Big Event Processing

I do some event photography shoots a few times a year - golf tournaments and auctions, which involves the 'official' foursome shots and promotional shots, candids on the course, and all the official indoor dinner and auction stuff...usually it means I'm coming home with 2,500 - 4,000 photos...especially with the 'action' golf shots which like you involves firing off bursts at 7fps to catch the right moment in the swing.

My process is a bit simplified I think compared to yours...but from basic memory, goes like this:

First, I shoot in RAW+JPG for the official foursome shots and dinner shots - it's one of the very few times I use RAW as these are the photos that will be going out to the attendees, sponsors, and press for event coverage and promotion - I can't get anything wrong, so the extra safety RAW provides is there to back me up, but by shooting RAW + JPG, I can just take the JPG if it was properly exposed and shot. ; The rest of the stuff I shoot JPG only as I'm confident with my camera and my shooting to get exposures and settings right most of the time.

First thing I do when I start working on them - load to the computer, backup to a harddrive, and leave them on the memory cards too - so I have multiple copies in case lightning strikes or my computer is taken by a Viking horde.

Second thing I do is cull - I go through and weed out the poor shots, the excess duplicates, etc. ; I'll view them large - and in the case of burst sequences, I'll pull them up side by side to compare, to see which has the best pose, position, exposure, focus, detail, etc. ; All the other ones - delete. ; This is my favorite part, because I can quickly see the numbers go from 2,500-4,000 down to 900-2,000. - I'll easily shed half the shots using the first cull. ; I might keep two or three bursts of a sequence and delete the other 4 or 5.

Then, I start pulling out the ones that need no work or very little. ; I'll start a new subfolder called 'processed', and go through each photo viewed large - those that need no work are moved right into the new folder. ; Those that need tiny work, such as a crop to recompose, I'll do on the spot, and save them into the processed folder. ; That might be another 75% of the shots...leaving me just the 25% or so that need work, or further selection. ; It's now a more reasonable number - maybe from a few hundred to 600 or so. ; Now I can go through my normal workflow, opening each up in paintshop pro, doing any edits, cloning, healing, noise removal, etc needed, and saving the final result to the processed folder. ; For any that I need to access in RAW, I'll do the RAW conversion. ; The first cull might take about 1 1/2 hours, the second phase of selecting and keeping those with no edits or simple crops usually no more than 3-5 hours. ; The rest will take me a few days, maybe 4-5 hours a day to finish off - I can usually have the results done within 72 hours...if there are any deadlines needed, such as some press shots for the local papers or magazines, such as a group or event shot, or some golfing photos, I'll rattle those off first so I can send them out, then work on the rest.

 

I do some event photography shoots a few times a year - golf tournaments and auctions, which involves the 'official' foursome shots and promotional shots, candids on the course, and all the official indoor dinner and auction stuff...usually it means I'm coming home with 2,500 - 4,000 photos...especially with the 'action' golf shots which like you involves firing off bursts at 7fps to catch the right moment in the swing.

My process is a bit simplified I think compared to yours...but from basic memory, goes like this:

First, I shoot in RAW+JPG for the official foursome shots and dinner shots - it's one of the very few times I use RAW as these are the photos that will be going out to the attendees, sponsors, and press for event coverage and promotion - I can't get anything wrong, so the extra safety RAW provides is there to back me up, but by shooting RAW + JPG, I can just take the JPG if it was properly exposed and shot. ; The rest of the stuff I shoot JPG only as I'm confident with my camera and my shooting to get exposures and settings right most of the time.

First thing I do when I start working on them - load to the computer, backup to a harddrive, and leave them on the memory cards too - so I have multiple copies in case lightning strikes or my computer is taken by a Viking horde.

Second thing I do is cull - I go through and weed out the poor shots, the excess duplicates, etc. ; I'll view them large - and in the case of burst sequences, I'll pull them up side by side to compare, to see which has the best pose, position, exposure, focus, detail, etc. ; All the other ones - delete. ; This is my favorite part, because I can quickly see the numbers go from 2,500-4,000 down to 900-2,000. - I'll easily shed half the shots using the first cull. ; I might keep two or three bursts of a sequence and delete the other 4 or 5.

Then, I start pulling out the ones that need no work or very little. ; I'll start a new subfolder called 'processed', and go through each photo viewed large - those that need no work are moved right into the new folder. ; Those that need tiny work, such as a crop to recompose, I'll do on the spot, and save them into the processed folder. ; That might be another 75% of the shots...leaving me just the 25% or so that need work, or further selection. ; It's now a more reasonable number - maybe from a few hundred to 600 or so. ; Now I can go through my normal workflow, opening each up in paintshop pro, doing any edits, cloning, healing, noise removal, etc needed, and saving the final result to the processed folder. ; For any that I need to access in RAW, I'll do the RAW conversion. ; The first cull might take about 1 1/2 hours, the second phase of selecting and keeping those with no edits or simple crops usually no more than 3-5 hours. ; The rest will take me a few days, maybe 4-5 hours a day to finish off - I can usually have the results done within 72 hours...if there are any deadlines needed, such as some press shots for the local papers or magazines, such as a group or event shot, or some golfing photos, I'll rattle those off first so I can send them out, then work on the rest.