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Image Workflow—From Camera to Client

Lesson 9 from: Studio Systems: A Photography Business Bootcamp

Julia Kelleher

Image Workflow—From Camera to Client

Lesson 9 from: Studio Systems: A Photography Business Bootcamp

Julia Kelleher

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Lesson Info

9. Image Workflow—From Camera to Client

Lessons

Class Trailer

Free Bootcamp Introduction

1

Introduction to Studio Systems Bootcamp Part 1

1:04:25
2

Introduction to Studio Systems Bootcamp Part 2

1:22:38

Photography Studio Customer Service

3

Customer Service Part 1

1:08:05
4

Customer Service Part 2

1:20:46
5

Customer Service Best Practices: On–Location

58:14
6

The Customer Experience: Client P.O.V. Studio Walk-Through & Session: On–Location

1:16:45

Photo Session Systems & Image Workflow Systems

7

Photography Session Systems

1:13:36
8

The Studio as a System to Success: On–Location

55:38
9

Image Workflow—From Camera to Client

50:15
10

Post-Processing Systems

1:18:37
11

Back-Up Systems

53:41

Sales & Ordering Workflow Systems

12

Overview of Successful Selling: The 6 Ps of Selling Part 1

1:23:09
13

The 6 Ps of Selling Part 2

1:17:11
14

The 6 Ps of Selling Part 3

1:38:38
15

Real Life Sales Consult: On–Location

1:29:54
16

Tracking and Packing an Order: On–Location

34:34
17

Dealing With Client Objections & Problem Personalities, with Consistency

1:02:34

Pricing & Financial Systems

18

Financial Tracking—The Power of Knowing Your Numbers

1:02:39
19

The Science of Pricing-—A System for Your Products

40:26
20

Building Packages That Work

1:15:41
21

Your First Outsource: Accounting: On–Location

21:23

Marketing, Branding & Promotional Systems

22

The Importance of a Solid Brand System

1:02:11
23

Living Your Brand: Inside the Studio: On–Location

43:41
24

Researching Your Market

54:19
25

Marketing Systems

1:19:09
26

Understanding Buying "triggers" and Using them in Your System of Promotion

36:33
27

What We've Covered: Getting Systems Right

05:48
28

Why Systems Are Important - and How They Help

11:10
29

What's Your Plan - Let's Talk 5 Years Ahead

37:16
30

What's Important - Let's Prioritize

17:33
31

Where do you start? - Dealing with the Demon Inside

15:44
32

Looking In the Mirror: Finding Success

14:49
33

The Power of Never Giving Up

20:00
34

Getting Back to Your Purpose - Why Do You Do What You Do?

09:09
35

Introducing the BIG WINNER!

13:13

Lesson Info

Image Workflow—From Camera to Client

I have a question for you already have you ever lost an sd card? Oh, yes, I know who has raised your hand a minute all of it I'm done with images on it I'm talking with him it is you haven't backed up yet on it. Yeah. How many of you have done it with a wedding? Oh me oh scary monsters but what your microphone tell me the story I'm dying to hear now the suspense is killing me it was my last wedding that I just did oh my god and I got home and lost thirty two gigabytes from the middle of the day and I kind of panicked but it had come out of my second shooter's camera so like, hey, I got what I needed but it's lost all of his wages all of his important shots that I hired him for yeah, I went back to the restaurant where the reception wass and I didn't know what to say but go to the manager and say I'm looking for something and she says you owe me big teo she found it on the deck oh my had almost fallen through the slats and like please don't tell anyone don't tell anyone where are you? I...

t was probably the worst morning of your life pretty much to back track three locations for this wedding three venues you were thick here south korea I had written off the rest of my career so yeah it's scary, isn't it it's scary it'll never happen again. I'll be inefficient a word manager oh it's funny how like mirrors like that make you make a system pop yeah scary ah that's a good one I can't meet that. No, but as we've all heard from amy you do not want to lose an sd card, right? Yeah, you do not want that so we're going to tackle that work flow today specifically how images move, get moved from your camera and ultimately get seen by the client that's as far as we're going camera two clients today in subsequent grace we're going to talk about anything post processing and backing those files up and then we're going to talk about how they move from client toe lap so we're breaking this up into sections were going from client camera to client okay, we're going from um client two back up systems too how to back things up and we're also going to then tackle the chunk after the client orders how did the files and move through your system tau actually order the product okay, your files are at their most vulnerable when you take the card out of the camera that's when they are the most vulnerable and you need to minimize that time frame okay, you should look at that time frame as the most vulnerable time of your life like that's when you're cutting somebody open in surgery and hoping they don't die seriously that moment when you take the camp the card out of the camera you should look at that as the most critical point in your work flow like this is all I have this little thing right here okay they need to be on a computer and backed up as quickly as possible. Okay, there are photographers out there who have who have come up with what I call the rule of segregation know cards are kept all in the same place so they have like cheating on his little five little pockets you can put your cards in like a winter wedding they will separate cards and keep them in separate places just in case the thing gets lost your men you're up a creek you've got nothing right if you lose that little pocket that puts all your cars in europe a creek you don't have that so they have to management systems okay, taking control of your file management is critical. I'm gonna address this later when we get to backup systems but I'm gonna ask you one more time here most cameras these days have to cards lots right? Right uh do you put two cards in them? Do you shoot the same thing on both cards good a lot of people just get lazy and they just shoot from one car to the next if you shoot on both cards and store those two in separate places you've got a backup okay do I do that no should I fire shooting weddings yes since I'm in a portrait session the files before they're client has even left the session we run upstairs we pop him in the computer and start calling and backing up the ross okay so they're pretty much barely out the door before they're all backed up upstairs on our raid system you will be dealing with these files for sometimes a year or more especially when you have things like a baby plan you know baby finding me shooting this session or an engagement with a wedding you do the engagement then you do the wedding six months later that kind of thing you're going to be dealing with this client in your workflow for a long time so you want to make sure that you do it in an organized way and safely and if you stay organized you know this is classic scenario you know how this is what will happen with me I'll do a new born two years later they come back for the second baby and they wantto talk about what they did with the first baby because they want to match it on the wall right I better be able to find that first baby really quickly and efficiently in my systems so how you name things, how you operate, how you tag stuff, how you've synchronizing organize your files. Can you find the ross? Can you find them edit? Psst is, can you find the order? The order products? Is everything organized? Okay, so the big question is what happens to your card right after you shoot? If you're on location, how are you making sure that card is safe? I used to just keep it in my camera until I was ready to download it, which, honestly, I think it's a little safer. Um, as long as you don't form at your car once you format your card, chances are you, khun save something off of it, like you can rescue something off of it, but if you shoot over the top of that formatted card, you're screwed, ok? I've done it, trust me, it sucks cost a lot of money to find out you can't save your files, so don't do that. Minimize that time from camera to back up as much as you can, okay store in separate locations, photographers who travel like literally carry cards and separate bags, separate places, travel photographers and things like that. They really want to make sure that everything is safe and that they have things in multiple you might think initially that that's crazy to put things in different locations because you'll lose track of him but if you put them in the same place in two separate bags every single time then if you lose one bag you haven't lost everything especially your traveling okay, so camera two computer to backup first things first how many of you are backing up right away when you download your ross good good good good okay, if you're not, you need to come up with a system now do I immediately back up all the ross? No, I only back up the cold roz the first cole so the first thing I do is download the images onto the computer and then I spent two minutes doing a quick cole just going through, I get about seventy eighty I moved from about three hundred images down to about seventy or eighty so too much to show the client but enough to know that those are the ones I'm going to keep. Then those seventy to eighty files are backed up to our technology disc station raid drive it's a raid five my buried six remember we'll explain explain backup systems in another class on how that works and what the best way to go about doing it iss okay, so that's the first thing that gets done and I'm going to talk also in that class on three two one system for backing up um today is all about organization ok, how do you organize your files? You guys feel like have a good system it feels feels together and it feels like okay, I know how to find stuff I can find it when I need it do you name things correctly? You feeling okay if you could find something in the drop of a hat two years ago a session you did january of two thousand twelve key fight it. Okay, good. Some of you on the right track some of you are not it's kind of uncomfortable when you're like going through your drives and trying to figure out where everything is, especially when you're like on the external backup system where he just drives that hang out oh, that was on the two thousand twelve and it's not labeled crap, which was better plug each one in to find out which one's which but they're okay. So this is kind of we're going to you're gonna have to stay with me is a little complicated and I'm gonna go over it a couple times so that you'll get it okay if I'm gonna explain it first and then I'm going to go into my computer and show it to you so that don't worry if you get a little lost at this particular time once you see it in my computer at it all click okay. That was kind of hard to describe all this v aquino but I wanted to try. Okay, so how this file system works on my desktop? I have a folder called kalai in images. Okay, right here. Client images you open that up there's three folders raw proved an archive. Okay, raw is clearly what isthe the minute a session is done, we take the camera, make a fuller, you know, carlton family newborn session and it'll just have the raw files in it. It'll have the raw, the full ross and it will have a cold rod holder that cold ross folder gets backed up to our disk station, which is this thing right over here. Okay, that's, the ray drive it's a network it's an n s drives the network attached storage drive. Okay, so everybody in the studio can access it if you don't have that kind of system a nice good hard drive that's reliable. You want to put it on there? Okay? There are definitely better drives out there than others. We'll talk about that when we talk about backup systems. Okay, so initially they'll just be these two folders carlton raw and carlton rockhold inside their raw files, then belinda grabs the images from the station the ross and starts doing a second cole so she gets it down to about thirty or forty images and she starts doing the initial edits on those okay when she's done with that she puts him back on the disk station okay, I grabbed the psd files which are the final edit hir ed it's not final final but her edits you know how you do final final and then underscore final and then final final number two final yeah that's that's what it is so carlton ps I drag it over to the carlton basically taking from the district station and put it here so now when it's in the proved folder we have it as raw, raw, cold and the carlton psd then I make a pro select album for that client and pop it in the proofed folder. Okay, so it just moves down so I'm gonna show you how this works then when they're done with their session and we've ordered their products their lab ready products go in there ready to upload to the lab. Okay? That's kind of how everybody works through the actual client workflow from when we got there files too when we finished them too when we put them into pro select sold to the client, created their product and ordered the product in the lab but what about how do you deal with this when the client is still in the actual progress of being with you here's the breakdown okay visually we start in the client images folder remember with raw proofed archive the ross get backed up to the raid then as the client's images get proved they get shoved down the line here okay so and they're sorted by their last name and the type of sessions will be carlton newborn smith senior you know whatever session they happened to dio so we can identify their session but their session files when I bring them into bridge are also renamed according to that but if I need to do a search for the ash off family newborn session I just have to type in spotlight ashok newborn and my computer will find it I used to just leave it as its file name like underscore d a c thirty five o to kind of thing and that was a nightmare because I couldn't always find the files I needed so by renaming the actual file the raw file that comes out of the camera I'm giving myself research advantage now those of you who use light room have a little advantage there because light room has so many cataloguing and tagging things I do not use light room I've tried to get into it I just can't when we talk about post processing in the next class I am going to tell you why I use bridge and particularly why use photo shop especially in a way that I need to be editing okay light room just cannot do what I needed to d'oh okay, so once they get through the process that we've backed up the ross right on the devastation belinda has put the edited images on the dissertation so those air backed up there right? Then we take them through the ordering process and then we do a final backup of all their products their post like file their order, their invoice everything on this station and that's when everything is up today and backed up on the system. Okay, hang with me for a second. Okay? This is not complicated, but it may look it are you all with me? Sweet. Yes, I'm doing something right anyway pay attention. Okay, let me repeat this one more time for those of you who are online and maybe a little confused and we're gonna go over it one more time again. Client images on my desktop there's three folders inside this folder raw proved archived raw files when I first bring him out of the camera they go in here, they're cold and the back ups ross are sent to the ray drive the backup system okay, the folders are organized inside this raw file by last name and as the images get proved, they move into the next folder down that makes sense so let's look at this inside bridge okay here you see the client images fold okay. So desktop access its essence documents, documents client images ok raw proved archive then this is my model file this is for everybody who's a model I do a lot of models because I do a lot of mentoring in the studio and workshops so those sessions are free sessions okay, so I kind of separate the models same concept but just in a different folder so I don't kind of confuse them with current clients. They're still treated like clients let's put them in a separate folder ok, so we're gonna go inside that roth holder ok? So let's open that sucker up here's what it looks like inside the raw folder it's done my family so our better newborn belden one year belinda brooklyn painting raw. This is my personal stuff that I needed that I just threw it here that I probably need to organize olson one year platinum maternity stockton newborn traffics in one year okay? Those are the different sessions in there. There is a yellow bar next to those that means it's raws are backed up so I have label set up inside bridge so that I can designate if the files are backed up or not so if there is no like olsen one year there's no yellow bar on that that's a risky file right there that folder is highly risks because that's the only copy of it in the system does that make sense? So then inside say, for example, the carlton newborn folder there is the raw files and then the coals on the coals get separated from the from the ross. Eventually I will delete thes permanently. I only saved the cold. Ross this way, space. I never go back to him. Have you ever gone back to your rock house? Very rarely. Once in a blue moon, I save the first call. So the first seventy to eighty images that we narrow it down to those are all safe. And then we narrow it down further with a second cold down to thirty or forty, the client gets all of those are backed up. Okay, so once we've called now it's time to edit or enhance in either light room of photo shop, whatever you use, how many of you are like on ly like room? Okay? And how many of you are only photoshopped? How many were both who? Lots of both. So a lot of photographers use light room as the same way you would have bridge and nothing more, nothing less why I didn't do light room because I didn't need its capability, I bridge does everything that I needed to dio so that's kind of why I stuck with just using bridge and photo shot doesn't mean that's bad for me it was just easier of a system now I know light room has some incredible cataloguing features and you can probably take what I'm doing and put it on steroids in light room so consider that those of you who know light room really well I want you to think about how you can create that system to work for you and use light room to its best advantage ok, but now it is time to add it so I go into photo shop, okay, I do my edit, I uh save as a full rest psd file, I do not shrink it at all, I flatten it to make it a fault smaller foul side but I do not like start cropping down or I free crop, so if I am going to crop some things, I want the composition of the image to be different I free crop, I don't put a ratio inside of photo shops cropping I simply just drag my things around and I am a free cropper okay, so that psd file, they're usually pretty large I do that for a reason and I'll tell you that when we get to talking about pro select ok, there are a lot of different ways to sell in person there are tons of great software's out there I have been using pro select since two thousand seven and um if I was on a desert island and needed one piece of software it would be perfect okay this it makes me so much money on a daily basis I can't even if the value is nothing and I'm saying the price you pay for it so I save as a photo shop file in a new folder ok so under the proofed file now we have the carlton new born this is where I saved their files you notice there named carlton newborn number ninety five so when those images are imported into bridge initially as ross there renamed okay I'm going to do all this in the post processing class when we bring in color session okay so at this point I would have three folders carlton rockhold carlton raw and carlton psd okay so this album here and this would not exist okay, so that's the point in the process of which we were at like I said everything is saved as a psd file a large file and those air then brought into pro select the final edited piece seas are put in another folder ok that's what's going to get shown to the client we convert to black and white and go from there and then we start importing the pro select so this label means the roth are backed up okay then when we go back out to client images okay so usually in the raw holder is where I see a bunch of yellow labels because the rods are backed up the minute we moved to the proof folder I start seeing different things and start labeling things different okay so when it gets moved down to the proof folder here's what happens we're going to go into proof do you follow me inside the proof folder a lot like this lots of different colors all those colors are telling me something about the status of the files from blue means it's at the lab it's been ordered okay purple means I need to design something where there are products outstanding toe order an album dara campus something needs to be ordered okay in other words it's not finished yet it's not at the lab okay red means it may be ordered but there is no final backup done so we haven't backed up their products they're pro select album filed or invoice that kind of thing that's why it's red that means don't delete it it's not done yet green means of final backup is complete we have backed up there ross there ps d's they're pro select album there invoice and any products that we have created into j pegs cards canvas albums anything all of that is backed up to the disc station okay so that means I can still lead it off my computer okay it's still scary to delete things off the computer I still freak every time I do it I'm going back up I like cheques they're your friends really like that go on now you know but if you have a system like this you're going to ensure that you don't screw anything up how many of you have accidentally deleted things and know how to back up what happened to you yet huh get a system don't let this stuff mistake and fall through the cracks okay? There are lots of ways to do this and you will see other photographers do it entirely differently. Okay? I tried to keep my since my system as simple as possible but also communicate everything that I need to communicate to my clients are too mike we've so that when they open bridge they can see all the labels okay all the labels are there for them to be able to go oh, I can't touch that one it's not backed up yet or we still need to order products for this there's something outstanding that we forgot half the time when something falls through the cracks and like we didn't get an order we were supposed to get we go back and we look when we go oh yeah purple we didn't order it uh okay we confined the crack in the system and fix it so that's what I'm trying to show you with image, file and workflow how keeping organized can can keep your sanity. Okay, so what happens from here is these files get imported into pro select. Ok. And then from there, we save the pro select album, which includes all of their selects, their order, their invoice. It translates to studio cloud with all their credit card information. They're signed in their hard copy folder. We also keep a signed copy of their invoice in there that they're confirming that that's what they want to order, we'll talk about that when we get into into sales. But pro select is where I import the client files into. I'm going to show you this in my computer on the actual computer screen, so we see it one more time. And you guys get the feeling for how this works in my system before we do that. Are there any questions from you guys on how this works? Okay, good. I actually explained something right. Seriously, how are you doing it now? And how can you make it better? So the labels that you have for the different colors air they automatically in bridge. You know, I'll show you how to set that up. That's an excellent question, I see them always on you, no friends in a computer look how like sure I will tell you what we're going to go in here and I will I will tell you that before let me take any other questions are we good she should question the back and that's definitely I didn't address that I will show you how to do that most definitely don't let me forget so when you go to do the final backup do you organize them in amore timeframe like I have mine done by year yeah and so after that yes on the disc station there's a folder that says client images and then it's organized by month and year yes exactly I should have addressed that you're absolutely right because you need to be able to find stuff right yeah but and sometimes so what'll happen is we have studio cloud with all of our clients we search for clients see when their session wass so two thousand twelve or whatever and then we see that it was in january two thousand twelve then all we have to do is go in the station and go to two thousand twelve january find the smith holder and for a while there it all is okay yes that's exactly correct. I should have addressed that to amy at what point are you renaming files the right when they come in from the card I will show you that too okay? Okay questions before I start rocking in tow the computer here yeah you mentioned there were things that you couldn't do for yourself in light room you tried it but I used like rooms so I'm curious as to so far in this process can you do this all in light room? Thank you I'm just a dummy when it comes to light room is really what it comes down to when I'm stubborn I don't want to learn the program is really what it was I tried tiffany tried to get me to do light room for me it was the issue of going back and forth from light room to photoshopped it really irritated because it wasn't seamless the way things get stacked like where the fuck is my psd file? It bothered me like I couldn't intuitively and I'm sure if I just stuck with it it's like using a welcome talent when you first start, you hate it and you don't want to use it if you throw your mouse in the trash, you actually get used to it so and like it I'm sure I would like my room if I actually tried, you know, committed to it, but I'm pretty sure light room can do this and much more it's my understanding am I correct in that okay like room is actually way more powerful, I think, than bridge in terms of its cataloguing and finding things in key wording things and tagging things especially for like wedding photographers and people who do a lot of compositing and building stock libraries light room is huge for that because the catalog allows you to like tag clouds and the news just typing clouds and it'll pop up all your cloud pictures I mean it's pretty cool light room is incredible I just didn't need it for what I was doing so instead of taking the time to learn the program bridge satisfied that's why I didn't go there but that doesn't mean like rooms awesome I mean I've heard of incredible things about it so we're going to move over to my my computer here so this is the client images folder this is not my proofing computer by the way so I had to like reset this up in here um this is my sales computer but it's not my proofing computer so these are the three folders under client images the raw folder is where things get initially sent into from the camera card look camera card okay, what happens is is I go up to when I have set this up so the minute I plug in a c f corridor an sd card the bridge camera loader open so I go get photos from a camera is going to complain it because there's nothing notify found okay I tell it I want it to save two desktop don't look my that's what's really missing client images raw okay choose so that's where it's going to save the images I want to create a sub folder in here so we're gonna call it a custom name and we're gonna call this is smith test carrying us the smith family? Okay since there's nothing in here it can't rename the files because I don't have a card plugged in but I would go custom name and a new window would open up and I would say smith underscore test underscore and then I would tell it to se teoh start at zero zero one and go through in three digits all the way through the images ok so would remember them and rename them according to that family's images that I would say get media and they would start to import you guys going all see this when um we do this section on post processing so you will see it again then what would happen is bridge would make a new folder here called smith so we just pretend that the ash off images and ash off and that I could open it up and there would be a new folder inside called rock ok, these are my raw files from the session we did for this course okay, so I shot two hundred and fifty two images and I think we narrowed it down to about thirty five or so okay, so this is a straight out of camera session and I would quickly go through and start calling this, and I'm going to show you how to call everything in the next lesson, so I don't want to go through that now, but I will just briefly kind of show you how things work different poses were doing macros, and we're done. I did not do bucket with this family. I don't remember why, but we had a lot of family shop there's, plenty. Okay, so then I would call that down to the final edit to the eighty or so that I like that I know. I want belinda the coal down further. Okay, then. Once she and it's the psd cds, I bring the ps ease back into this folder. And the ps d's are what I will convert to black and white and import into pro select to show the client the finished images. Ok, the j pegs thes quick j pegs are what we would use to order the proofs from I now do proofs. Okay, we do in person sales with pro select, but then we also have a box of proofs that is a perky little add on should you decide to get the large digital files, you will learn all about this when I talk to you about my pricing and how we incentivize clients to purchase more so you can have the option in our pricing to do the low risk falls or the high risk but the cute little image box of the proofs inside comes with the large files along with a set of announcements so we order that through the lab before their I p s appointment the's folders these images get imported into pro select so right now I'm at the stage where the images are approved I need to show them to the client I've ordered their proofs from the lab I need to get these into pro select so that I can show them to the client so I opened pros elect hey hopefully my ssd drive will be really quick I have a boat load of templates inside press select so sometimes complains of me I should have opened before him come on, show me how fast you are. Yeah like external resource is learning it's actually moving pretty quick okay so when I open up pro select this is how it opens up and I simply go album at a folder of images desktop client images proved right by actually still in rome ashok psd and start importing pro select imports them into the folder once they're imported I simply make a slide show title side for it inside pro select and bam it's ready to show to the client this file gets saved and I will do that once it's done loading here this file gets saved a pro select album file gets saved in the client's folder so I can keep track of their order as we go through the entire process their invoice there's selects every product that we designed in pro select all stays with the pro flex album file why don't I use pro select number one it allows me to show what I want to sell but most importantly pro select high rez production module makes every single product I need to upload to the lab for me like an action yeah her eyes just got real big this is why you suffer the pro version the software well allow me to make the client's products and have them at the lab less than thirty minutes after the ordering appointment is over she's like really an album uh uh okay literally so here we are we're loaded I can make a slide show run the slide show for the client and whatever they order okay, so say for example let's go teo birth announcements and let's do a uh just a simple hey, this is cute don't make it easy on my god they're just ridiculously cute just love these kids okay, so they want a card obviously it's not james ethan hawke that's not his name the last name is ash off right so I would have to change that but I can order this card through pro select it is now in a place called high rise production inside photo shop there's the card okay I can tell pro select to make this for me like an action okay, normally a card like this you have to find the card template chase attacks you gotta put the image and figure out what image it is it takes you like fifteen minutes make cars right? I tell it where I wanted to save please save in the ashok folder and say make high res images it opens photoshopped it makes the card for me put the image in the cart exactly as I left it as I wanted it to impress elect and then it leaves everything in a nice layered file for me to change the text on it how were in photo shop? Hey here's my layered file change it save it up for toto she's like that'll save me some time yes that's why I use it and it works this way with image boxes with albums with according books with anything and everything you have it's all template and cute and adorable process will make it for you in under five seconds all you gotta do is change the little text on it so what does this do for me? My brand microphone microphone microphone consistency, consistency what efficiency, efficiency what else? She said customer experience yes why? Because they order on a thursday evening at six o'clock, five o'clock whatever. It's at the lab by five thirty it's at my front door by next tuesday, and I'm delivering by the following friday they are still on the high from seeing the images, and I tell them, it's going to take three or four weeks and when we call them and go your order in a way to get it, okay, I have just elevated my brand and my customer service by under promising and over delivering. Plus, I am not wasting a boatload of time photo shop, dealing with stuff. You know how hard it is to find a template sometimes like you're going. I bought that when, um well, where is that template that I bought from so and so, like, three years ago in the client saw it loved it, and now I gotta figure out where it is and shoot, I can't find it. You mean I have to buy the door thing all over again? Yeah. It's happened to me with a software that works for you, it's simply the temple authority in there it's memorized it's done and we'll just I create that for you. Same thing with books and albums, okay, so let's, go back to press select who let's design an album we're going to the book's module a very popular album that I dio is mine and I'll show this to it's a pro dp I am assist album with full bleed images I call it the emma this album um and I will say for example it's a full bleed so I just need a single I need this page client wants we've picked the images we've called it down to these top I don't know ten images or twenty images so we'll highlight all those drag them in and voila auto populating the book bam there it is and I can organize the pages however I want so let's move this page over here that page down their la di da templates that you want into post lettuce yes and there's also you can also make kind of generic these air very generic templates so but this is how I designed most of my arms and books and when we get into product development you're going to see all my albums and books this is a book this is an album I charge eight hundred dollars for and it takes me fifteen minutes to get out the door at the most also matter just plugging the images in reordering high like him making a custom covering bam we're done we're out of there okay and I charge a hundred dollars for it and I pay one hundred fifty for it so I have managed to read duce my cost tremendously bye efficiency in design and graphics by using software that works for me so now you understand why to me the price of software is nothing because it saves me so much time and makes me so much money so this is the back end this is the workflow part of it I'm not even talking in the sales room when you get to show off things on walls and make the clients go on pretty slide showing but even just real big and actual size and yada yada yada those are all the pretty front end perks. Okay? So by developing you can see how now this pro select client album file because in here is also their invoice okay, two session there's the card we just designed so let's go ahead and throw in. Um she wants this as let's talk to campus let's do fifty by sixty hand sweet add done oh, sorry. Close too quickly too eager. Okay. When I print the order for the client I print two copies okay? And here is a thumbnail invoice of her entire order there's a campus there's the card and she signed for it at the bottom look at this due to the custom nature and digital download nature this work all sales are final digital products or collection purchase which includes egil files may not be returned or canceled for a refund payment for your order must be placed in full in a subject to a fifty percent cancellation fee should you change your mind about an order after it is placed once an order is sent to the lab and or digital files are received via usb or email notification, it is deemed non refundable and that order is that the lab thirty minutes after they left show them how you like them apples you are not returning what you just bought for me simple as that how many of you have the client call up the next morning and go way have to reduce our order yeah been there done that got that shirt that's why these systems work okay, so workflow organization, if you keep from camera to client efficient, you're going to be able to find things you're going to know where every client is in your workflow process. Combine that with your customer service client workflow board I talk to you about in previous lessons you are going to be able to keep full track of everybody. Nobody will fall through the cracks, no product will fall through the cracks you're going to deliver on time you're going to produce good sales, you're going to save efficiency on the back end with your workflow and your client is going to be happy you can't really ask for much more are there kinks and flaws in the system of course there always will be and I'm sure mind could get fine tuned that's the beauty of being in business is that you get to tweak all this and figure out what we're somewhat doesn't and usually it's that cranky, horrible client where everything went wrong that you all of a sudden revamp your systems and come up with new policies that will never happen to me again okay it takes years of learning or you just turned into great of life but I really hope that you guys can see how this goes from camera to client efficiently with you knowing where everything is in the process okay and then you know obviously we haven't even gotten into kind of jumped ahead here into order workflow but I had just hoped to get you to the images with the client but I hope that you understand that by keeping yourself organized and using good software and good systems you are going to make your life easier on the back end of an ordering appointment to which is sometimes the most stressful time because you want to make sure that you've gotten every single product with a client ordered into the lab on time etcetera, etcetera and with high quality and then once that product comes into the lab it's quality control checks making sure everything's there packaging everything correctly in an assembly line in organization so everybody gets the same result okay are there any questions if I could go back to key note, I will go ahead and, um review the final final stuff here so bridge photoshopped pro select pro select studio cloud for the sale studio cloud tracks data management files tracks client management ok? And then it also makes the sale where I run the credit card with a swipe transaction and invoices studio cloud and pro select talk to one another which aisle of okay that's one of the reasons I chose studio cloud because pro select was that important to me that I keep okay, so you don't need a boat ton load of software in your studio you need a couple of systems that work really, really well for you and help you stay organized there's actions there's plug ins there's all kinds of things and you'll find which ones work for you you'll you'll end up paring it down to the absolute essentials because once you develop systems you stop really kind of wandering into other worlds you go it's cool but it's, you know, unless I can really make it work for me, I don't need it and that's what? I want you to start saying yourself to not only cut your costs, your expenses but to be really realistic about what you need, what you don't so just to review bridge photoshopped pro select studio cloud that's pretty much all we used in our studio, we are going to do a really life in studio sales session using pro select, so this is not the end of pro select you'll get to see what that front end looks like in the software as we go through the course, okay? And I know this is a lot, ok, this is thinking about organization and making a habit of it, I think is the hardest part is really making yourself stick to the systems, but if you do it day to day, eventually become habit and then you'll start to rely on it, and when you don't do it, you'll panic. I didn't label it right on that backed up, and you have to double check and make sure he don't do that again. Okay, so what I suggest is making it image workflow charts a piece of paper, that's it that you staple toe every single file folder of your client's each client. Okay, put the step by step process of your files on that piece of paper rock to back up rock to call, call to edit, edit to client what are the steps you do and list them in order as a checklist? You can see there that I have a little checklist, and then as the client's folder as you have it out. And you're working with files you can check off oh, yes, I did that. Yes, I did that so that along with your color labels in bridge or in light room you're gonna have a two system back up for knowing where you are in the workflow process. So of course what's your homework make it work chart okay is in that this is in the cheat sheets and checklists. If you bought the course, you have access to number eight, okay, with the free be the rst p of course you have access to the first five. I want you to spell out everything you do with your files, make a checklist, copy it and attach one to every client hardcopy file and use it and eventually we'll come to rely on it. And so will you and your future employees. It will be so easy once you do start bringing employees because I expect every single one of you to start hiring employees as you grow and you are going to grow to get there every one of you just by being in this class and doing this work, you are gonna be there. Okay? So there will be a day you're gonna call me up and you go julian just hired my first employee and you're like I have a system now I don't have to train them hey, of course you're going to train him a little bit, but it's not going to be so overwhelming you're not going to be creating the systems in the midst of training the employees like I did poor belinda good god, the woman is a saint she, like, has put up with me making these systems over the last three years while she worked with me it's kind of cool because we've built the systems together, right? I mean, it's kind of neat, so she knows them inside and out. But if you have these systems in place when you bring on people or say for example, what happens to you if you break your arm and you can't, you can't edit or some health crisis leaves you out and your family's relying on that income, you better have systems in place that somebody could come in and take over the system's run the business, the people run the systems put that mantra in your head, okay, and be prepared chance favors the prepared mind chance favors the prepared mind if something happens to you by chance and you're prepared for it, you're gonna be okay if you're not prepared chance last, I won't get you don't let champ get you unless it's good and you win the lottery, then it's a good thing

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Studio Systems Resource Guide
Interview: Social Media Guru Sarah Daily
Studio Systems Workbook and Homework Guide
Syllabus
Jewel Images: Sample Client Survey

Ratings and Reviews

AlwaysFashionGirl
 

I look at this course as a library of amazing and valuable content. Everything that any photographer ever needs to run their business and make it successful and profitable can find all in one place, this course. I always felt inspired by Julia's amazing business skills, she is one of the best in this industry. I have taken all of her previous classes before and never felt disappointed. Instead, I would feel more confident, educated, empowered and inspired. Every segment is packed with so much information and it feels overwhelming at first, but the workbook that this course comes with, gives you sanity and helps you to work through it. I would definitely recommend this course to anyone. You should decide if you want to spend 10 years to get all this knowledge that this course already has, or just spend $199 to get it all at once and not waste anymore time experimenting!? Your choice.

a Creativelive Student
 

We're only 1wk into this 5wk bootcamp and I have already gained so much valuable information {already worth every cent}. Julia shares so much about how to run a business, and do it in a way that's successful, profitable and enjoyable. Have already started working on a few new systems to help run my business better, and my customer service has already improved. Now to just spruce up my home studio to make it more visually appealing and comfortable for my clients :) Thank you so much Julia!

user-faa438
 

I am so incredibly happy to have taken the plunge this evening, as I bought this course! Today watching the course a lightbulb went off and I knew I had to have it! This is worth every cent, and I am so very excited to watch the rest and implement these teachings into my business. Its time to take charge and take my business back! I am so amazed after standing back and looking at my business from a distance, of how much i have been giving away. Not only of not only my pricing but myself. I have compromised for clients that aren't right for me. This is giving me the confidence and knowledge to say no, in a nice way, and to focus on the business I really WANT! Thank you Julia, you are an inspiration! An amazing women with impeccable business sense!

Student Work

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