Fortunately, the smart people at Adobe understand photographers like you, which is why they’ve included batch processing as one of the very helpful tools in their editing software. Batch processing allows you to edit a single image, as you would like it to be, and then apply those same editing commands to a “batch” of similar images, automatically. For example, a series of portrait images shot under the same lighting conditions could be batch processed for such common settings as exposure, white balance and contrast. Conversely, the images from an all-day general nature shoot of landscapes, wildlife and/or close-up work will have to be categorized first into similar groups, with each group separately batch processed.
Obtaining the most benefit from batch processing actually begins during your shoot. Instead of constantly adjusting your exposure for each image, determine the best overall exposure for the subject matter or scene you want to photograph, and then use that exposure formula for all the images in that group. All of your images are apt to be in a narrow exposure range making it easier to batch process them. As much as you think ahead, however, batch processing won’t make every image “perfect”; it only takes off the “rough edges.” In many cases, you’ll want to perform additional editing of individual images, applying specific advanced and customized adjustments to make those images special…but that is time well spent.
Batch Processing in Lightroom
“Sync Settings” is the tool you want to use in Lightroom for batch processing. Instead of creating a preset and applying it to every photo, “Sync Settings” allows you to “synchronize” the final settings of a single, edited image to any number of photos you select.
The image you edit should be representative of the group of images to which “Sync Settings” will be applied; so you must group your images, accordingly, first. When you do select the single image to edit, you may process it to the final composition you want to create. With “Sync Settings,” you can select just those parameters you want to sync with the group of similar RAW images.
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Make sure your “baseline” image is still selected and then select the images you want to sync to it. Press and hold the shift key and click on another image, which will select all images between it and your edited image. Your other option is to keep the Control button (Command on Mac) depressed and select individual images with a mouse click.
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With the “baseline” image and the images you chose selected, click on the Sync button to the lower right on the screen. With the dialogue box that appears, you can select the settings from the original image that you want to sync to the other images. Click on “Synchronize” when you’re ready, and the processing begins.
Batch Processing in Photoshop
Batch processing in Photoshop produces essentially the same results as using Lightroom; however, the actual steps are a bit different.
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As with Lightroom, you begin by selecting a single image. You then access the Action panel, so you can create a new action, or a series of editing steps that are applied to an image. You start a new action by clicking on the icon to the left of the trash bin icon at the bottom of the Action panel.
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A “New Action” window will open where you give your action a name, click on “Record” and the action steps you choose will be saved.
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You can pick any editing/processing steps, but it’s best to limit your choices to common settings, as you would do in Lightroom, so they will actually batch process as many of the images as possible in the similar group.
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When you’ve finished with choosing settings for the new Action, click on the “Stop” button.
The next steps utilize Adobe Bridge, which is companion software to Photoshop.
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In Bridge, select the images to which you will apply the Action created with the “baseline” image.
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Then, go to Tools > Photoshop menu and click on “Batch.”
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This will return you to Photoshop and a window that allows you to apply the settings from your Action to a group of images.
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You should see your New Action in the dropdown list. Highlight it, click on “OK” and the settings that the Action recorded will be applied to the images you selected in Bridge.
Once you work through these steps in either Lightroom or Photoshop, you’ll quickly realize just how much time you’ll save with batch processing. Time you’ll have available to fine tune your best images or, better yet, free yourself from the computer and shoot some more photos!
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