Since I planned to buy my digital camera during 2003 I have read all I could find regarding how to work with the images once they come out of the camera. I will in this article try to explain my current workflow.

Overview
The digital imaging process that I use can be divided into the following steps:

• Transfer image files from storage card
• Delete unwanted images
• Adjust image properties
• Convert images to desired archiving format
• Backup Exif data
• Adjust images in an image editor
• Restore Exif data

I want to spend as little time as possible working with the images in my computer, so I don't want any unnecessary steps in my process.

Transfer Images from card
During the first days with my camera, I simply connected it to the USB port and downloaded the images using the Windows Explorer; a normal file copy operation. I never really got friends with the Canon ZoomBrowser software and the image download utilities there. Either way, the USB 1.1 interface of the camera was just too slow, so I almost immediately got myself a SanDisk ImageMate 6-in-1 reader with USB 2 support. What a difference in speed! So I quickly changed my process into using the card reader for copying the image files to my computer. This is how I do it mostly today as well, if I have not been on a longer trip. In those cases I have probably downloaded images to my SuperDigiBin portable hard disk during the trip.

Delete Unwanted Images
Converting RAW images (I almost exclusively use the RAW format) is a lengthy process, so I tend not to convert images that are to be thrown away anyway. I usually go through the images in the Canon EOS Viewer Utility (which can be downloaded here), and delete those that are obviously just bad shots. This process is repeated a couple of times; first I throw away those that are totally out of focus or has other big faults. In the next round I get a little bit more picky, and so on. When this is done, it's time too...

Adjust Image Properties
The joy of the RAW format. Not very seldom you see the question in photography forums on the internet: "What is so great about RAW?". From my point of view there are two. First, it's said that the RAW format offers slightly more dynamic range than if using the JPG format in the camera. This might be true or not; I never conducted any tests on my own in this matter. But for me, the most important reason for using the RAW format is the possibility to adjust image properties in the computer, without compromising image quality. Now, this does not mean that you can be less careful when taking the image. The adjustments that I do are usually related to exposure and white balance. Usually I am quite careful about both of those while shooting, but sometimes they could use some tweaking in the computer. Again, as I mentioned earlier, I want to spend as little time as possible working with the image in the computer.

Convert Images to Desired Archiving Format
When the bad images are deleted, the remaining ones are adjusted to where I want them, then I convert the RAW files into image files. The output format that I use is 16-bit TIF images. They are big (around 36 MB each from my camera), but they hold the most possible information in this step.

Backup Exif Data
Exif (Exchangeable Image File Format) data contains information about the image, such as exposure time, aperture, focal length, date and time and much more. This information can be quite interesting to examine. Unfortunately, when editing the image in an image editor, such as PhotoShop, Exif data can be lost when the image is saved. Of course, there are ways around this. I use a software called Exifer.

The RAW files from the Canon EOS 10D come in pairs. First, there is the actual RAW file (*.CRW), and then there is a thumbnail file (*.THM). The THM-file is actually a small JPG file, which also contains all the Exif data for the image. So I copy all the THM-files to a new folder and rename them to *.JPG. Then I run Exifer and open that folder, select all images and create a backup of the Exif data. This will, for each JPG-file in the folder, create a file with the same name as the JPG file, but with the extension "exi". So CRW_8749.JPG gets an Exif backup called CRW_8749.exi. When the backup is created, the JPG files are deleted.

Adjust Images in an Image Editor
Images straight out of the camera is usually not ready for use in print or on the web. My image adjustment steps consists of upsizing the images so that they are 5050 pixels on the long side, and adjusting levels to increase the contrast a bit. The upsizing is done because it is requested by some image agencies. After resizing and adjusting levels I save the image in JPG format, with the highest available quality, and this is my archiving image file. Those files are stored in the folder where the Exif backup files are located.

Restore Exif Data
Now the archive JPG files have the same names as the JPG files that were used for creating the Exif backups. Also, they are located in the same folder as the Exif backups. Then I can run Exifer again, open this folder and restore the Exif data into the JPG files. This means that I now have the edited archive JPG's with full Exif data in them. This is what goes into my image archiving software.

Of course all RAW files and archive JPG's are also stored on CD's.