What do you use Color Tags for?
I’m curious to know what people use Color (Colour) Tags for. I use color tags in Aperture but as part of the process of assessing changes to my DAM workflow required by the move to C1, I have become concerned that my system is overly complex. So I wondered whether anyone had some tips or suggestions from things that they have learned.
In Aperture I have mostly been using the following color tags:
Red Needs editing
[color=#008040:1yi3ddb7]Green Finished editing
Orange[/color:1yi3ddb7] Indicates a ‘good' photo that I might include in an album that I will show people (e.g. best photos from a holiday). I find that I ‘Orange’ lots of 1 and 2 star photos because while they technically might not be great photos (e.g. blurry/out of focus) they are the best I have of a particular thing so I still need a way to identify them as ones to keep and show.
[color=#FFFF00:1yi3ddb7]Yellow[/color:1yi3ddb7] Indicates the best photo in a series of similar photos. I also use it as a way to highlight a ‘pick' in a Stack/set of variants.
[color=#004040:1yi3ddb7]Gray[/color:1yi3ddb7] Used to identify photos where another photo exists that is ‘better’ than this one. I would apply a Grey tag to all photos in a stack other than the pick (which is Yellow). I also apply it to photos that were used as a component of a panorama or HDR result. I usually apply a filter to hide all Gray photos.
The crux is that I don’t want to add all 3/4/5 star rated photos to my ‘best of' albums because there are often two or more that are too similar to each other, so I need some way to identify ‘potential’ when assessing all photos in a project. At the moment, Orange helps me to do that, and Gray helps me to ignore/hide similar/duplicate/component images.
Having tried Lightroom recently, I liked their Pick & Reject system as a quick way to select potentially good images & cull duff ones at the start. So in C1 I am tempted to use [color=#FF0000:1yi3ddb7]Red [/color:1yi3ddb7]and [color=#FF8000:1yi3ddb7]Orange [/color:1yi3ddb7](with customised keyboard shortcuts - & = respectively) to achieve this one stroke workflow. I can always use another color to indicate ‘Needs editing’ and I might not bother with ‘Finished editing’ at all anymore. Also, there is no Gray in C1 so I have chosen Blue instead.
I will normally delete all Red images from the catalog when I’m done assessing and editing.
Thoughts and advice welcome 😊
Cheers,
Adam
In Aperture I have mostly been using the following color tags:
Red Needs editing
[color=#008040:1yi3ddb7]Green Finished editing
Orange[/color:1yi3ddb7] Indicates a ‘good' photo that I might include in an album that I will show people (e.g. best photos from a holiday). I find that I ‘Orange’ lots of 1 and 2 star photos because while they technically might not be great photos (e.g. blurry/out of focus) they are the best I have of a particular thing so I still need a way to identify them as ones to keep and show.
[color=#FFFF00:1yi3ddb7]Yellow[/color:1yi3ddb7] Indicates the best photo in a series of similar photos. I also use it as a way to highlight a ‘pick' in a Stack/set of variants.
[color=#004040:1yi3ddb7]Gray[/color:1yi3ddb7] Used to identify photos where another photo exists that is ‘better’ than this one. I would apply a Grey tag to all photos in a stack other than the pick (which is Yellow). I also apply it to photos that were used as a component of a panorama or HDR result. I usually apply a filter to hide all Gray photos.
The crux is that I don’t want to add all 3/4/5 star rated photos to my ‘best of' albums because there are often two or more that are too similar to each other, so I need some way to identify ‘potential’ when assessing all photos in a project. At the moment, Orange helps me to do that, and Gray helps me to ignore/hide similar/duplicate/component images.
Having tried Lightroom recently, I liked their Pick & Reject system as a quick way to select potentially good images & cull duff ones at the start. So in C1 I am tempted to use [color=#FF0000:1yi3ddb7]Red [/color:1yi3ddb7]and [color=#FF8000:1yi3ddb7]Orange [/color:1yi3ddb7](with customised keyboard shortcuts - & = respectively) to achieve this one stroke workflow. I can always use another color to indicate ‘Needs editing’ and I might not bother with ‘Finished editing’ at all anymore. Also, there is no Gray in C1 so I have chosen Blue instead.
I will normally delete all Red images from the catalog when I’m done assessing and editing.
Thoughts and advice welcome 😊
Cheers,
Adam
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Reflecting on the title of your post, I primary use star rating (good-bad), and secondary color tags.
With color tags I group images in a series by topic, subject. For example a series of a garden, I tag 'flower', 'wife' and 'pet' each with a distinct color. 😉
Series for a panorama or HDR processing are tagged in a similar way. To summarise, I use rating for quality, tag for subject related organisation in a shoot.0 -
Currently I use them for quick rating of images after import, using Green (Yes), Red (No) and Yellow (maybe).
I use those because there are easy-to-use existing shortcuts for them.
Green +
Red -
Yellow *
I can then quickly select all the green ones, say, and transfer them to my Selects folder, and select all the red ones and trash them. (I use sessions.) I might go through the yellow ones again and either promote them to Green or demote them to Red.
Ian0 -
I use stars during the editing process to narrow down the selections for clients. Once the client makes the hero selects, I use color tags to flag those selections. I try not to make the system too complicated because I hate trying to explain it all the time to freelance techs. In my experience, clients understand the stars easiest (pushing the 1-5 number pad keys) and the two colors I use are mostly for me to know what to do in post production.
Green: client's final pick out of the group of selects
Yellow: used for plates that go with the green selects (for retouching purposes)0 -
[quote="Ian3" wrote:
Currently I use them for quick rating of images after import, using Green (Yes), Red (No) and Yellow (maybe).
I use those because there are easy-to-use existing shortcuts for them.
Green +
Red -
Yellow *
I can then quickly select all the green ones, say, and transfer them to my Selects folder, and select all the red ones and trash them. (I use sessions.) I might go through the yellow ones again and either promote them to Green or demote them to Red.
Ian
Interesting, Ian. Do you star rate afterwards? and Do you end up with some photos without one of those colors, or is it purely a process to either delete or select (green) photos?
I definitely think I will use this kind of method as a first run-through, changing my old Orange tags for Green (a more logical color for a pick).
Paul & Terence, thanks for your replies. It's great to hear of your methods. C1 offers us the flexibility to design a workflow as we please. The single 'heart' rating in Photos for OS X really does seem like it's designed for people who don't care less about DAM 😂0 -
Lika Ian I use them to quick rate for the first select and also have +, -, / to this. green is OK (+), red is to delete (-), yellow (/) is further check.
I also have blue to tag shots from my ColorChecker so I can quickly find them.
Once I am done with that, I then rate them with stars and also remove the green rating, because I use the colors then for grouping. Eg location A is then green, Location B is red. Or portrait set A is blue and B is purple, etc.0 -
[quote="amsquires83" wrote:
Interesting, Ian. Do you star rate afterwards? and Do you end up with some photos without one of those colors, or is it purely a process to either delete or select (green) photos?
I definitely think I will use this kind of method as a first run-through, changing my old Orange tags for Green (a more logical color for a pick).
Sometimes I do. I'm not very consistent in my approach (just an enthusiast not a pro - if I were a pro, no doubt I'd have to adopt a more consistent system).
What I used to do before trying the colours was stars, which are equally easy to apply, just pressing number keys to apply a star rating. I would just do 1 to reject and 2 to further consider, then go through the 2s again and either demote them to 1 or promote them to 3. Once you have imported images, you can select them all and apply say 1* to them all at once. Then all you have to do it press 2 for the ones that you might want to consider further.
Ian0
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