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Best Practices: Post Production

All right, so let's start talking a little bit about workflow for post production and I hope everybody appreciates the just kind of the value of understanding the sales process how it works and just best practices and if you saw a year ago there's some of it very similar but they're still tweaks going on because we're finding more and more ways to become more more efficient and it's all right it's just never ending continuous improvement process that you have to be committed to. So when we talk about post production what are our best practices there too we turn around time no matter what I want to see one to two signature level at its and we'll talk about that in a little bit more skin softening on every image we use a product called image gnomic cates I think it's one hundred ninety nine dollars tool I think it's one of the best skin softening products on the market it's absolutely amazing we run it in batch so you've got to find your level everybody feels differently about skin softe...

ning how much is too much where it starts looking like plastic that's your preference right that's your brand when you do what works for you and what works for your clients but regardless this is probably the best tool on the market we run it in batch so once I edit all my images from a job by then mass export and I then apply all the skin softening just on total on every image it just runs through the photoshopped engine real real efficient to do it that way, we're going to mix in some black and white, so if we're talking about weddings here, if I do a seven hundred image wedding, I'm probably going to show anywhere from twenty five to forty black and white images and to me that's your choice? Do you like black and white like sepia tone? We use pre set, so I use a lot of what I have my own lightning pre sets that we use ah lot of you guys already use him, use that, so we just pick one of them and we just make sure they're consistent. I think what becomes trouble troublesome is when you show see peotone, black and white ah, cool tone black and white and in a straight up black and white, so just try and keep the consistency there, not to say that's a hard and fast rule. Yeah, you show the same image both in color and black and white to give them the option. Yes, absolutely so don't make the decision like boom, this is black and white in the ceiling way you can get it so they'll still see it in color or black and white, we don't charge any extra what I want you to do those when we talk about the signature level edit those air those at it's where you're trying to sell large prints okay you're now is the artist telling your client this is an image I believe should be big in your home and you have to start thinking that way s o if you know you look at some of the ones behind me or if you look at what we were showing earlier with that image from kansas city though that's what I believe should be large for my client that's why we're opening up with that on the screen so if you pick a shot into all this beauty work to it and it's a head shot you're signaling to the client that you think they should be big but the truth is it's more likely going to be an eight by ten so you've got to start thinking that way with way you at it you are signalling to your client these air the images you believe our artwork so don't just randomly added images we had a soft been yet to every image as well so that's within light room I've got a preset they're just very soft burning in the edges you click it boom and you're running running in batch on all the images I don't care for using light room or aperture right saint same difference each tool has its own pros and cons we're then going to rename all the files so are renaming process is going to be client name, underscore event underscore image number and get once again that's done in light room, so light room is probably one of the most efficient tools out there for all this on the naming convention would look like that jones underscored w underscore one, two, three, four not wedding. Why don't I need to see wedding? So it would be w for um, um, wedding would be be for bridal. It would be the year for senior rights or twenty fourteen, so it would be jones underscore twenty fourteen, because if we do a sibling I need to have that year, they're separating what I don't do is put my name in the naming convention doesn't make any sense. I know they're my images, so I don't need toe put my name there. So it be jones underscore w on a score one, two, three, four we're then gonna render those j peg files to a preview drive and that's what we were talking about earlier that preview drive this is what taylor uses for ordering so now it's sitting on yet a third drive, so even if the original were all files disappeared, even if the backup of all the raw files disappeared. I now have a third drive with all the render j pegs. Which guess what? I don't have clients asking me to go back to the raw file. So usually just having the j pegs there are good enough. Um, we do slide shows. Okay, we use an absent projector. We talked about this. So at the wedding. Okay, we're going. We're going to in between dinner and first dances, okay? Because once dances start, you can't have a projector and slash on the dance floor. So it's gotta happen between dinner and dances. We're gonna pull out an eppes and projector, and today you can get these projectors. Go to add aram. Oh, you can get these projectors from anywhere from, like, five hundred dollars to probably a thousand dollars. I mean, you could spend twenty thousand dollars on a projector. That's not what you need. So ones that are in that five hundred two thousand dollar range are gonna be good enough. Then we use the absent duet screen, and this is what it looks like. And so if you look at this screen, it collapses on both sides. Just goto goto, adirama, look it up, it's, one hundred fourteen dollars, this is the screen we use and it's completely. Collapsible so that's corinne's gonna fold and get compact and then the legs they're going to collapse up and going to and go into the main part of the screen and it's got handles and that fits right in the trunk right in the back of the of the suv were setting this thing up on the back on the dance floor so this is what we're using with the projector so the projector would go on something like this a little cocktail table, a little bus table from the venue and the venue will usually give you this and you just put your projector there, make sure you have an extension cord don't look to the venue where the deejay the band to provide you electrical cords but the tables, which you're gonna get from the venue. Ah, and then of course the music is gonna come from the deejay the djs already set up he's got two speakers there I don't want I can't play on the speakers on my laptop, that's pointing no one's going to hear that you're not going to create any mood with that. So what we're doing is we're gonna quarter wait, coordinate with that deejay or set up an ipod playlist so we're on the fence with what to do there because then that requires us to plug into their system djs can be a little sketchy without but sometimes man, the djs just play horrible music right there playing I'm playing my sideshow and they're playing love in marriage that's not what we're looking at that's not a good song for creating the mood you're going to coordinate with the bridegroom. Of course they know this slide show is happening it's not a surprise to them, they wanted they understand what it is because you've talked about it during the sale session. You're going to coordinate with the venue because typically the venue's got make sure there's time between dinner and dance is also the deejay has to make sure they've got time on your gonna need this table to put the projector on. We're again it's done after dinner, but before dances and that's very, very important that you understand the timing there because once dances start that cannot clear the dance floor, and once we play that, the deejay will announce on the microphone hey, everybody gather around the photographers from today we're going to play slideshow with pictures from today and that is a very, very powerful thing because everybody in the bus starts and then they all gather around or they pull their chairs up to the dance for andi like I alluded to yesterday while we're hugging the bridegroom when it's all said and done, the last slide in your sideshow should be your logo you want that to be up there as long as possible so that they remember you and while you know the last side we're gonna leave that up before we break down right? So we're hugging the bridegroom they're thanking us for the slide show everybody there is, you know, asking for business cards it's a great marketing tool, but the whole while before we obviously break it all down are our logo sitting up on that screen so it's a great branding opportunity and then of course, because the screen breaks down so quickly you get everything cleared so that dances could begin right? You don't want dances to starting your slideshow projector and laptop were all sitting there in the middle of the dance or that wouldn't make any sense yet with the projector and screen do you find any like it's hard to view from the sides or have projectors come farther than that? No, absolutely it's tough if you're off on the perimeter it's very tough that's why you want the deejay getting everybody out on the dance floor? And so you'll be surprised how you know you're not gonna get everybody out there, but you could get sixty to seventy five percent of the venue out on the dance floor and the shoulder shoulder sitting down in the front huddled around but yeah, let's say this is where I had the projector set up and I'm usually going to set up the projector in screen right in front of the deejay booth that's where it makes sense right that's the kind of the center action so what? We'll set it up there well if somebody's over here in this corner they can't see that so they've got to get up and come out here to see the slide show but if they don't once I get home right I'm now going to get home use those images because they've already been added I'm gonna use those images from I blogged for facebook and then I'm gonna create that slide show and maybe post that slide show of my block and then my bridegroom khun send that to all their friends families and get guess so that the people who didn't see if they really want to see it they'll do it but think about who your target is the people who aren't willing to get up and look att the slideshow probably not the people you're targeting anyway the people who are excited they're going to get up and look at it and you're going to be handing out business cards make sure you got business cards in your pocket because you'll start finding like I've got a cousin getting married my daughter's getting married I had a father a couple of weeks ago he's like my daughter's getting married he was going to get your card right after the sideshow, so those are the things we want, uh, to drive marketing business. Yes, quick question. How many photos in the slideshow slideshow will typically have anywhere from eighty to one hundred and fifteen pictures? Just depends on what we got. You know, one note about the slide show we end on. We're going to go and end on on impact image, right? So the slide show starts, or I'm sorry you start building your sideshow as soon as you get back from creatives, right? It's, right during cocktail hour, so I would never end the slide show with a picture of like the room or the table or the chairs of the flowers. I'm going to end the slide show with one of those big impact images. That's, where I want, I want to end things.