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Lesson Info

Lightroom® Workflow

So every time I create a wedding, I create a separate Lightroom file. I don't pile up my files in one Lightroom file because it's really gonna slow down Lightroom. So I much rather do individual because also what happens? The hard drive fills up and then we pick up another hard drive. So if you will, we're gonna look for a file. It's much easier to go to a hard drive, the date. Find the file, go into the file, double click the Lightroom and that particular Lightroom file comes up. So I'm gonna show you how I do it. So what I'm gonna do is create a new Lightroom catalog. At this stage, I'm gonna, my file is the creative life on my desktop. Usually this should be on hard drive but for the demonstration purpose, we'll keep it on my desktop. So, I've got the creative life folder. I'm gonna create a Lightroom folder in there. And the images are also in there. The files there are all my images from the wedding shoot. Okay, so, let's go. Lightroom, so, let's create a new name. So then let's c...

all... I usually put LR at the back of the folder so it means it's a Lightroom file. So, I will look for the file, which is on the desktop. Go into the creative life folder and I'm gonna save it there. Okay, once I've done that, I'm gonna import all the files into Lightroom. So let's find the file folders. So it's on my desktop. It's user. It's much easier if it is in a hard drive. And there are the files and I import. When I import, usually I set this one up to one, to one. It's important this because it takes a longer time to render but each file will open much quicker so you can work on it. So I leave it there, I go away, or in the morning when I come back it's all ready for me to work on it. We'll do that and sometimes I add us a... a setting. I like the punch setting. So it gives a bit of contrast. So it's here, it's in Lightroom general presets, punch. And that should be enough for me. So now what I'll do is import. I don't import the files, I just create a Lightroom file in that folder. I don't need to import it. We go in import and start to importing for us. Once we do the importing and once we call out the ones we don't want. So there are files there files there we don't need, just delete it. Then we start numbering them. Once we finish the calling and the color correction. So at the moment what I'm gonna do. This is technique I've learned from my friends in Greece, it's quite an easy way to call your files. So we have 320 files there. So what I'm gonna do is, let me open this so we can see. I'm in library mode, I'm gonna select all the files. And I'm gonna go into photo and set flag. And I'm gonna flag or you can press p. And I'm gonna flag every picture in the folder. You see the flagging has happened there. So now I've flagged everything, so that means everything is good. Yes, that's what it means. But what's the best thing about this? Is select the picture. Now I start calling by clicking x. And let's hide all the flagged files. I go click, click, click x means unflagged. So everything that I don't like, unflagged. You see how fast it becomes editing? Saves me so much time. And now we came to the pictures, okay, not a great picture. Okay, let's see. So basically what I'm doing is eliminating the ones I don't want. The files are still there but they're getting the x, unflag on each one of them. So basically I'm going through it. And if you see the correction it's giving me quiet the nice contrast on the picture I don't need more than this in Lightroom. Then I'll go individually and check if I need to do more correction. And I'm done. Because you see I use manual setting all my shots are exactly the same exposure. Nothing changed, I was in the same place. So it saves me so much time. If I'm gonna make a correction, I will make a correction on one of them. And I will sync the rest, which is shot in the same location. So they will match exactly. So, basically once I've done my editing. I'm not gonna go through all this now. I'm just gonna show you example. See there's so many good pictures but what we need to do is eliminate a lot of it. You see for example, this shot here we don't need this. That might good, that's good. Eliminate as much as possible so you will have only few of pictures left. So you make the life easier for the bride. It doesn't become complicated. So you eliminate at least 50 percent, at least 50 percent. You see that's not, a bit out of focus and the shoulder is not right. Just move it. That's not right, move it. Okay, not good, not good, you see I'm not scared to eliminate because I've got so many of the shots there. I'm looking for the perfect one. Okay, you don't want this. Not this one, cute. Yeah, the second one was better. Not this one. Interesting. Not this one. That's cute, you see I'm just, there are so many good pictures there. But I need to cut it out. I don't want to show all this to the bride. Because it makes her life easier. She can select one and she's gonna come with so many pictures out there. So once I've done that, I'll go into, let's assume I've edited the whole work. I go into library, sorry photo. And delete rejected photos. So the ones I do x on them, delete them. And delete from disk because this is my second back up disk. I eliminate a lot of it. And now the second hard drive has become smaller. The all original had so many pictures, let's assume 5,000. Now the small hard drive has become 1,500. And that's my edited work. Now it's ready to present it to the client. Go through it quickly, do a bit of color correction and that's it. My client sees what came out of the camera. No other adjustments because I will do the adjustments when I get her order because if 5,500 pictures, I'm not gonna sit down in Photoshop for 5,500 pictures. No one is gonna pay me for my time. You know, if you're doing that, waste of time. Because you're not gonna excite them by retouching each image, one black and white, one color. It's too messy. The excitement happens when you start to design the album. And the other thing if I sell files, I sell those files. If they want my finishing, they pay me to finish it. That's my rules. If I've done a finish to the album, they want a copy. They come back to me even if I've sold them the files. I don't give them my own original talent. You go to a restaurant the chef doesn't come with the food. (chuckle from audience) It's true isn't it? If you want to eat the same food, you go back to the chef. The dentist doesn't come if you buy the tools. So why should our files come with the photographer in it? Or the Photoshop artist. We have to learn to understand this, this is such an important because if you give them everything they go and your client goes and prints it somewhere else. Somewhere else makes the money, you don't make the money and you don't know what the final quality is. If it is bad, they're gonna blame the photographer. That it was bad. So if I give them a print, I know what I give them so they can't argue with me. If they don't like they can say it straight to me, I can make changes. But I'm giving your final product. You can hang it, you can watch it. But when you give them a file, where is it? What is it? Then you're not a photographer anymore. You're just giving them electronic thing you call something yourself. Because that's not what photograph is all about. You know when we see all those beautiful pictures, the magazines, the museums. It's Leonardo da Vinci, if he lived today, would he have given a file? To his clients? Imagine that big beautiful painting. Oh, here's the file, go and print it anywhere you want. I don't think so, he took ages to paint that painting. That's the value of it, the talent of the photographer, the talent of the painter. So we need to understand that guys, this is so important, people say, "Oh, it doesn't work, times have changed." It's worked for me, it's worked for many good photographers. Why shouldn't it work for all of you? You know this is so important, guys. I'm not, for me doesn't matter because I do it, I'm happy, I make the money. But I'm worried about the industry, really. I can be selfish and say who cares about the rest let them die. I'm not saying that, I'm saying this industry's beautiful, let's keep it up, guys. Let's keep it up, let's make sure that we are always photographers. Not on pixels. Very important message, keep this is mind guys, out there also on the world wide web. Don't say they will never buy. Teach your clients, you see today what I saw in the dining area, in the breakfast area. You were all networking, you don't know each other, you network together. This is what it should be and when you network with all the people in your area, you can control the market. You can share and control the market. So important. The other thing is, you know, cheap is always cheap. When you make a book, you go to a cheap book, it's gonna make you look cheap. Yeah, you save a couple of dollars. But that's not the thing, you need to have class in your work. Beautiful frames, high quality album, high quality printing. Then that represents how good you are. You know the capture is not everything, the finishing is everything. The finish, the presentation, is what makes you good too. A great presentation the bride goes, "Wow, it was worth it." After spending so much money, this is the reaction of my brides. They jump on the table and give me hug. I'm not exaggerating, I'm not exaggerating, the film we saw yesterday, they were a real couple. They were so happy they wanted to film. You know, it's... And I have never had an experience that the bride said, "Oh, I don't like it." The only negative I had was I took a lot of shots, beautiful shots, and they had bought a certain package. They didn't want to spend any more. And they complained that there were too many good pictures and they can't have it all. I said that's a good comment, you had too many pictures? Sue me (he chuckles, audience laughs) Sue me dead, go into court and tell the court that he took too many pictures and we can't afford it. You know, stick with your numbers, or if you want more, you have to buy. You have to buy, I have never had the customer come say, "Oh yeah, one yeah, that's enough. Let's not buy more." They will buy something because they love what they see. They love the final product. So some buy big, some buy small. But they all buy and they all go happy when they pick up their prints. Sometimes the person would even buy a lot, comes back and says, "Oh, I want big print for there, big print from there, big print from there." Eventually, she will spend more than the person who initially spent the money. People come back, even one, two, three years. Then they come with the children, then you make albums for the children. You know, even children, we do a box of matted prints or albums. And continuation of business, you know your business. One bride doesn't finish there, you have to continue business with her. It's so important, I've got mothers like I said, 20 of them. They come every year to do their annual books.