Chapter 2. Be Prepared

This chapter is about what you need to do to make sure that the pictures you shoot will be of the highest possible quality (given the circumstances you are shooting in at the time). When I start to shoot a job, I want to make certain I think about all the things I can do to ensure that I'm capturing as much of the scene's full dynamic range as circumstances permit, that the pictures will be sharp, and that I am exposing for the most important part of the subject. You may be surprised at how comprehensive that checklist should be. On the other hand, I'm not going to crowd these pages with every esoteric possibility. Photoshop is important, yes, but it works best when it starts with good data.

Your Preparation Does Not Start with Photoshop

People tend to think of the Photoshop workflow as something that starts in Photoshop. In fact, if you hope to get the best results from Photoshop, the first step in your digital photo-making workflow should be making sure you're prepared. Of course, being completely prepared could entail all manner of complexities. So nope, we're not even going to try that. Instead, this chapter is about making sure you've covered the pre-planning basics. If what you need to do entails more than this chapter covers, chances are you've been in business long enough to know what to do and have an assistant or two who might even know more than you do. If you've been shooting film and are just jumping into digital, you may already know most of what's here. If that's the case, at least read the parts of this chapter that have to do with calibrating your camera and using your camera's Histogram feature.