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Workflow Q&A

We had a quick question on how your workflow might change when you're on location. So it's that beautiful arching question. Beautiful questions, the ball. The bulk of the stuff that I do is done in my studio and in the backyard. My network Dude, who is a good friend of mine. I do his family pictures. He just had a golf tournament last weekend. I was in his little golf tournament, and so we're good friends. We hang out together. It's, you know, we're buddies. But he is, Ah, network guy. He owns, ah, computer business that I actually, by my Internet access from him. Well, whenever I started all this WiFi business, had one of his tech guys come over and I said, I want to light up this area anywhere if I'm standing on my property. I want Internet access because if I have Internet access that I'm I'm in my network. And if I'm in my network, then when my camera goes click, it's going into my main computer. So no matter where I am on my property, okay, I'm lit up. Much like creativelive is li...

t up wherever you go, OK, it's the same concept you all know how to do that. Many people do not know how to do that. Well, if you do not know how to do that, do like I did. Call your network guy up. Let him get you some fancy antennas and a nice kick in system and light up your area. Okay, Now, if I have to get in a car and drive over there, I lose connective ity. It goes away now. The cool thing about the way that can and WiFi unit works is it just cues up the stuff because everything has to be written to the card first before it's ever transmitted WiFi, it will not transmit ever until it first hits the card. So it's kind of a backup system. Okay, now it just simply cues it up, queues it up, queues it up and says, OK, well, as soon as I get back to the network, this is what needs to be done. I drive onto the property, she goes inside to start changing clothes and my camera pin pick up and start sending okay, And if she's taking a good time a little while changing clothes, let's say we changing at my studio. Then I'm gonna walk inside and do what I just told you. I'm going to dio. I did. And then by time she's finished changing clothes. We jump in the car and go somewhere else. Now let's just say that we're in New Orleans. Say, Well, I'm clearly to clear getting Clickety click, and that's system is out the window. I have toe again. Wait till I get back to the studio. And so that first initial conversions a bit longer. There's no way to fix that. Yeah, OK, that help. Yeah, that's huge. And which reminded me, by the way, since I was talking about being a backup freak, that's another layer of backup for me. Is that my camera? The one The X has two cards. Lots, and the way I haven't said is it writes. The both cards at the same time, have to 32 gig cards in there. So when I'm going, click click, click, Click is right into court A and writing to card be at exactly the same time and then transmitting into the computer at that very moment again. I'm in three places, so I don't feel like retouching tonight I've had a four day. I've got all day off tomorrow. I'm gonna finish retouching tomorrow. I go home, the computer blows up. I'm still good. I still got it on the court. Okay. I had three settings. Three sittings. Let's just say that day and before I start a new sitting I format cord a the first court. I don't format court B format card A do another session format court A do another session format. Corday do nothing just right. Boom. That night the computer blows up. I'm still OK. Backed up on card. Be so again, This is the kind of retardation I think about. I think about it because I'm paranoid of losing data. And how do I know all this stuff? I know this because I did the sticky note thing. I laid out my entire workflow, and then I looked at it and I had all sorts of What if this happened? And what if that happened? Scenarios. And so, you know, just you have to think about things like that. And if you think of these off Kirk, you're weird. I am. But why would that happen like that would ever happen? One time so far. One time at a wedding. Clear. Clear. Quickly. Clear. Click, click, click, click. Click. Right, The card A right. The card. Be everything. Was there? No problem. Come home. Pull card A. Put it in the computer. Nothing. Is there nothing corrupt? Yes. Broken card. Nothing was there. Pull card. Be Stick it in. Everybody. Everything's there. Now you tell me how I feel about that. How much is that camera now worth? Price is absolutely priceless. Absolutely. Can you imagine calling that dried up and saying sugar? I got nothing, e. I can barely say it, much less Stephen, Just think about it, okay? And since we on that subject, here's Here's what just happened at your home right now while you all five are here. There was a huge electrical storm in your area and all of your computers are fried. You okay with that? Everybody's okay with that. Good. That means you got a pretty good backup system because that's that's That's how I feel blue fry away. I don't care. I'm backed up. And that that has happened to me too, by the way. And restored. No problem. I'm there now. If you're a home and you're feeling this cold sweat develop on you right now because you're thinking, Oh, my goodness. When he said an electrical storm and my computers will blowed up, I'm thinking about that bride I just did. Or a baby. I just did. I'm having to explain Do something about it, because it really didn't happen. It didn't just happen, but it could happen tomorrow. Or it could happen the next day. So just just pretend it did, and you will begin to feel that feeling that you have. So that's how I That's how I think that's how I reason those types of things. Okay, so thank you. You got questions anymore? Anything? Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yeah, it's just on the WiFi concern is a new thing. Like I know that the cannon 60 came with their WiFi. Already included is when you're going to show how you set up the camera, how to your computer reads how your computer understand where to send that image. I'm not going to explain that. Let me tell you why it crosses into networking and computer geeky type stuff that really is not photography. It could be it can be complicated to someone who has no knowledge of networking and I p addresses and all that ftp ing and all that kind of crazy stuff. However, to the tech world. Okay, to the people who do networking, it is just as easy it is for you to speak a different language than me, you know? So here's what I want you to do. If you do have a 60 you do have this WiFi number one, I want you to read the instruction book and understand it. If you read your instruction book that explains the WiFi feature and you go, Oh, I get it, then you're a bit of a networking techie guy. If you read it and go, I don't get this. Just don't make no sense. Then spend is about 90 bucks. Spend the 90 bucks toe. Have a tech guy, a networking tech guy. Come over, girl, come over to your studio or your home and let them read the book and say, Here's what I want to do I want this complete this camera to talkto that computer, and when I go click right here, I want to image to go from here. And I wanted to go there and they'll say, Oh, let me show you how you do that, okay? And set it up for you now, more importantly than them setting it up. That's why you hired him for an hour. You go. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Show me what you did and let him take the full hour that you hired him for and show you step one. I did this. And this is You have to have this and this I p address in bubble bubble bubble. So your camera was connected to death Computers? Like, try to put my mind. Okay. It's too complicated to do right now. This is this is an all day problem. Problem telling. Just if you could have, like, as an idea could yesterday when you're shooting up to this computer Hidden absolutely. Could have been that yesterday or knows yes before. That is called an ad hot ad hoc network, which you probably have never heard of. A D a Josi network. Okay, so, yes, I could have had that camera talking straight to this computer yesterday. Okay? Now, I didn't do it because this could get into this computer. That way yesterday was useless. It was in material because I knew I was just gonna put the card in at night and drop it in too easy. That wouldn't is too complicated to teach that in this scenario. So being that you've never heard of an ad hoc network tells me there's no way to explain that to you right now. So the best thing you can do is get your network guy and have him hook you up. Go ahead. Kind of geeky tech question, but it's real simple Internet speed. Do we need a specific Internet speed to get the files to transfer? Or this this If you're going straight, if you're going straight from the camera straight into second, say laptop like mega feature is already there. Okay, But if you're gonna use like in my studio scenario whereby you're gonna go through a router that's gonna en route it into the computer system, then you know all of even a cheap Browder now is is a pretty fast It's like a gigabit system. Yeah, just just the normal systems that are out there right now. Nothing. Nothing that you're gonna need to spend thousands of dollars on. No. Okay, thank you. Know, cool deal. All right. So, workflow marketing. We have the customers come to us. Yes. We know how to take an image. We know how to get it on a card. Okay. Now, as I said before, we need to do whatever it takes. Whatever it takes to make the image is awesome. All right. And that is what we're gonna talk about. We're gonna show you for the next two segments. I want to show you step us. That what I do to the images to make them as perfect as possible. All right, we're gonna talk about bridge. You asked me about bridge versus light room. Yes, We're gonna talk about that. We talk about adobe camera raw because you probably maybe I don't know no or don't know that whether you're doing it in bridge or whether you're doing it in light room. In reality, adobe camera raw is what's doing it. Okay. Light room is just the device to get you to adobe camera. Raw and bridge is a device to get you to adobe camera. Raw adobe camera raw is what's doing the conversion. Not like room. Okay, you might not have known that. And it's the exact same adobe camera raw, whether it's light room or bridge and whether to use light room. A bridge mostly depends on your personal preferences and workflow, and I'll sort of explain that I don't have light room to show you. But I'll show you how I use bridge and you're gonna go. Oh, I get it. You'll see what I mean. Photo shop. We're gonna talk about that actions. Like I said, I'd like to build in action feel and probably into today we're gonna do some fun speed tricks that is going to get you home as quickly, quickly as possible. That's my goal. Get you home into the day. Okay, so I have this little bit about the pro form and signing up with pro form because on here right now, because of the fact that this entire workflow system cannot be explained Singley today, it simply cannot. It took me a week to do it and set it up. It's one of reasons why the creativelive people is letting me use my computer to do all of this is because it's all tweaked and set up and ready to roll. There's a lot of step by step by step processes that you need to do and understand to be able to set this whole thing up. Okay, so there is absolutely no way. And when I decided to create my little workflow system, I said to myself, You know what? I'm a do. I make movies of every step along the way so that if somebody wants to copy my system verbatim, I will have it. Step one, Step two, Step three, Step four and I'm gonna put the whole thing on the pro Forum and I make it available for free for down if you're a member of the pro form and just to give you just a tiny tidbit of just a few minutes of what one of those movies look like, Let me show you is I look at this image and I think, Wow, I'm starting to like it. Maybe a little bit on the eyes. I see. Zoom in on the eyes and I'm going to use my Dodge tool 50% mid tones, dodging a little bit more on this catch light dodging a little bit on this catch light hold down my old key, which makes it turn into the burn tool. I'm a burn in the black on both eyes. Maybe just add a little bit of a swish down here with the Dodge Tool. I just let go My old key. That's a little bit of a speed trick. And yes, I'm starting to like those eyes. OK, now that's just I mean, like I said, that goes on for pool Lower 34 hours, okay, of all the stuff and take this trick in that trick, it includes, Yes, it includes every every action that I have all the little presets for bridge, everything, everything, about everything. So before we get into the next segments in a Net world, you have me some questions or things you want me to add, or just talk about that I have discussed. So far, the Internet has not stopped talking about WiFi and from this last section. So I think we just need to clarify that topic a little bit because you were talking about when you're shooting. It is going from your camera to your computer as you're shooting. So not everybody has a camera that can do that. So What do you suggest instead, if they're camera doesn't have wifi. Okay, if your camera like the one d X cannon, does not have WiFi, however, it does have this little thing you can purchase that screws onto the side of it from Canon. That then makes it to where it does have WiFi. And like the five d Siri's cameras, it's this little thing that screws onto the bottom. Okay, the night cons. While I don't have a Nikon, I know that Nikon does the same thing with certain models. So what you gonna have to first of all, determined if you want one of these WiFi transmitters you're gonna have to take and research whether not your camera has that feature with an additional purchase. Okay, now, beyond that, there's a company called Cam Ranger that makes a little device that slips onto the hot shoe and plugs into your computer. And then it makes for a It makes for a wireless transfer to transmit to the IPad. It'll transmit to your computer that type of thing so it could be even that third party type thing. I get my camera and you're from during so called Robert Duras if you want one. Okay, okay. So even if they don't do that, how much extra time is it really going to take them from taking the card out of the camera and manually doing on their computers? Still an option? It is an option. There isn't that you can take the court out of your camera and walk it over the computer, but let's added up seriously. If I'm going to shoot three seniors in a day for the sake of conversation and I am going to shoot, let's say four outfits per senior around 24 shots. And I'm gonna walk that card every time at the end of the day and I'm gonna end of every session plugging into my computer, move it over, let him render, then take it out and so on so forth. It is gonna add 5 10 minutes, 5 10 minutes. Let's just say let's say it's only 10 minutes and it's done three times a day. 10 10 20. That's 30 minutes a day, 30 minutes at the end of the day, and I don't know about you guys, but if I can get home 30 minutes faster at the end of the day. I'm 30 minutes. Happier. Okay, Now, if if you are doing, for example, weddings a wedding inside your let's say it's a wedding formal. I typically shoot Mawr images of a wedding formal than I do of a high school senior. Ah, baby, that six shot thing I told you about. That's out the window with babies. OK, out the window, every little twitchy move. I'm clear. Critically. I'm like I'm like the overshoot is anonymous when it comes to babies, because you just got to It's nothing for me to pop 100 images of a baby session, but I still edit it down to about 20. But the whole while I'm shooting like that, making sure I'm timing that right to where that WiFi transmitter is sending them in. So if you had 100 images that you had to move over, how long would it take you now to move those? It's gonna take a lot longer, isn't it? So it again, that depends on the speed of your computer. It depends on the speed of the card. You have all sorts of things. Things depend as to the speed of the whether or not. It is really worth your while to get that transmitter. But you can determine that we have a few questions on pro form, and I wonder if you could just describe in a little more detail what it includes, what the community experiences like the forums, the videos, how it all works. If you could just give us another little more detailed overview on that. Yeah, the Pro Forum. We have just under paid members on the pro form who access it. Not all of them access it every day, but there's quite quite a number of them. Access it every day. It is a forum is what it literally is. It's foreign format so that, you know you click the little forums. Tab shows a list of all the different forums, and there's a high school senior forum. There is a a wedding forum and a baby for him and a family for him. And then there's different technical forums, like there's ah, Photoshopped tricks for him. And then there's We have one little section where if you get upto once you hit like posts, you have access to this area, which is a custom action forum. We'll have a team of people who will write your own custom action for you. So you know, if you if you think in yourself, man, I wish I could have an action that would like. You said, lay that watermark down, size it perfect for Facebook. And I could just hit the f nine key and it would make it for me. Will she go requested? We'll have a guy make it okay. And what is the fee for that? There is no feet. The fee is becoming a member. Once you remember, you get all this stuff. You know the same thing with the workflow. The workflow that I created is in this big old long thread inside the photo shop area that explains that thing in detail. We have an artist of the month every month that comes in right now it's my buddy Joe. And anyway, he give, like, little assignments and go do this and go do that. And you get to interact with this one artist, something brand new that I just started. And it's the contest is ending. This weekend is you may have watched a master chef. You ever saw, Master Shadow. Yeah, well, all right. Now, on the pro form. For the last month, we've had the pro forum master photographer Competition way started out with 26 photographers, and then they would have to do a task, and then a few were eliminated, and then they had to go do a task. And then if you were eliminated and we've had, um, you know, do food photography and do baby food I could do photograph a chair and photographic shoe. And, you know, it was just all kinds of crazy things like that. And we're down to the last two right now, and they're in the middle of doing their task right now. So it's just it is that type of thing. It's a community of professional photographers, all with the same mindset, and that is like me. We want to turn a profit at this great profession that we're in and have a lifestyle as well. I would support you, um, imbalanced and balance, you know. And, um so just another clip. So with the videos are in pro form as well. Yes, so it is. OK, so it sounds like it's a mix of community driven content and content that you produce specifically for the community is and everybody contributes. Great. So it is. You know, you asked me a question, for example. Hey, car qawy, turn red hair blue. Okay, well, you might get my answer, but you might also potentially get 100 other answers because, as you know, in photo shop, there's 100 ways to do something. And so you might potentially get 100 other answers of Well, let me tell you how I do it will, you know. So everybody participates. It's not just sit there and take in its everybody shares. Everybody participates, and we all make each other better. That's don't have any. If you can. You hang around with like minded people. What happens, you all grow. And that's that's the process. That's to me. It where it all Why I did it. The whole thing started. I'll tell you this if if we got time for it, I'll tell you that the whole thing started with four guys in a hotel room at end of a convention, and I learned Mawr in the hotel room bouncing ideas off of each other that I did at the convention. The photographer Dimension and I was like people, How come we don't do this all the time? And I'm like, I don't know what Because you live over here and I live over there and it was like When we get the Internet, let's let's let's do this online And that's when I created the pro form. The four people would hang out, which became eight, which became 16 which became, and you know, that's how it's men and it's been around for my daughter's nine teen. So he's been around 19 years. Is office incredible? I feel like since we're talking about this, I know a lot of you guys out there interested in pro form. I want to let you know that right now Kirk has a pro form, 50% off access available to all the creativelive watchers and just go to our of the course page for this course right now. And you can download this free pdf that's available to all of you watching right now, and you get 50% off Pro Forum. And there are a ton of other discounts from Kirk sponsors that everything he's talking about, his workflow his cameras lighting. Everything is available through that little nice digital swag bag that he's put together for all of you. Awesome. Thanks for getting thank you for sharing your relationships with those companies with us. It's really fantastic Love to see how much you have grown your community and continue to give to all of us totally appreciate that.