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c h a p t e r 1: DIGITAL IMAGING BASICS, WORKFLOW, AND CALIBRATION ■
3. Verify the integrity of the backup. (This automatically verifies the first copy.)
4. Once you are satisfied that the files are OK, you can reformat the card in the
camera before shooting more images.
Of course, you might not have enough time to copy, duplicate, and verify while
you are shooting, so you might need to have multiple cards on hand. Always strive
to have two copies of every image file at any one time. Cards can be downloaded to
the computer unattended, so you can always have one copy on the computer and one
copy on the card at the very least. Some cameras have the capability to shoot to two
separate cards in camera (usually a CF card and an SD card), so you’ll have backups
automatically as you shoot. Having a computer on hand can be inconvenient for many
photographers. In that case, consider using one of the portable, self-contained card
reader/hard drives (Figure 1.4) as a temporary backup solution.
Figure 1.4 A typical card reader
After all the images are shot and backed up, they will have to be evaluated
and worked on in some fashion. Professional photographers tend to generate a high
volume of images, and file management can become a real issue. Fortunately, mod-
ern software tools, specifically designed with the photographer’s needs in mind, have
become available. I recommend using an integrated image processing and cataloging
application such as Lightroom or Aperture. My own preference is Lightroom, so I
will use it in the rest of this chapter.
Setting Up a Lightroom Catalog
Lightroom is an image cataloging system that stores information about images in a
separate catalog file. It is beyond the scope of this book to provide full step-by-step
instructions for using Lightroom, but I will cover certain features that pertain to
the various tasks under discussion in the following chapters. Here we are concerned
with getting started with an image catalog. There are a number of different ways to
use Lightroom to organize your images—I prefer to have Lightroom mirror the file
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