Workflow describes the overall processes you use between retrieving the image from your camera to your finished image. It includes:
camera setup and image capture (in particular whether you capture in RAW or JPEG or both
file management including storage strategies and the importance of backup
indexing and cataloging (so you can easily find your beautiful images again in your ever-growing image collection)
basic editing
advanced editing
display including printing and mounting, web galleries etc. (though I probably will not be going into these areas in this post-processing training site)
Backing up your images (OK I know I mentioned this earlier… it is important and usually neglected. You’ll only value it after your disk drive dies. Look at this post)
How you set up your workflow is a very personal thing, but if you do it right your work will be more efficient and it will save you hours and hours of time and frustration. The links below will discuss some of these aspects in greater detail.
Belinda and Fiona’s workshop on Astrophotography was animated, entertaining and informative. They kindly shared a cheatsheet and their powerpoint slides.
Paul Robinson presented a workshop on Colour Theory on 21 March 2026. He kindly allowed us to share his images and notes, which I have collated into PDF files for sharing.
After the presentation the attendees had opportunity to put some of the principles into action with a series of exercises followed by still-life photography.
Following David Williams inspiring workshop on 17 Feb 2026, I thought it might me useful to make some notes on some of the many things he mentioned.
Home Studios
You don’t need lots of space and you don’t need lots of expensive professional flashes to take good portraits. Clever use of backdrops and positioning of the model in relation to these can provide a sense of depth in the photos even in limited spaces. For example, in his demonstration David used two cheap artist’s canvases daubed with paint and with a couple of struts screwed on the bottom so they stand up. the one nearest the camera is slightly lighter in tone than the one behind the model to give a greater sense of depth, even though the second canvas is really quite close to the subject. David used a wide aperture to get shallow depth of field to enhance the sense of depth. A table, a chair, a model … what more could you ask?
Oh yes … you could ask for some lighting.
Lighting
You could use professional strobes etc, but David brought some cheap LED lights he picked up at a local hardware store, and added DIY modifiers to provide a variety of effects.
In the example below he has used some black card to restrict the spread of light from the LED lamp (in a professional lighting setup you might call these “flags”). By adjusting the card you can make a narrower or wider beam so you can get the light where you need it, and only where you need it.
In the next example, David has added some translucent plastic (baking paper or thin white fabric would probably also work well). This makes a much softer lighting effect. Also in the image is some silvered packaging material that David used as a reflector. A silvered car windscreen sunshade would also serve.
The other example he provided was a cheap magnifying glass with a ring-light, used primarily for the light it can shed on the subject, but the potential is there also to do creative things by photographing through the lens part.
Note that David’s demonstration (see first image) also involved use of multiple lights – main light, fill light, hair highlight lights etc. This involved multiple “assistants” (not all shown in the image) holding the lighting, but you can probably improvise light stands (eg tripods), or you can buy cheap light stands (they don’t need to be ultra strong – the lights used were very lightweight).
Since these cheap lamps are not extremely bright, you may need to place the lights quite near the subject, Also, the lamps may not all have the same colour temperature etc (though in my experience LED lamps tend to be about 5k colour temperature – approx daylight), so David was taking his photos in monochrome, and he used 1/25 sec, which worked well as the model was static. His photos were pin-sharp. And he used 1000 ISO. Not a problem with the high ISO capability of modern digitals, but even if you get sensor noise, is it a problem? Sometimes grain can add to an image not detract. The end result he got was certainly excellent.
These are very brief notes in response to a query. I will probably update when I have more time.
When I make a focus bracket series, I usually have some images at the beginning and end that are focused too close, or focused too far. In some cases you may have things in focus at the extremes, but you would prefer these to be out of focus to draw the eye to particular areas of the subject, rather than have all of the subject pin-sharp. It is easy to scan through your focus sequence images to see which ones you want to include.
Because focus brackets can generate very large numbers of RAW files, I generally don’t import these directly into my Lightroom catalog. I process the stack and import that (keeping a backup of the original images in case I need to go back and re-work the stack).
I like faststone image viewer (https://www.faststone.org/ windows only) to skim through the focus stack. Faststone works fine on RAW files. In faststone clicking on the image instantly zooms to 100% on the area you clicked and you can click and drag to scan across the whole image. Very handy for checking for sharpness across the image. There are lots of other programs that give similar functionality.
For stacking I use Helicon Focus https://www.heliconsoft.com/heliconsoft-products/helicon-focus/ which I find excellent. It is very fast. Zerene stacker is another excellent product with similar features. It may give slightly better stacks for some sorts of images, but it is considerably slower. Photoshop has some stacking functionality, but much less capable with complex subjects – it can auto-align and auto-mask, but if you need to tweak the masking it is a nightmare. Helicon and Zerene make post-stacking adjustments easy.
So, generally, I drag the set of raw images I want to stack onto the Helicon window. It quickly digests the raw files and presents a list of source images on the right and a rendered image on the left.
You can click the source image list to view any of the files; you can zoom in to see the detail on each image; you can select/deselect source images to include/exclude from stacking. Once you have decided which images to use, choose a rendering method. Helicon gives useful guides on which method to use for different subjects, or just play, try them all out, adjust the parameters, and click the Render Button. With the 20 images in my test stack rendering takes less than 10 seconds, so you can afford to experiment. This isn’t a press the button and “go away for a cup of tea whilst it works” sort of program. Each rendering will give you an image in the right hand panel that you can browse/zoom etc to see if you are happy. thumbnail at the bottom that you can click to select so you can browse and compare.
Quite often my stacks need some extra attention, particularly with complex subjects with many overlapping elements (eg hairs, antennae etc). Focusing on the surfaces behind the antenna for example, you will find that the out-of-focus antenna obscures an area. Or out of focus elements might bleed out over the background. You can see that in the image below. A defocused highlight from the edge of the eye of this fly is lightening up the otherwise black background. There are also glitches in the hairs where they cross the edge of the eye.
These sorts of artefact are relatively easy to fix (albeit somewhat fiddly) with the “retouching” tools in Helicon where you can copy from a selected source image (here you would choose a source image where the eye edge is in focus, then paint in the areas where the rendered image shows the out of focus. Or you can clone from different areas etc etc. See the Helicon documentation if you want to find more. Zerene has similar retouching tools.
Anyway, back to workflow, once I have stacked and retouched the image(s) I save to a TIFF and then load that into Lightroom. Just saving the processed image saves a lot of disk space on my main drive. If I think I might want to come back and reprocess, I will save the original RAW files onto a backup drive. I can easily find them then by date or file name.
Helicon Focus has a 30 day free trial. I think Zerene does too. There are a variety of other packages like combine ZP (free) that also stack, and focus stacking is a feature in a variety of other software like Photoshop.
In summary, my workflow is:
Drag original raw files from camera SD card onto Helicon focus
Stack (compare different rendering methods/settings)
Retouch to fix up any glitches
Save the stacked image to photo drive and load into LR. Add keywords etc as desired.
Backup the original focus bracket set to backup drive.
Making photobooks or calendars for the first time can be daunting. There are many suppliers, all with their own systems, usually either a desktop computer application that you download, or an online web-based system. In my experience these systems are often quite clunky, particularly if you want to make complex layouts with multiple images, text boxes and layout elements (borders, drop shadows etc). What I realised was that you can avoid most of the stress by using layout software you are probably already familiar with, namely Powerpoint (or LibreOffice Impress, a free alternative to PP).
A photobook page with multiple images and text. Powerpoint made it easy to line up the elements, select fonts etc. Doing even relatively simple layouts like this in the native photobook software can be tedious as it is difficult to get precise alignments and spacing, or to move things around easily.
My approach is as follows:
Create a blank presentation with the correct dimensions to match your book/calendar page size
Duplicate the blank page to generate the necessary number of pages for your project (don’t forget the front and back cover).
Lay out your pages – note that it is often safest to assume that there will be a few mm variation in where the printer will guillotine the pages, so leave a little “safety” space on the margins – i.e. don’t put critical elements on the borders.
Once you have all your pages as you want them, export/save the presentation as JPEG files. Powerpoint (recent versions) will generate high resolution images. Old versions of PowerPoint may be a bit limited unless you apply some tweaks.
You now have a set of quality JPEG files, one for each page, with all the layout elements in place. I usually have either white (book) or black (calendar) page backgrounds. I recommend you use the print service system to change (if needed) the page background to match the background page colour. That way if there is any mismatch/misalignment of the page images relative to the page, you won’t see it. Now. simply add each JPEG to the corresponding page of your book or calendar. It is so much easier to make the pages using a single image per page. You will probably need to adjust the image to stretch to cover the page, but that is quick to achieve.
Save the project every few pages, in case something glitches.
Preview the project before you commit it to print.
A couple of things to consider.
Page size
Sometimes the nominal page size doesn’t actually match what you get back. For example an A5 soft cover book I made once had finished pages that were 20 cm wide not the 21 cm you might expect. I guess something was lost in the binding/trimming. Luckily I allowed enough margin that it wasn’t a problem. These days I generally open the online page design software and do a screen grab (see below). I can then measure the dimensions of the page on the screen grab in pixels and use the width/height ratio to set a more accurate page dimension in PowerPoint/Impress (or just measure it on your screen, assuming your screen has square pixels).
BigW Photos page layout software. Measure the width and height to determine the exact ratio, and tweak the page size in powerpoint or impress that match that ratio. Note the software provides a grey shaded section in the middle to simulate the area where the pages bend into the binding.
Cover Pages
Depending on the provider and how their software works, it is sometimes easier to make the Cover in a separate file that has pages about twice the width of single pages. Then I can add text lettering on the spine in the centre of the page, as well as the front (right hand side) and back cover (left hand side). Place this double width image on the Cover layout page and drag it to fill the double page spread. Alternatively, in some software it is easy just to add the text as a text element separate from your page layout, in the central column (the software will probably give you a placement guide on the layout page)
Double page spreads
You may want to have images spread over two pages. Bear in mind that unless you are ordering a “lay-flat” book, you will lose some of your image in the binding (see image above). If you want to minimise the number of images you have to add to compile your book, you could also make all the “pages” double width, leaving appropriate gaps for the binding in where you position your text and images. then place the double page spread image to fill the double page layout in the software. Note that if you want page numbers, it becomes a challenge, as the automatic numbering won’t give you sequential numbers on both sides of your double spread layout.
Printers
There are lots of printers out there. I generally use BigWPhotos or HarveyNormanPhotos (both use the same Fujiprint systems), as they are very cost-effective if you wait for specials (fairly frequent). Delivery to a local store is free which cuts down the price too – it makes a difference if you make lots (I make several dozen calendars each year for family, friends and neighbours). Photobookshop.com.au offers similar quality (if you choose the more expensive paper option) They do put intrusive self-advertising barcodes on the front of their calendars. Photobookshop generally include postal/courier delivery in their prices. There are a wide range of other printers, with a range of prices and quality, but I won’t comment on any others as I have not tried them out.
My experience with the printers I have used is that if something is mis-printed (misalignment, colours wildly inaccurate etc) they will repeat the job for free so you get what you paid for. Caveat – these comments are my experience up to the time I write (2025) and things may change in future. Caveat emptor — it is often a good policy to search out reviews/feedback to see what the consensus is on any particular supplier (but look out for fake reviews).
Here is a simple DIY project, a DIY water drop apparatus to get photos of splashes. I devised it for a workshop I gave to our camera club and decided to document what I did. Of course you could buy commercial products that are much more versatile (eg Pluto Trigger or MIOPS trigger), but they will set you back several hundreds-of-dollars, rather than this DIY approach that will cost you at most several dollars.
Water drop photos taken using my DIY aparatus.
This is not a blueprint on how YOU should make it. I made the rig with bits and pieces I had at home. The general idea should point you in the right direction for you to recycle bits and pieces you have, or beg/borrow/buy cheap bits to complete it.
The base board was a piece of plywood – a piece of an old shelf. The column was a bit of alloy tubing from an old clothes airing rack that I dismantled. You can buy similar aluminium tubing or wooden dowel at hardware stores for a few dollars. I connected this to the base board with a block of wood with a hole drilled to hold the column, and screwed to the baseboard from below.
To hold the side arm I drilled holes in a cube of wood at right angles. I used a bulldog clip to stop the block sliding down the column. This allows easy adjustment of the height for the drop. You can use the same sort of tubing for the side arm as the column; you can adjust how far the side arm projects by sliding it within the block. If it rotates when you load the water you can fix it with sticky tape, or put in a screw through the wood block to fix it in place.
I used a 20 mL syringe (I happened to have some at hand, but you can probably get them at a pharmacy), and used rubber bands to hold it against the side arm. From the nozzle (Luer slip tip) I put a small bit of flexible garden dripper tube to connect it to a small inline dripper tap, so I could control the flow. You might be able to avoid the syringe and flexible tubing if you use a small disposable water bottle. You might be able to punch a small hole in the cap to allow you to screw the dripper tap in. Cut off the bottom of the bottle, screw on the bottle top with tap, invert and see if it works. You may need to use sealant to avoid leaks between the tap and the bottle cap. Or even just make a pin hole in the cap and see if you get nice drip rates (small holes give slow drips; start small and work up until you have the drip rate you want. Another alternative is to use a siphon to deliver water to the dripper tap.
Another suggestion is that aquarium shops sell small adjustable valves (taps) for aquarium air-lines, so you could probably use one of those instead of a drip-irrigation tap.
Use a drip tray (there will be lots of splashes). Place a bowl on the drip tray under the dripper, and fill it with water. In the illustration I have used a white takeaway bowl, but feel free to experiment with coloured bowls or clear glass bowls. Place a background (far enough back to avoid splashes unless you are using, say, coloured fabric that won’t mind getting wet).
Now you are ready to play. Let’s discuss camera settings.
Since the drops are very dynamic you will need a very short exposure time. The best way is probably to use flash. On my Canon 580EX at 1/8 power the flash duration is about 1/4000 which is enough to freeze the motion of the water droplets and splashes. Set the camera to flash sync speed (eg 1/250 sec, depending on your camera). There will be some movement of the point at which the water drop lands (depending on random movements as the drop forms, air movements, distance from dripper to bowl etc), so I use f16. Set ISO 200 as a starting point, and flash on manual at, say, 1/8 power. Adjust the flash power and ISO as needed to get optimum exposure.
If you are not using flash you will need powerful continuous lighting to enable fast shutter speed (say 1/2000 sec as a starting point, but experiment) which will probably necessitate higher ISO settings. Adjust your settings to get appropriate exposure. With continuous lighting you will be able to use High Speed “motor drive” to get a sequence of shots, which may allow you to use slower drip speeds and still give you usable splashes in each burst of shots.
To avoid unwanted camera movements use a tripod. Focus on where the drops will land. If you are using a mirrorless camera you may need to change the viewfinder settings. Often it is set to display the image as it would be captured on the sensor, which is fine for ambient light, but if you are using flash, you may find the viewfinder is very dark since the main light (flash) is not illuminating the subject. You will find somewhere in the menu there is a setting to emulate an optical view finder so you see the subject in reasonable exposure. On my OM1 the menu is shown below, but the menu set-up, and exact terminology may vary depending on your camera brand and model.
Once you can see the subject, use manual focus to get the area where the drips land in focus. Now you can start to get photos. It is hit and miss. Remember to wait for the flash to charge before releasing the shutter or you will get blank images. Adjust the drip rate with the tap. If the drips are too infrequent you may get many “misses”. If your drip rate is too high it may get messy with multiple splashes in exposures (but that may also give interesting effects). Below are thumbnails of some of my better images (about 1 in 10 of the exposures I took (and a biscuit I chomped on between sequences).
If your flash has a “strobe” function that operates fast enough (multiple sequential flashes in a single exposure), you might try that to see what effects you get (may need to use a longer exposure time). Try adjusting the height the drips come from to see how things change. Play with different backgrounds; perhaps use a different coloured/patterned bowl. Maybe colour the water with food dye. Maybe colour the drip water but not the bowl. Maybe drip into milk … Experiment.
Hope it all works for you. Let me know if you have problems.
He followed this with a presentation on his notes from his presentation “10 killer tips for creative ideas”. He has generously provided his notes that you can download from the link below.
Ewen broke the mould with his judging for our monthly competition (set subject ICM), turning it into a very educational presentation highlighting concepts that he illustrated using a selection of the entries.
He also has provided comments on many of the individual entries that you can view in the monthly competition galleries on SmugMug (Intermediate Print, SetSubject and Open; Advanced Print, SetSubject and Open)
He showed us A0 prints made from 12 megapixel JPEG images, that he had upscaled using Upscayl, a free, open source, AI based program for increasing the pixel count of images. There are desktop versions for Windows, MacOS and Linux. https://upscayl.org (see video link How Big is 12MP below). [Note: there are other alternatives – Photoshop (current version) does a very reasonable job; Gigapixel from Topaz Labs is excellent and there are others – https://www.howtogeek.com/868512/how-to-ai-upscale-an-image-or-video-8-best-tools/ gives some other options.]
Plus he gave us a few YouTube links that might be relevant:
Processing and printing A0 from 12MP using Upscayl
Our Creative SIG presentation 09 April 2024 was by Suellen Saidee Cook, who joined us by Zoom from her home in Tasmania. She creates imaginative composites with strong narratives.
Cook’s style is mysterious, enchanting, whimsical and emotive, with threads of melancholy inviting feelings of having been left outside the boundaries of the image. She seeks to make the viewer of her images an observer who is projecting their own emotional response into the image, creating a story of what they see and feel.
She is winner of multiple awards for photographic excellence.
In her presentation she talked about her creative process. The image below illustrates the concept on a page in her journal, and final outcome for her image “Two Minutes Past Twilight”. She provides a partial step-through at this link https://www.instagram.com/p/C2F_64ASjfd/ so you can see how the image progressively developed.
Suellen discussed some of the technical issues in generating her images using photoshop, and recommended the Photoshop training videos by Jesus Ramirez at https://photoshoptrainingchannel.com/
A recording of Suellen’s presentation will be made available for a couple of months. An email with details will be emailed to members shortly.
The February meeting included a run down on 2023, presentations from Helen Warnond on Creativity (presented by Jen Fawkes), Creative Blur (presented by Jen Fawkes), and a focus on Shirley Steel’s work (presented by Jenny Adams). Paul Spence then outlined his plans for the meetings he will run in the remainder of the year. Paul will be focusing on inspiration and creativity rather than techniques for image editing and compositing:
“Aurora” by Sharon Prenton Jones.
9 Apr 2024 Beginning
11 June Messy middle
13 Aug Geelong creative comp
8 Oct Review
The subsequent meetings took a variety of forms. A few resources are linked below for meetings where relevant.
