One of Photoshop’s capabilities is batch-editing … that is, running an action on a lot of photos at once. At face value, this seems like an efficient thing to do, right? Unfortunately, in most cases, no. In fact, this approach might reveal serious problems with your workflow. Make "global" adjustments to the photo in Raw. Make various "local" adjustments in Photoshop. This might include cloning and other pixel modifications, and/or tonal and colour adjustments to various parts of the photo using layers and masks. Steps 1 and 3 are where batch processing can be performed.
No matter which raw software you use, it has excellent functions for applying your adjustments to whole sets of images, very quickly, where the lighting was the same. And at the end of the workflow, you can definitely set up a batch process in Photoshop to apply your artistic actions to multiple photos at once. But batch-processing is impossible at Step 2. The whole point of Step 2 is that it is unique for every photo. No two layer masks will ever be the same from photo to photo. No pimple is ever going to be in the same place for you to batch-clone it out. What if there are any global adjustments that you consistently make in Photoshop? … then slap yourself upside the head. HARD. There are no global functions that should habitually performed in Photoshop as part of the clean editing workflow. ALL of the global functions can and must be done in raw. So I need you to take a good hard look at your raw processing.
We contacted Heather - who come to find out, is a font designer at The Lilypad - Check out her shop! Heather documented 3 years of her life in the Collect Photo App (avail for iPhone only). She also came up with a quick and easy batch processing workflow to save money by laying out 2 3×4 files on one 4×6 print. PLEASE NOTE: This tutorial is for photoshop users. Batch processing 2 3×4 images onto one 4×6 format will work with any 3×4 formatted file. Persnickety Prints uses the Collect Photo App for personal memory keeping, but is not affiliated.
1. I use Aperture to organize my photos. The first thing I did was change the version name to be year-month-date so I could browse through everything easy peasy. 2. 3. I then started to caption everything in Collect. Tap the date. Choose the photo. Search for photo in photo stream. (I kept Aperture handy and open so I could peek at the day I was looking for. It was like a built in cheat sheet.) I gave the photo a small caption. 4. Then the time came to export the images. Pay for the App. The trial/free version will NOT export a print ready file. Set the export size to 3×4. Make sure the bleed option is on. Wait for the process to finish. Then import the 3x4s into your computer. 5. First I gathered the photos by month to make sure they were all there. And there were no duplicates. And all the corrections were the final ones. 6.
The key takeaway is that batch processing can save time for uniform lighting and global corrections, but it cannot replace a careful, photo-specific Step 2 where local edits are required. A practical workflow starts with strong raw processing to handle global adjustments, then moves to targeted local edits in Photoshop with masks and layers, and finally, when appropriate, uses batch actions for repetitive, non-critical tasks across a set of images.
In practice, you can structure a batch workflow as a sequence of discrete, reliable steps: first, apply consistent global adjustments in the raw converter; second, perform essential local edits in Photoshop with per-image masks; third, optionally apply non-destructive batch actions for non-critical tonal or color tweaks that are safe to standardize; and finally export the results with a consistent naming convention and size. This approach minimizes the risk of artifacts and maintains control over each image’s unique characteristics while still leveraging the efficiency of batch automation where applicable.
- Handle all global adjustments in raw processing to maintain consistency across the batch.
- Reserve Photoshop for per-image local edits that require masks, cloning, or precise retouching.
- Use batch actions only for repetitive, uniform tasks that do not depend on image-specific details.
- Verify each image after batch steps to catch any unintended changes before final export.
Ultimately, the workflow should emphasize raw processing strength and careful per-image adjustments, reserving batch-processing for safe, repeatable tasks rather than fundamental edits that depend on a unique composition for every photo.
