Good morning

I have a problem (and that's enough laughter from the gallery over there!). I take a photograph, get it home and work on it to make the colours, tones and other aspects acceptable. Then later, need to reproduce what I did, but have forgotten (have been told that memory is one of the first things to go as you get older lol) - so end up with a slightly different result, not neccessarily one that am as happy with as the first time. Of course, it is obvious - keep a written record. So did; on scraps of paper that have been been "put in a safe place", and not necessarily recorded in a way that will be clear at a later date.

aaaarrrrgggghhhh!!!!!

Today, decided to be a little better organised and created a record sheet. Possibly there is already something available online somewhere, but haven't looked. Now, does this mean these won't also be "put in a safe place"? No - but at least the record of what I did will be clearer to me when I find it again <laughing>

Is a copy of this sheet of any use to others? It is in pdf format, so should be readable on any platform. A copy can be downloaded from my website. Here is the link:

Manipulation Activity Chart

Because every piece of software appears to have a different result for the same name, have tried to make it software independant, albeit I used the terms as found in PhotoFiltre, one of the four different programs I use (and who knows what else in the future). Not knowing what the "standard" terms are, this program seemed to have those I most easily understood. If there are "generic" terms that could replace these, let me know, the changes can be made and an updated version uploaded to the address.

Not being able to fit everything on one sheet (not going down the "just make another page" track) stayed with what I believe to be the most common changes, and so the last column becomes the catchall.

Enjoy your day

Romane

I know this solution isn't for the exact same problem that you've delineated, however I think that it would work if you only use Photoshop. If you always same the image as a photoshop document after editing, you'll be able to view the history log since it is saved along with the file. At least I think that it is saved. I don't have a copy with me right now to verify, can someone verify if this is the case or not?

Photoshop 7 forgets the history if im looking at what i think the history log is:P

The history is deleted when the file is closed. You can however set up an action to record the steps taken while editing. And you always have the option of a layer for each change which can be saved.

Not only is the history removed but its also very limited as far as what (and how much) it records (after playing with a brush for a few mins your history is pretty useless)
I believe the best remedy for this is what mayne has suggested. Instead of making the adjustments to the background layer, set up an adjustment layer for each enhancement, there is an adjustment layer for just about every common enhancement.

If you have a large hard drive you could mimic my technique and save the important steps (like software changes, major image changes, or alot of brush strokes) of the image manipulation process using very explicit file names.
I have done enhancements and manipulations where there are over 10 files for the same image with some of the later images having really excessive filenames like shed2-crop-neatimage-pass2-rotate-blur2-colorenhance-final3-forprint8by10.jpg

Love the file naming;-)

Interesting project Romane. I wouldn't have the patience of fulfilling such a scheme though. ^_^ I do something like Anthony above here suggested last. Being as lazy as I am I tend to use abbreviations for every thing. (Contrast adjusted= "c" and levels adjustments = "l" etc.) I save new versions of the file every now and then too. The drawback is that sometimes I forget to save for some time and get lost in my editing... I guess this is not really giving too many details about what I did specifically though.

abbreviations hehe
in my infinite wisdom I didnt consider this for the purpose of shortening filenames
thank u master klas
*begins renaming files*

I think one good thing about saving several files is that you can also compare one enhancement to a previous image, or even go back if you dont like the results. But once again I have a small partition on my HD dedicated to this kind of image storage.
<whatever would we do in the days of 8 character max filenames>

Photoshop, Corel, and most other paint and draw programs along with flash have a image documentation file that you can right your actions in. I sometimes use notepad and save it in a folder with the image along with it's history.

Photoshop CS has much more options with regards to saving history states permanently and I'd imagine CS2 will expand on that more. Frankly if werent for history id be screwed in my job as it constantly requires jumping back through stages to fix things that i miss when im preparing images at prepress stages. I normally have history set to around 40 states but have never tried the recording elements as I work in layer sets and always keep an original file as part of the base set with subsequent changes on sets above that sequentially.

Yeah, that's basically what I do as well.

I have only been playing with manipulations for a year and a a half, but i have learned one thing in that time and this is for us people learning here, not the pros that play with it all the time, i never throw the original away, i always create a copy and mess with it in another folder, because some where down the line i want the original and it is gone...

If you would like a permanent record of the changes you have made to an image, you could do what us sports/news photogs have to do with all our images…caption them!

In Photoshop, select File>File Info, and enter all of the pertinent information into the description box. Then, you can always view the info in Photoshop, or some programs such as ACDSee or Photo Mechanic will display the caption in the properties window.

This caption is embedded into the image the same way as the camera’s exif data, so it will always remain with the image. Plus, it can be removed or changed at any time.