196 Better Available Light Digital Photography
When you get back to the offi ce or studio, it’s time to copy the
image fi les from the memory card onto your computer’s hard
drive. Unless you’re using a USB 2.0 or FireWire device, trans-
ferring images via a typical card reader can be slow. USB 2.0
readers are inexpensive and fast, but make sure your computer
has a USB 2.0 connection, not just one that’s “USB compatible,”
which means the port is really USB 1.1 and is ten times slower
than 2.0. You can inexpensively add USB 2.0 ports to most
computers, so just do it. These cards for Mac OS and Windows
computers are available from companies such as Belkin (www.
belkin.com) and are easy to install even for the least technically
inclined photographer. You have better things to do than wait for
fi les to be moved from one place to another, so start by speeding
up the process.
At this point, you should have all of your fi les in a single unor-
ganized folder on a removable hard drive. Before doing anything
else, your next step is to burn a CD—or, more likely, a DVD—of
all fi les from the shoot. After the disc is recorded, test it to make
sure it works and then label the disc. Then think about how you
will fi nd that CD/DVD next week or next year. Tip: Using
Roxio’s (www.roxio.com) Easy Media Creator software, Joe
will produce a descriptive cover for the CD/DVD case that fea-
tures a large picture from the shoot on the cover. That way, he
can immediately see what images are inside.Sort ’em out
Now’s the time to edit anything missed during the chimping
process, using Adobe Bridge or Barry’s favorite, Lightroom.
The fi rst pass-through is quick, with the idea being to get rid of
images that aren’t technically up to par. If you have a question,
set the preview window to a large size so you can critically
evaluate the image. If it’s not up to your standards, click the
trash can icon and it’s gone. But what, you ask, happens if it turns
out that you can use that image later on? Remember that all
of the fi les from the shoot—the good, the bad, and the ugly—
are already backed up on CD/DVD. At this point, you’re
working with only those images that are stored on your computer
hard drive.
The next Bridge pass-through is slower and you should use the
software’s Label menu to assign ratings to the images. One star
for marginal and fi ve stars for “select.” Be honest with yourself
and give a fi ve-star rating to only those photographs that are
exceptional or exceptionally salable. At this point, you have
many choices, but the main thing is to separate items by content
and put them in folders whose names identify the content. In the
photographs of the car show, Joe created three folders (inside
the main shoot folder): Show Cars, Track Event, and Lifestyle.