Back when I was shooting Nikon, as well as when I had my Fuji X100S, I did pretty much all of my editing within Aperture 3, Apple’s own professional image editor. However, after discovering VSCO FILM through Athena Grace’s tumblr (which you should really check out, because she’s an incredible photographer), I knew I had to have it. However, as everyone seemed to be dropping support for Aperture (including Apple now), I had to make the move to Lightroom in order to use VSCO FILM.
And boy am I glad I did.
My workflow has definitely streamlined quite a bit since moving to Lightroom; it’s just more well laid out for going through lots of photos than Aperture was, in my opinion. The controls offered are extensive, and more than I even use, though definitely appreciated. But the best part for me is being able to use the amazing film emulators offered by VSCO, which is after all why I bought the software in the first place. (I have a physical copy of Lightroom, not a Creative Cloud membership.)
Lately I’ve found that the best way for me to go through my photos is to apply a film to a whole batch, provided they’re all from the same shoot, and then start at the top and work my way through, making minute adjustments as they’re needed. I really do pretty minimal editing though; the look I get from the films that VSCO provides is just about perfect, and I have loads of different presets to use — currently I own FILM 00, 01, 02, and 07. FILM 00 is totally free, and comes with presets from Kodak Gold 100 and TRI-X, which are both lovely, so if you have Lightroom, definitely go check that out.
One thing that the films all seem to do that I don’t like is add sharpening and some noise reduction, which I never do to my photos. (All NR in my camera is turned off.) So usually, I go in to one photo, apply the film I want for the whole batch, remove the sharpening and noise reduction, then just use Lightroom’s copy and paste settings feature to apply the adjustments to all the photos in the set. Super easy. And of course, as I said, I go through all the shots individually anyway, and sometimes use different films on them and change things around. The thing is, I like to have a certain consistency in my photos if they’re all from the same shoot. And if I were shooting film, all the photos from that roll would have the same look anyway.
These photos are all from this past Saturday when my dad and I went to Reckless Records in Chicago. All of them were shot with the Nocticron on my E-M5 II and processed using Agfa Portrait XPS 160, which comes in FILM 07, and has become one of my absolute favourite films.
So there’s a peak at my editing process. And no, I didn’t buy any vinyls. Though I have been in an LP sort of mood lately.
— Joel