Lessons

Lesson Info

Get Organized

So I figure, you know, since we're doing mostly post processing today, I can help you a lot. But Jen is much better at the fine points of it. Because you do this all day, every day. So not only does Jen at it, my work, she has a couple of other photographers she works with, and she edits her own work because she is also a wedding photographer. So, Jen have lots of free time. So what we're going over today was month three, which is workflow albums in post wedding client care. And as I've already mentioned, that's Jen. She is sidecar post. So there we go. For those of you guys who don't have never heard Gen speak, she did come in, do two days, two days, day with me for 30 days. And then, um when I with the 30 days, maybe it was two days. Thank you did two days. I think he did two days. It's all a blur. But also when I came here for the very first time in August of 2013 and I did my 1st 3 day class, Jen and her partner John from sidecar, did a single class of their own the day after mine...

. So we're gonna talk to a lot about editing today. But if you want to see them in full action for, you know, six glorious hours if you look up sidecar post in the Creative Life catalogue, there is a one day class with just them where all they do is at it for a day and they actually make it interesting for an entire day. So you being specific? I mean, it's a good it's a good course, especially if you're interested in learning the fine points of proxy editing, which I think really speeds up workflow for a lot of people, it's true. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna very briefly talk about the first assignments that you guys had for the month, which there were assignments that were just Hey, I just want to make sure you guys did this assignment, and then there were assignments that you had to do and show me your results. So for the most part, the organization stuff was just listen, did you do this? Did you come up with a way to do this yes or no? So you know, there's no There's no reason to sit here and talk about everyone's list of production steps because most everybody's answers were the same. You know, there's only so many different ways you could say I go home and then I don't know the card. But what I wanted you guys to look at, um, most specifically were to look at your steps for production just on the what happens when I get home from the wedding side of things. Where are you downloading? How are you downloading? How are you backing up? You know what consideration are you giving toe all of those things and just to refresh your mind? This is what I dio I don't like to my laptop on my desktop, and I mentioned this last month, but I think it's worth a refresher. I immediately back up to a Lissy eight terabyte drive. I have a traveling one terabyte drive. I back up to my other Lissy. It should say eight terabytes that it says 77 That's a rare one. I made it myself, and then I back up to back plays. So for those of you who might not have watched last month. I have to different studio homes. One is in New Jersey, one is in New York, so I almost always download to my laptop. But everything on this one terabyte drive back it up in each location and then back up both of those computers via Bat Blaze, which is basically cloud based back up moves. A couple of them, I think there's one called Carbon. There's a carbon version. Yeah, exactly. And that's just, you know, I've never had to access my back blaze. But if I ever were somewhere, and I desperately needed to get it, usually when I have to access my data from somewhere else I'm going to use log me in to talk to each of my computers. But more and more now, I've been putting important and pertinent stuff important pertinent stuff on Dropbox because my Dropbox just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I think that I stopped yeah, store and complimentary upgrades. I think I now have like one terabyte in my Dropbox, which is ridiculous, but we actually share our stuff back and forth after I have cold down my keepers. I zip up that folder and I put it on this device, which I love slash hate. Called a file transporter. It's by the same company that makes Drove owes right. And it's actually the guy who was one of the founders of Durable Left Robo and started this new company. Yes, so the file transporter. It's what we use for a lot of How would you explain a file transporter? It's essentially to mirrored hard drives, so you have your transporters work, right? It's put into your networking in Brooklyn, right? And then I have a file transporter. It's sitting on my desk, and it's plugged into my network in Northern Virginia. Essentially, when Susan Up loads her files to that, it takes a while. But essentially, once it's completely uploaded her transporter, it then sinks to mind, and I don't have to do anything on my end. It uploads fast because it's like putting it on a hard drive, take maybe 20 minutes to put a wedding there, and then it sinks over just quietly in the background over to you, right? And John would be able to tell you exactly how the network is set up in everything, but essentially they have. I'm sure huge warehouses somewhere where they have drives and they're essentially they have their servers that are pulling up the files and then putting them on to my file transporter. Yeah, it works pretty seamlessly. Most of the time. It really does. One of my computer seems to hate the software. Yeah, but since I've upgraded to the most recent operating system for the transporter, haven't had that problem before. And since. Instead of just uploading a big file of folders to you zipping zip it and send ones that colder up there, that means it's not hanging up on an individual file. A lot of people will say, Well, why don't you just put them on Dropbox and send them over to you by Dropbox? And we've found that we tried that. But the transporter was just faster. The transporter was faster and more reliable. It waas Yeah, so that's how we get our stuff back and forth. So then the next step was to create your production folders, and we talked about this a little bit and this was more Where are you going? To have your working folder after you download a wedding. Where you gonna keep it? How to keep it clear of your other files. And then this is where we sort of talk about Chronos Inc. Which is automated backups. I have one computer that runs Chronos Think have one computer that runs super duper. The only reason is because I had super duper already installed on one computer before putting Kronos Inc on the other. And what that really means is you plug in an external hard drive and it makes a backup of your entire computer system, which might sound excessive. But last year I had my Mac go down and I had to replace it with a new I. Mac plugged in that drive and within a couple of hours was up and running with exactly what had been running on my other computer. I didn't have to reinstall the programs. I didn't have to re download all of my files. How often do you back up with gonna think twice a day? But you're, like, always plugged in and always working. Yeah, I mean, my situation is a little different than most you know, average wedding photographers, because although I am a wedding photographer and I do own a wedding in our studio. It's ego media photography in D. C. For anybody that's interested. The reason that I have so many kind of intricate things set up is because I own an you know, operate sidecar post along with John Arne. Oh, who is my partner. And basically, I edit Susan's work. I have a couple of other clients, and I need to make sure that my work is getting backed up like at least twice a day. So essentially, what happens is if something goes wrong, I'm not gonna lose a day of work that I've done today would be the most exactly, maybe so. Essentially, the way that I have Colonel Sink set up or more accurately, the way John hasn't set up did. It is it's set up for. I think it's something like eight PM It sinks my work. That's on my solid, straight, hard, solid state hard drive. It sinks that work into my regular hard drive s. So that's the first set of backups, and it's a because that's usually when I'm having a dinner break and then usually around 4 a.m. Around the time I'm trying to go to bed earlier, but we know for sure that I've stopped working before. I am mostly mostly at about 4 a.m. It comes on again, and corn instinct takes the work that's been sink to the hard drive. And then it sinks that to my drove. Oh, so essentially, I have an additional backed up. So should my computer go down with both of those hard drives in it? Now, I've also got it on my drove. Oh, so I know it sounds kind of crazy, but when you're doing post production work for other people, you want to make sure that you're not losing anything because I can't have Susan missing a deadline because my eye Matt goes down. And actually at this time of year, when are dead so tight, very tight were coming off of the fall wedding season, and you're also trying to accommodate people's weddings before the holiday. And the last thing you want is an angry broad calling you on Christmas Eve like, Where's my stuff? And now I back up twice a week, maybe, and I don't have a drive that's continually plugged in. I have an actual two terabyte external drive toe Guardian Maximus drive and on like, literally written on the drive. It says Brooklyn Backup. I plug it in. I start up either chrono, sinker, super duper. I say Go to town and overnight It just backs up my whole computer and it's kind of annoying. But when you do need it My God, you're gonna be so glad you did it. Yeah, the annoying factor goes down when you actually have to access that information. At some point, when you're I, Mac gets messed up and they have to wipe it and reinstall your operating system. It's as easy as you know, plugging in the drive and saying, Restore from backup right? And I have to I Max. So again, it's kind of an unusual thing. We're also a little excessive, You and I, I like I have to be a little excessive with what I do. But, I mean, for me, John and I feel really strongly about, if it's possible, having you know what we consider to be like a real workstation that primarily meant for only your work that you dio so you know you don't necessarily want like if you're home with your family and you have kids that have access to your home office. You know what you look like? You're really sensitive files in a place where they can get to them. So you want to create a workstation that really is on Lee for that kind of work? And then if ideally, you would have another computer, whether it's a laptop or Mac Mini or something along those lines for people to use and for recreational type of stuff. My kids don't use my office computer. No, you just You just never want to be that upset with your Children. You know, after the day that my daughter a couple of years ago upended a cup of noodles into my laptop and fried it, I never knew that it was 11. 11 2012 on spring break. Yeah, it was a good time. That was really good. So, yeah, they have my one generation back. I'm back in my one generation back laptop that they get destroyed on their own. The next thing that I just ask people to do is come up with your naming conventions, and I know that this sounds kind of like, Why am I gonna sit down and figure out how I'm gonna name my files. But when I'm looking through 12 years of digital files, I don't want to try to remember how I was naming things 10 years ago because it for there was a two year period where I just named things with numbers. 0010203 This was back in, like five. No, but I'm just imagining the nightmare when you're trying to look for number 5 28 Yes, when somebody's grandmother dies and I'm trying to dig back through old hard drives to find an old picture because they lost it and I'm trying to accommodate them. It's kind of a disaster. So the way sidecar names there's is date, shoot, type and name will be oo one Underscore 2014-10 Dash 18 Dashwood Smith. So you can look at this immediately and say this is final number 01 from a wedding that took place on October 18th. It was a wedding, and the clients last name was Smith, right? And obviously all of those items changed because what you're looking at is a different date for a wedding or if you're a studio that shoots several weddings on one day you're still differentiating by the name Smith or the name Johnson or whatever it is? Yes, and it also separates them out. If you've got an engagement session that you shot, you gotta bridal session so that W e d can become PR for portrait. Right? Is just varies depending on the shoot type write And the way I do mind is mine is number underscore date All run together underscore clients Last name. So, like my own wedding would have been oo one underscore 0417 13 april 17th 2013 Underscore, milliner my last name. Now, if I have shot an engagement session with this, I will delineate engagement session and wedding by putting an appendage at the end of the file so it would be before 17. 13 Underscore Mountain or underscore wedding. I know that if I see underscore wedding at the end, there was an engagement session or there was something else because otherwise there's no need for me to put underscore wedding because everything I should just just a wedding. So you don't What I say here is you don't have to use either of these conventions just choose something that makes sense to you. And the most important part about it is you just need to be consistent. Yeah, I think consistency is the key, like she says. And the other thing that's really helpful is when you're doing the naming convention. And actually, I see Aren't you glad I gave you? I am. Oh, if I can say, maybe you were able to use the remote. Yeah, practice with. When you look at our naming convention, you know, when we actually have the folder. The folder is without the 001 underscore is the name of the folder way Do that because it lines everything up nicely. So when you're looking at the list in the hard drive, it actually sort them by date for you, which is really helpful when you're looking to try to find something right and much so my folder like 0 100 score for Underscore Mountain ER would be in the main wedding folder, which would be listed for 1713 underscore mantener. That's the folder in my hard drive. That's what it's named, and the reason why I don't put the year first is because I'm constantly clearing off my hard drive with old weddings because, I mean, I don't have weddings on there. I don't actually have anything on my hard drive since before September of this year anymore. Yeah. So just however you're gonna name it, be consistent. Don't confuse yourself. It's not worth up. So then the next thing we wanted people to do is just to set up your calendar. And the first thing that was important to know is what your turnaround times are and how you're gonna keep your calendar. And how are you going to set deadlines for yourself so that you'll meet your deadlines to your clients and the way things work for me? And when did I put this in here? Yes, this is how it works for me. I don't load the very next day. I used to download at night after I get home from a wedding. But I've been so tired lately that I just don't want to. And the worst thing in the world is Teoh for it to be two in the morning and you're trying to download and something goes wrong with your download. And then, of course, there's no way in the world you're gonna go to sleep until you fixed it. But you're freaking crazy, tired, exhausted, and you're not thinking quite straight. So usually my husband and I wake up the morning after weddings. We go get some brunch, we come back, he watches some horrible television show or of all kills me. And while we're watching TV or both downloading and backing up because we're nerds within a week I pull the wedding. I go through and I pick my keepers, and I picked the ones that I'm going to Blawg. So I'm basically when I'm done calling the wedding, I've moved things into three separate folders. There's my out takes, which I'm probably never going to look at again. There is my keepers, and I'm going to send over to sidecar. And then there's my images that I'm going to keep myself and I'm going to block. Usually, I keep somewhere between 50 to 75 images to blawg. I don't belong all of them, but it's just my first pass through of these are my favorites. I also know that if I had any images that I'm gonna put on my website or use for competition or anything like that. I pulled them out and put them in a separate folder. My favorite images throughout the year. I do copy those Rafel like If there's something where I'm like, this is amazing. I need to keep this raw file just in case I need to find Tune it later. I just copy that over into a folder called 2014 Favorites. But then everything ends up. Like I said in three folders. It's an out take. It's a keeper going a sidecar or it's something I'm going to blawg myself, and I do that within a week. Part of the reason is kind of need those cards again to shoot more weddings, and the other reason is the wedding is still fresh in my head. If it goes too far past the wedding, it's hard to sort of circle back and stare at the same people again. It's also hard to remember something that might not have been a key image in terms of like aesthetics are sufficient. But you remember that it was important because this person was important. She made the cake or whatever it might be white. And then usually within about 10 days, I get the images over the, um Sometimes I forget to put them on our calendar. Yes. And we have a hyper gonna lady moment. MacGowan. Yeah, about that. Yeah. I'm like, Hey, where's this wedding? I don't see it on the calendar. And she's like, You didn't put away on the calendar. I get my images back from sidecar five weeks after the wedding, and then I delivered to the clients within six weeks after the wedding. And the way she and I talked to each other is we have a shared Semak calendar. It's not a Google calendar. It's an I know. It's an aikau. Yeah, we have a shared calendar. Where when I book a wedding one of my production steps after first booking the wedding is to put the post production on on our shared calendar. So let's say I had a wedding on the first of December. I'm gonna count forward five weeks from that and put the due date on the calendar so that she knows this wedding is coming up and I've gotta have it back to Susan on this day. It also gives us a week buffer in case you get busy or the wedding is on being huge or you get sicker, I get sick or if there's some delay, we like to have a little bit of a working those power and have to like it it somewhere else for a while, right? Things happen, but it does give us a buffer of a week. I mean, like, for a week. If Jen said I broke both of my hands and I'm going to be in the hospital, I can't read computer. We just call John crying and saying, Can you please take this for me? But a week would give me enough time to edit it myself. And I'm not very fast editing a full wedding anymore because I haven't had to do it in 2.5 years longer. Yeah, I think it's almost been three years. I could do it. I could. It would just take a while, and I would need some time to do it. But we have this this very specific workflow of how things go and because I you shoot que to manage everything and still the issue queue. Even though I keep threatening to leave them. Um, I'm still using them, cause right now it's right now, nothing is broken, Nothing is broken. And I have years and years of data in there. I'm not saying that this winter I won't switch to something else. But one of the things that you shoot you for is my workflow. So the day after the wedding, it pops up in my to do page. Make sure you download it. Make sure you back it up. Blobel Law, 10 days later, make sure you've sent it off the sidecar post. So when things get really busy, I can sometimes forget major points of the workflow, right? Like all look at something and I'll be like, Oh, my God. I have to send this McGowan wedding to sidecar post. I totally thought I'd done this. I completely forgot to do this. Then I put it on the transporter and click It is done. The calendar. The shared I Cal calendar is mainly for you. Not so much for me. I don't look at my calendar as like on this day. I need to have it back from sidecar because that's built into my workflow and shoot Q. Five weeks after the wedding, it pops up and says, Get the images back from sidecar. The calendar is just so you know. Yeah, I know what the deadlines are. Helps me plan because you're not my only client and write my own wedding clients, right? So sometimes things need to be moved around, and it gives me kind of a base to be Oh, sometimes would be like to be delivered two days later. I get it to a couple days earlier or something like that. And sure, but what? However, you're going to do it, whatever your workflow is going to be. And however you're gonna remind yourself a win things or do do it and do it the same way for every single wedding or else you'll make a major mistake. Maybe not this year, maybe not next year, but at some point in time. This will save you from writing something really stupid. I'm skipping a wedding that you kind of forgot about because it was a last minute booking, and you just it wasn't in your head or you started editing it, but completely forgot to export it and put it online. Do you know what I mean? Like things happen when you get busy. So I mean, when you're shooting 10 weddings a year, you think yourself I'll never forget any of these people because, you know I've got it. When? When you you know, 50 weddings a year. You don't You don't always got it. You know, I very rarely got it. Let's be very clear. If you ever dropped me as a client, I would I would like melt in the floor like the wicked witch. At the end of like the Wizard of Oz, I just die. No. Okay, never mind. I can't say that now. She's gonna raise all my rates. So the next thing that you need to do is to identify your tools. And I'm talking about the tools that you need to get your editing done. And one of the thing that one of the things people were asking about really heavily in the Facebook group and in the weekly questions with how do you calibrate your monitor? So my friend Jen will tell you. And don't you go into that pretty thoroughly in your one day. Do we do talk about that in the one day. I mean, the really answer to that question is, you know there's a There's a lot of ways to skin a cat always, and although I wouldn't recommend that, but in terms of is gross and it's not, it's kind of mean. But in terms of monitor calibration, there are a couple of different tools that you can use. We happen to use the X right. Essentially, it comes with software. It's a little device. I didn't bring it with name. Sorry, I only had carry on and you plug it into your USB in the back. Your computer, you kind of flip your screen up, and it kind of hangs there in the center of your screen, and then the software walks you right through the steps to take on. What you're basically doing is you're having it. Calibrate your monitor for the lighting conditions in the room. There is an option that you can select to have it taken to consideration ambient light if you're editing in a place that varies wildly, you know, for a long time my office was in the basement, so I really didn't have very much variation. Now my offices isn't a like a main floor with where there are some windows, so you can't have it taken ambient light into consideration this time of year. I'm primarily finding myself editing more in the evening, so it's really not an issue. You just follow the software, you save the profile that will show you the before and after so you can see, like how your screen was too yellow to green or two blue before on then, you know, we normally recommend that most people are calibrating. Recalibrating, you know, about every 6 to 8 weeks is probably fair for most people use. We do it a little more often because we're obviously running a very high volume of images. But a lot of people also like, I think there's something called the color monkey that people like. There's a few different options that you can find online, and I'm sure that they're all very good. It's just a matter of which one you're familiar with, but they all work well and they literally hold your hand and you hang this year. Put it here, click this button here right really easy, right? And like I said, I like the X ray. But that's not to say that they're not other viable options, right? So when we're talking about tools to edit because most of what people were taking away out of this month was editing what's gonna help you be faster? Maybe it's purchase presets. Maybe it's presets that you've made yourself. I know you guys have made a handful of presets that yeah, very useful production preset we do and our presets a really more utilitarian in the terms of you know, many people purchase presets because they like to create a certain look. They want to fade things out. They want to pump up colors We really are. Presets are really problem solving presets because, you know, when you have, for example, let's say you're taking pictures out in a field and it's really green. You're getting a whole bunch of color bounce onto the skin tones of the bride and groom, and you know you want to get rid of that color cast. Those are the kinds of presets that we made way actually put them up for sale, so they're for sale. If people want to buy them. I mean, I'm not. They are not here to talk a product that they are there if anybody's like we're gonna get, um, you can get them on our website. Yeah, and they're really problem solvers just to try to help you. I mean, it's also things like, you know, everybody gets that lobster client. You know what I'm talking about? Like the guy this, like Super Red. It's usually a guy, you know, whether it's from drinking or it's a destination wedding. And he was in the sun. So we have, like, a preset that specifically takes down the red saturation and those, you know, kind of images. So all that kind of stuff can really help you speed up your workflow because you don't have to reinvent the wheel and you can absolutely make your own. You can absolutely create presets to do that yourself. And it's not difficult, But part of the problem is that I know a lot of people think that presets are the answer to everything because, like, OK, I'm gonna bring my images in, and then I'm gonna click this preset on every single image. It's like a batch. It's like patching. And that's one thing that you know, you very specifically Don't do is you don't match. No, we don't match because Arctic on it is it's just not. It's just not viable to do that. The only time when I've seen Batch ing really work is when someone is in a studio situations. Or like if you're shooting a newborn in a studio and you never change the lighting and you never really change anything, then you can get away with a batch because you really don't have any variation. But everybody knows a wedding is different. I mean, you know, from the getting ready to the ceremony to the reception to the portrait. All of those things are distinctive. So although you might be able to create a smaller batch if you were in a consistent situation, let's say you've got the bride and groom or the couple in a particular location and you are doing their balance. You can kind of copy paste. We dont patient room, but you're not necessarily going to batch because it's just one. Size does not fit all No, never. And when we add it, we touch every image you know, not just for our clients, but also even for my own work. I just think it makes all the difference in the world. And the other thing is, I see people a lot of times looking for sort of the holy grails of presets that will presets should be helping you enhance things, not helping you save things. And, well, should I buy this and should I buy that? And should I buy this? And should I buy that? Like you need to learn a clean edit first? Agreed? Yeah. You wanna have a basis? And and the preset should not be the thing that saves you Write and learning your what? Kind of like razor and really carefully and sweetly. Yes, I got a great I got a great questions, Um, one from me and one from the chat rooms s Oh, this is going a little bit back, but it's a question of file naming. When do you rename your images on import or out of, you know, are out of the camera or final light room expert? And do you deliver with those file names to your clients? I name mine after I have cold them down. So everything that's a keeper, whether I'm gonna blah get myself or whether I'm gonna send it to Jen. That's when I I also put things in order. Like if things are kind of out of order like she likes me. If I go shoot the girls and go shoot the guys for a bit and come back and shoot the girls to separate them out. So all the girls get ready at once. All the guys get ready, moving things around. And then I rename that final take and then I send it to gin. And then I have what I keep myself. And those are the final names that I send my clients. You know, they need to have the same naming that ideo do you do? Same way I did pretty much the same way. You know, once I've called and I basically chosen my selects and I move them into another folder. That's when I read the names and I've already fixed. If there's any timing discrepancy, I try to sink my cameras. But occasionally you forget at that point is when I rename. But what I do is I do retain the original number system that's in the file. So, like my d three ass is like it's like D three underscore, and then it has the number. And then I have one that's called the threats to and then underscore. So the way that I do it is I retain, like the 45 digit number of the actual, like affirmation or whatever it is. The fire, the original file. So that way, if I ever had to go back and find something in the series, I could find it. So my final name is, like 00 or one underscore. You know, the date. Underscore ego Media. And then it's got, like, the 4 to 56 just in case I ever need 45 7 you know, true fair point. Yeah, it could be helped, but the out takes never get renamed. They're still like minor, like D four s. Underscore 3 to Like I just why renamed the Out takes Just don't make any sense. Perfect. Fantastic. And Bethany Grace has your presets like she loves them yet warning. So she's touting them up, and I mentioned people confined those on your on your website. They can they can. And also, as a little added bonus, John wrote up a tutorial to create your own warming brush. Actually talking about things dynamic range like post a link to it on my new educational site, John wrote this great great Well, yes, perfect on the dynamic range. It's called like warming brush tutorial by sidecar post. Great One last question for me. How much do you? How many different things do you put into a preset on import into light room for, like camera lens calibration and those kinds of things? Yeah, so we do have a basic import preset that does things like it sets the sharpening We were doing 75. We've kind of backed off a little bit. It just depends on the client's preference. So I do have different ones for different clients, but it will set the sharpening. It will set the camera calibration, depending on what the camera is. Sometimes it's camera standard. Sometimes it's camera neutral. It just depends on the camera, and by the way, that can be that can really sneak up on you. Some of the newer cameras, like the D a taxi we had to change the camera calibration because camera standard was too much. It was two contrasting for that camera and you're about to edit Cindy 7 files, which which will be doing their closer to DeForest files. But you might need to adjust. We want to buy a new camera. That's what a lot of people don't use. They'll keep using the same, like import, right. You take a look and say like, Hey, is this really gonna work for these new files? Or if you switched from one brand to another, you might have to make a, you know, make it a different choice. And then we also said We do enable things like lens correction, which he specifically asked about. We do enable that I always use lens correction lost. A client asked me not to Great, thank you about.