How do you keep things consistent?

Occasionally, I'll come back with a series of photos that I'd like to come out looking consistent. For instance, having returned from Italy recently, I'm processing a batch of shots taken in some narrow-ish streets. The light varies in intensity but always has the same distinct quality.

Since I get to it when and if I can, I've been processing pics over the past week now, and some of the ones I did recently look markedly different from those I did first. Some have their exposure pushed higher, some are crisper with more clarity while others are a bit softer. Some are fairly saturated, others on the contrary are desaturated. It's not that any one of them looks bad, but looking at them you don't really get the sense that they go together.

I can go back to each of them and tweak until I get it right by trial and error, but there are a few of them and more to come, and I'm worried this might end up being a very time-consuming proposition. Do you guys have any tips to ensure consistency? Do you maybe start with one, make sure you get it right and then use it as a reference? Do you just save the adjustments in LR and apply them to all the shots? (and if so, how do you then compensate for differences in exposure?)

For exposure, spot meter on the brightest area and add about +2 to +3 EC. For white balance, set a specific one rather than auto. For saturation of colors, it really depends on the subject. And softness really depends on whether you've nailed focus, what the depth of field is and what f-stop you've used.

armis wrote in post #15942192
Occasionally, I'll come back with a series of photos that I'd like to come out looking consistent. For instance, having returned from Italy recently, I'm processing a batch of shots taken in some narrow-ish streets. The light varies in intensity but always has the same distinct quality.

Since I get to it when and if I can, I've been processing pics over the past week now, and some of the ones I did recently look markedly different from those I did first. Some have their exposure pushed higher, some are crisper with more clarity while others are a bit softer. Some are fairly saturated, others on the contrary are desaturated. It's not that any one of them looks bad, but looking at them you don't really get the sense that they go together.

I can go back to each of them and tweak until I get it right by trial and error, but there are a few of them and more to come, and I'm worried this might end up being a very time-consuming proposition. Do you guys have any tips to ensure consistency? Do you maybe start with one, make sure you get it right and then use it as a reference? Do you just save the adjustments in LR and apply them to all the shots? (and if so, how do you then compensate for differences in exposure?)

I'm afraid I don't know of any method for guaranteeing exacting consistently in post without putting in the time to match them up.

You can get them closer at the time of exposure by setting manual custom white balance for each shot and tweaking your exposure manually. You still won't have the exact same result if one photo is sunny and another cloudy, for example, because sunlight doesn't interact with objects when it's direct the way it does when it's diffused.

In LR I would pick a representative image and do the processing for that one. I would then batch process the rest. Then I I really wanted them to all have a consistent looking exposure I would use the Match Total Exposure command. This will then adjust the exposure in each image so that they are overall all the same brightness. I have only used it once when I realised that I had shot a series of images that could be stitched as a panorama, but had forgotten to switch to Manual exposure mode from Av. The results IMO made for a pretty good result really.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/alan-evans/8644183289/