
The wedding / glamour photography pros (most of the course) love it but I am too tight a bastard for that.
Funnily enough I was on a wedding photography course when someone showed me that ;-) I’ve read some Lightroom books and don’t recall reading about it either. It should be independent of file type, but I only use RAW so haven’t tried it with JPEG. For me Lightroom is as invaluable as a time saving device as is SkyDemon, and while both expensive, they’re at the top of their game in what they do for the user. Photoshop I don’t use too much but with the Lightoom bundle it’s good value as Photoshop on its own (not Elements) was many hundreds of pounds.
And Peter respectfully I don’t think you are tight, you have one of the best looking small pre-full glass GA panels going I would have thought ;-) You know the value of having the best equipment money can buy I’m sure.
I don’t mind spending money on good gear, but the thing I really don’t like is having software which accesses the internet to verify the license and thereby implicitly having the ability to shut itself down at some future date, prob99 unpredictably and usually when you least expect it.
Obviously, people who accept a “monthly rental” deal need to accept that when they stop paying, the software will die, and they need to provide the program with internet access so it has the ability to kill itself.
I just don’t accept that mode of operation myself and would never touch such software
I have loads of software that remains productive which goes back years; to 1993 in some specialised cases (runs fine under win XP).
Flight planning software is different IF you want a current database – then you have to keep paying. But you should be able to run an old database and make your own judgement as to the risk. For example you might run an old copy purely as an airport lookup and a telephone directory. With any given program, a good % of the contact numbers will be duff anyway because they get lifted out of the AIPs without checking For example I update Navbox Pro a couple of times a year, but if I stopped, it would not stop running. Whereas the other main products tend to commit suicide after say 60 days.
IMHO what Adobe are doing is driving most non-professional users to bootleg versions of the last pre-rental product(s), with a keygen and a patched LMHOSTS file and/or a block in the firewall.
There was a thread here a long time ago on haze reduction, and it dealt with a method of doing it more aggressively as one goes higher up the image – to address the invariably thicker haze as the distance is greater – example. Photoshop can do this but I don’t think LR can.
I just don’t accept that mode of operation myself and would never touch such software
Yeah, must admit I am not overly keen on it, or being bound for 12 months, but at £7.49 a month it palatable. I am not sure what the deal is with regard to internet connection / license verification or what period you can get away with not having connected, but in practise it’s been flexible. And if I don’t have a need for Photoshop CC, I can revert to a non-cloud version of PS Elements and I still have a standalone Lightroom license. But on balance £7.49 a month is much better than a bulk outlay of £400 or something :-)
WRH to haze, I remember the thread, and I generally find if I cant reduce it in LR, then my PS skills wont do much for me and I just accept it. I gave up entering photos taken from planes into club competitions (me thinking a ‘landscape’ of the welsh mountains at 5000’ was going to beat one lower down proved to not work in my favour because of haze), so haze is really just something we see as authors, and most viewers either expect it or are happy with all of the other scenery not to worry about it too much.
On the other hand, I would guess there are quite a few people prepared to pay £7.49/month to rent Photoshop who would previously have bootlegged it rather than forking out many hundreds of pounds for a full version.
I do in general object to any form of £x/month pricing, but the Photoshop deal is pretty good compared to the old buy up front + upgrade pricing. And at some level the absolute cost has to come in to it – a camera body or lens could easily cost 20 years worth of Adobe subscription. And a fancy bit of avionics considerably more than that…
Yes… though another factor to throw into the discussion is being forced to upgrade other stuff.
For example LR 3.6 is the last one that works under winXP. If you are not renting it, it will just keep working, for ever, and if it does the job, you are done, for ever. If you are renting it, you are forced to upgrade it to get the new features you are paying the rental for, and at LR v4 you have to change your computer to win7, and then a lot of stuff is likely to stop working (mostly stuff like hardware drivers) and a lot of it has never been updated to (in this example) win7.
Then, at best, you tear your hair out for a couple of days getting back to where you were in functionality, more or less.
And win8 (almost mandatory on a new laptop now, unless you go for a high-end one and then you get win7) is pretty dead and abandoned as non-mainstream apps and drivers go; half the stuff doesn’t work under it and never will.
If all you want is updating the EXIF data block, you can use the PowerShell script at Reading and Changing Exif Photo Times with PowerShell. With a small modification it can update any EXIF property listed at EXIF Property IDs. Advantage: No risk getting infested when using free stuff.
Running XP is strongly discouraged due to lack of security patches and lack of security hardening. Especially when using drivers from less reputable companies, and any company that can’t afford paying for the best security researchers money can buy.
