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Take Control: Workflow Part 1

He'll be fromthe last couple segments you've got inspired to use the photoshopped t actually make money for your business. It's fun with this style, photography and the techniques that were talking here and the workflow that we're about to get into, you will make money with every click of the mouse in photoshopped, then that makes photo shop a lot more appealing. It's fun as it is, but it sure can lead to burn out, especially for using the picture taking philosophy three to five hundred image retouching over a five day period. Oh my goodness, that is so much work. You need to be paid for that time. So I might as well be in art that their purchasing from you. So we had a wonderful questions from the audience and wonderful question from our in studio audience in the last segment. How does it all fit together? When do we plug in a specific documents that assure that our design is going to be as we do it? The client will appreciate it, as within our design rules that I showed you during th...

e last segment, okay, and that's what this is about, but first let's review the steps we've come a long way with, uh, two and a half days already, and so we have gon I told you the last step practice and play would be a big one we spent all day yesterday on it and practice in play it was about this morning as well refining your craft let's review for where we came from so we can continue on to the to the ten steps by the end of the day we're gonna have mold done first we honestly evaluate our business we decided way need in order to move forward I know exactly where we're out on the map we're out of business and where we are in comparison with everybody in the industry we learned about the ninety ten observation that I had ninety percent of people out there do not deliver art to each and every client okay, maybe you're one of those and you want to shift into the beautiful world that ten percent in my observation of people are our story shooters and deliver art for each and every client okay, so honestly value where you are in your future our star where you are amongst the industry and in your personal career okay we then decided to embrace the art focus philosophy I share with you the numerous benefits member that slide day one wow and all those benefits well we've synced explored so many of them okay expression in your work you know, creating being known for your commissioned art pieces unlimited earning potential you're removing that cap that you had as a picture taker and you're moving into place that you'll see profits in your work beyond your wildest dreams. Ok, we talked about goal setting getting there. Okay. So then we needed you to find your creative inspiration. Identify unique style. So we wanted you to. We inspired you to look outside of your area. Look far from your region. Create something and work towards it. That's unique that separates you from everybody else. Identify your nick style. We gave the tools to do that and then to find your goals. Ten years. Where do you want to be? Five years. Where do you want to be? Structure business to get there. Okay. Backward, engineer. You heard me say that so many times. It's all attainable if you set the goal. Anything. Anything with your career? If you set the goal I showed showed you the goals that we set baby steps along the way. Five years ago. I want todo a twenty thousand dollar wedding. We set the goal. We hit it by doing the multiple volume books. Ok, we knew our prophet came from not only a single volume, but why don't we double our profit? By offering these double volume books, we set a system in place that attracted our clients to that. That beautiful artwork that double volume book these seventy eighty spread books and you know what way visually showed it and now almost all of our weddings that we shoot in this era two thousand fourteen are double volume book clients it's pretty fun okay, very very profitable weddings so next we talked about emotional brand in sales we we learned a very important fact that sales does not take place across the table in the traditional manner sales takes place in art sales happens through the entire process okay and that's going to continue through the last few steps because we talk about workflow etcetera but very important to understand that it is getting our clients in an emotional place that will lead to the highest level sales that means their experience is more important even the pictures that were captured for them all right experience before pictures remember that very important this philosophy we committed to product and partnership we needed to do this first before we went out and played yesterday so we talked about the box that we use or album company our lab and other tools that we use to better story shoot I showed you video light I showed you the bx to pro shooting camera bag by uh lens bag by brent haven you need to be able to shift your lenses out often all these air partnerships and tools that help us do a better job it's story telling okay I for diversity of images we need to know what our image will be seen in so that we can conceptually shoot for that ok next practice and play that's what we do for over a day and a half almost all of yesterday we played we went shooting together we talked about expression energy ratcheting techniques that make more expression because we're selling expression in this type of philosophy in this type of business model okay I got a great time we had a challenging environment heather did the camera on ly window light with most of the space we even had mixed lighting shade and hard light that we're forced to use and the photo shop we showed you that even if in the worst conditions you could make that that image beautiful enough to be seen across an entire double volume um uh excuse me across a double page spread okay so we practice in played now ready for step but first this challenge question alright create an album of the story you captured immediately the next wedding you didn't go to I want you to start shooting at least five stories even if you have you are asked to photograph this in the picture taking philosophy it's okay I want you to tell at least five stories go capture five stories and practice putting them together cast my challenge for you today and many of you I want to just go for it your next wedding is a storytelling wedding don't expect the client will be oriented to purchasing that as in the album right away we need to have all the other steps in place we transition over this two seasons that we've talked so much about don't worry just baby steps room remember I don't want this to be overwhelming for anybody it should be this is this is a two year, five year, ten year, twenty year goal to your future and your retirement it's just about remember being on the right path we're going to take the path less traveled by and we're going to see the rewards and and robert frost and that has made all the difference remember that so go for it baby steps first one in this challenge is go capture some stores even if it's a mock wedding like we did yesterday even if some friends that you're photographing at the beach or in a park tell it in story it's easy use these techniques that we talked about in the practice in place section so you ready for step it alright take control I love this one because I think I can liberate the entire photography community with working too darn much so this is about workflow work environment I think it's a chronic problem in our industry we all especially since the digital revolution all this new competition came in workflow somehow went through the roof and we competed over price and so everyone service's dropped yet somehow they're there working twice as much as we did during the film era remember during the film era I take the pictures drop them off of the lab the lab did the work a lot of the work we'd organize them, catalogued them and give them to the client in boxes digital revolution took hold everyone's now the lab as well would you agree that's a lot of work especially when you're delivering pictures to each and every client oh my gosh three to five hundred images is months of labor got three to five hundred photoshopped images throwing up on online gallery hoping that they'll be purchased we wanted to control that so timeframe for mastering this and doing the best you can to master its season one quarter two through four we're gonna really trim our workflow and work environment we're gonna work make it or conducive to efficiency so there's a lot in this segment every word of it is important because this is quality of life segment related to your business alright still quote we are what we repeatedly do excellence then it's not an act but a habit chew on that for a little bit let's dive in store shooting and art photography I think I've really made this clear it's easier than what you might currently be doing it certainly is easier than when I used to do okay? And we're getting that bottom line is I work so much harder than I do now on the images that I deliver the good news for all you listening today it's gonna decrease your workflow by signing on to this wonderful just going down the right path. I am going to trim everything, but there are some some rivers in the road we talked about the pathway you have to cross a river and you have to traverse a goalie crow vast or something. This is she's that as our analogy, we need to throw the rope to you and that's what I'm here to do in the segment. So let's do some math real quick three year a shot a forty weddings early in my digital transition year, I calculate the math on this, so I used to do about three hundred images retouched three to five days of retouching per wedding was ten months of time do the math on that three to five days times forty, two hundred five days I'm forty times saying that three to five days just five ten oh my gosh, that is ten months of labor twenty, twenty days in a month, my gosh, four hundred days by doing the math right, that is a lot of time and photoshopped you better believe I'll be grinding through that that's the that is the world of much of us out there I believe it's upwards of eighty ninety percent we want teo diminish that amount of work okay, so I dreaded the album process for the fall a reason because he was after I did all this work it was after I did all of this retouching then I thought hey bride and groom if you want to make a digital album for you a digital matte album this is brandy wonderful thing take a look check it out and they'd be like, you know we're cool what we want with our friends had okay yeah no thank you. Well if they said yes, I got it I have to do a whole another bunch of I have to do so much more work now to deliver I want done five days of retouching on their images now I'm going to put them in the book too and that's all another grind it was more work yeah, I'm gonna get a little bit more money but I was already burned out on their wedding for do that to all those re touches I dreaded the design process well, here's the bottom line shared this or aren't shoes capitalized on uh with every click of the mouse showed that earlier so right now I'm going to get into the comp a complicated chart of of retouching excuse me of our workflow and I don't get intimidated by this because we're just gonna break down every step that we make in our studio so that you guys at home could start considering adapting it so it fits your work hold as well and by the way this is available in the toolbox as well the art this entire were closed there okay and the steps through it and the documents along the way that you'll need so the toolbox um globo dot com but post wedding sales workflow the good news is it's not that bad so let's go through it I'm going to start by doing the broad look it at all and I know there's going to be a lot of questions a long way so guys, if you have ah good breaking point since there's good there's gonna pile up some questions here this this is my segment that for the most part you know we really have a lot but I'm happy to take a break in the middle of that works okay, so let's start here we first way go to the wedding this is the post wedding workflow okay? We are the way we shoot the wedding so we shoot it import the wedding into light room after we back them up of course, of course you backed him up then we colin color correct cooling is when you take out the bad images the mistakes remember along the way where I'm shooting and I'm just spraying and praying or clicking to create energy and emotion all those need to be take it out so we call them down between eight hundred to two thousand images so some our destination weddings we're shooting for multiple days I'm embarrassed to say we'll shoot upwards of forty, five hundred images so we still want to get him down to two thousand that's just too many images. By the way, that would be two cameras shooter and assistant shooter multiple days of shooting lots of images so we call them down to eight hundred two thousand we correct the remaining images for exposure and color temperature and contrast. We rename them in light room e last name of the client underscore zero zero one okay, we export at three hundred dp I hae ra's j pegs and we call that folder processed folder. All right. Part of this is the proof book in the online gallery. First thing we do is we retouch oh, I forgot I forgot since in one a wee this is a really fun part. My favorite part. First thing I do when I get home is I grab some my favorite images some of the conceptual shots that I took and I just I can't help myself I need to re touch him it should be ten to fifteen images I put them to separate folder we call the play folder those always are put in the album, by the way, they're always special images, and they're always intermixed in the slide show that you're about to see were about to talk about so after we've color corrected them and output in the j pegs, we put them in a proof book format so approved book it's wonderful, wonderful tool. I have a visual click through what the proof book looks like in a second here. Okay, uh, the proof book in the back. You know, I'm going to save it for when we specifically talk about the proof. Because it's so exciting. This is the greatest tool greatest tool for sales for us because we use it to create ernest c it's, a it's, a product that could handhold. And in this world of upscale clients, they love that over an online gallery, they want to see things in hand. It also satisfies their need to own the images. We're talking the perfect so off those those those images that were finished go off to our proof, but company and that is blurb. Okay, and we build an online gallery, initial online gallery and that is smugmug. These images are not retouched except for the ones that were in the play folder. Smugmug asthma online viewing gallery it helps the bride and groom seed snaps right at the camera not many of them are photoshopped only fifteen to twenty the ones that were in my play folder after that we create a slide show we include those fifteen but ninety five percent of those images in this lecture are un retouched. Okay, a lot of your going how can you show your images when they're not finished explaining where we really get into it there's a reveal meeting that we schedule now I want the revealed tow happen within one week of their honeymoon that's our studio goal we gotta keep excitement hi can the next few slides I'm really gonna dive in so let's just go around this circle here it's a um this workflow circle and then I'll dive into the specifics on where you plug in documents where you plug in the content that saves you from the cut syndrome etcetera but let's go hear three ayes follow up with the email we say we give them an image selection form that's a small a small document that says we don't want three to five images from each part of the day I'll share that with you second there's another form called the album's designed guidelines form we talked about that earlier hey three, five years for spread remember why you hired us? We do clean simple book storytelling chronological when you just sign off for about a design for you what imprint ordering form how do you order custom prints that it digitally mastered a different level than smugmug the online gallery howdy order of digitally mastered files etcetera once these forms are filled out it's time to go into album design okay, we use we design it and they come see a slide show and then we communicate using ah fundy software autumn called album proof for all we're going into then the exciting part there's a couple come phone calls hey don't forget order forms because everything's fifty percent off in the proof book if you want to do custom prince but when you come in it's explain this in a second when you come in bring those order forms and they'll remain fifty percent once we're finished with your artwork in your album. Those images in the proof book aren't fifty percent off anymore because we're not currently working on your marriage is anymore there's an album reveal that is wonderful it's my favourite part of the process it is champagne is coffee is a celebration welcome this is the big moment I'm going to reveal the first draft of your album to you and it's going to be a lot of fun, we really amp up this experience okay right below album reveal you'll see an email sent with album proof after they see this album and finally there's a revision process and there was submit book we submit book teo graphic studio really and the print we do print on wall art for them as well so let's dive into each section here come jump the gun earlier on the initial part of the process but here goes shooting important image captured important backup files after important I put him on a separate server and we take those drives out we also send him act of sending them to smugmug is backing him up off site okay they're always safe has anybody in the audience here had uh lost files before thank goodness but I know it's a big problem it's a really big problem we need I need to scream at the top of my lungs to everybody that's hearing this right now drives break every two to three years drives break if you're using a contemporary drive that spins it will break eventually back your stuff up it's a nightmare it's so expensive to retrieve data I've had to do it before okay it's a nightmare you know these suggestions on that because way did have some people who are asking if it was earlier today or yesterday yes yes and that is a pick a partner like a smug mug and upload those images right away day off okay you get this files back one option would be have to have two drives that are mirroring okay yeah when you save you don't it's a seamless look you're saving to one space but it's being actually saved to two separate spaces so one could die and you still have the data on the other there's a lot of very reasonable um solution's recently price solutions available in the market today I don't have many offhand but let's have the years in the chat room send some good names of I've got this wonderful back backup server right now and I'm very happy with it it's a super redundant eighteen uh terabytes of storage in over ten drives it's pretty pretty need that's what we do now we should save them onto drives and then one dr would leave our studio and go home with us so it's two separate locations before that it was discs things are getting much easier but don't just because caesar doesn't mean we shouldn't pay really close attention to it it's a scary, scary thing all right, so back up where were we? Okay sneak peeks opening up in bridge I love this part I'll select fifteen or so of my favorites and our studio members love this part too they'll open three or four five of their favorites will end up with fifteen to twenty uh well retouched him over first hour and a half being home for a wedding the first time we're back in the studio it's our keep the excitement energy up about you know the process we will edit them hard we'll brand them we'll put our name and logo on the bottom of each one will export them to a separate folder called branded seventy two d p I and small okay, we use fungi software to do its part of the module that all we saw was his album designed software today, but fun fun. These software has modules for pretty much everything, including the album proof for and the brander the brand is super important because you're goingto give these fifteen to twenty play images lo rez to the clients for a social and that's your marketing you gotta have your logo on that, okay, you send him to client well, who you might tag them in a bunch of if you've got a facebook relationship really important thiss for us is our main um I guess approach to our social media also save some for you don't do it all at once is my recommendation as we all social works there's a lot of very, um big qualified people out there that understand that socials a trickle thing you put it in a little bit here a little bit there keep the conversation going and that will keep people coming back to your website it center and you're you're facebook page all right, so next step cole and color correct so we call the images down again eight hundred two thousand we correct the remaining image using basic exposure color temperature liar in for us is really quite efficient and quite quick, once we've edited out images, that won't be a part of their proof book. Okay, so we edited it down far enough and remember if I'm shooting for the book, it takes away so much work flow because I go click, click, click and I got a story I don't have to clean kick keep zoom ins I'm not changing my exposure settings, et cetera. If you shoot manual raw in story, your color correction process will go much quicker. All your exposures were remained fairly the same and consistent so you could take a whole grouping of images to your sliders and have that affect every one of those images that serious so you doing clumps? We all know how that works. Probably okay, really efficient. It gets more efficient when you're shooting stories the way we did yesterday super exciting part of moving to this philosophy. Okay, we rename him after this, then renaming is name underscore zeroes or one we export three hundred dp I high rez j pegs level eleventh or j peg ten or eleven good all right and they go into process folder, right, so the proof book we create a contact sheet way. Do it in light room. We could do the context. My contact sheets for my proof books are twelve up her page twenty four four per spread in the proof book their little okay. The front end of our proof book is one beautiful, digitally mastered image that says here's what they're gonna look like but everything inside the right out of camera they're small enough but they have good color density, good color crushing they look great, they look like they did during the film era. Alright, that's, why a lot of people out there going I can't let anyone see my work that's not retouched. You can make him small, make him small and show in the beginning what comes with the purchase of the art which comes with the art make it all about the wall and the coffee table. Alright, because you're making these coffee table books and waller, if you do all these retouching upfront and their minds are oriented to the picture, then yeah, you do need to retouch each never image but no the proof book that is quality enough to see every image, but not satisfying enough to make their clients not want the next phase of the process, and that's the creation of this beautiful artwork it's a very important tool, okay so we put a big, beautiful image on the front of the cover, and in the back I put a cd on the cds does not contain the images in jpeg format that it contains the proof sheets themselves. Okay, so we export those proof she'd send it to print. And then we put him in a file to put on that cd. Why do I do that? Because the images are so small that you, you know, some some people might ask, hey, I can't see people's expression in that big, huge group shot. You took perfect put in the cd and zoom in on that proof sheet. That's seventy two d p I all right moving forward. Call it correct. Ok, did it? Oh, online gallery, they goto smugmug. And those are the smugmug website there's. Many of them out there. These type of print order fulfillment website. They are there in story shooting philosophy. In this business model, they're there to take some work out of the hands of the bright it's a service thing. It's a beautiful thing to do for a broad's. Hey, all your friends and family want to go order of their own prints perfect, great, go online and look at that it's, not the art creation is done through order forms. And we re touch each and everyone we've set our smug mug up so when we get an order it informs us and it says in three days we're printing these and sending them directly to the client will get a email back and we'll go okay good open those files up re upload those images and those images are retouched for the client okay they're digitally mastered after the fact okay at the level that they purchased so it's a basic retouching removing problems flyaway hairs three minutes per image and then they re uploaded to smuggling off they go to the client so it's nice you see how that work floor just save me so much time I didn't have to upload finished images I finished him after their ordered and paid for that I know guys bear with me this is a really kind of a dry program are we okay? Okay it's important though it's really important all right on my gallery is up let's move to the next slide we have created slideshow choose sixty of the process images add in some sneak peeks so it could be eighty hundred images set to music I used triple scoop music I love the foreign language versions of the triple scoop music is it really gets people charged it without the literal words member the right brain emotional brain and we export ok so that slide show is ready to go online