your best digital work-flow tip / your best office work-flow tip
I’m once again on a mission to get more control of office work-flow, and to streamline my digital work-flow even further. In a post much earlier this year, I described my Mac awakening, and how a few key things changed my work-flow completely and made my life easier. De-cluttering my desk then made a big difference. Adding some pieces of technology in a more sensible way to my office too, made my life easier and allowed me to work faster. Well, I’m again changing a few things to improve my work-flow. (More about this later perhaps).
In a kind of parallel to this, there was the recent article on the extra items in your camera bag – with some ideas on organizing your camera bag by adding some non-photography essentials. There were some contributions by readers of the Tangents blog who came up with additional suggestions. Mention was also made there of the Shoot Kit – a neat collection of the smaller essentials, all neatly packed into an accessible canvas holder. It contains safety pins and a sewing kit and headache tablets and such. The kit, when rolled left-to-right is secured with a Velcro strip, but rolled right-to-left is easy and silent while opening. (Check the link to the shootkit for the exact details of what is included).
Tying this all together thematically with the idea of organizing your work / life / camera bag, there was a small contest, (now closed):
- post your best digital work-flow tip, and / or
- post your best office work-flow tip.
Even though the contest is closed, everyone is still invited to add their tips and ideas.
The prizes and the rules were:
There are two prizes up for grabs. Each will consist of:
- a Shoot Kit set.
- a copy of my book on off-camera flash when it is released in April 2011.
(you’ll just have to be patient for a few months until it becomes available.)
The rules:
1. When entries close in a week’s time, the two people with the most helpful or innovate or insightful entry win. (Use Lightroom! doesn’t count as a winnable suggestion.)
2. So what would constitute the most helpful / innovative / insightful entry? Those that *I* decide are the best in some way. Indeed, I have the final & only say in this.
3. No whining will be allowed. This remains important.
4. The contest will be up for a week, and around lunchtime on Wed, 14th Dec, I will announce the winner.
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Hi, I recently started using automator actions. Your mac comes with the automator program. I programmed a function to when I hook my card reader up my computer (usb) automator will automatically copy all my photos to a secondary/back up drive. There is just more peace of mind with this for me with this. I also have a function to when I want to resize some photos to email to friends I would simply drag the files into a folder on my desktop and it resizes automatically and opens my gmail up and includes them in the email so no attaching or dragging into the window. Another cool process i have saved is when i start my mac, safari opens up, certain itunes radio stations i listen to come on and the mail app opens all by itself upon startup.
For photography I like the resize option and photo backup. By time I get to DPP to do the editing i know the photos are backed up from the first second my card reader is attached. You can do all types of stuff with automation and I barely have scratched the surface with that program. I first read about automator on Vincent Laforet’s blog. I believe he used an automator function when he was shooting at the olympics so whenever he dragged some files into a certain folder there were uploaded to some server where his assistant could get immediate access to them.
Any real monotonous stuff you do either before you do the actual editing can be set up via automator. I know you can also have a folder set up to do black and white conversions. So you drag the files into the folders and black and white is produced. If you do a search for automator functions on google you will se how unlimited it is. Hope this maybe helps.
cheers.
Comment by Shawn D — December 9, 2010 @ 3:37 am
My favorite workflow tip: To clean up skin in Lightroom 3, zoom in on the face in question, then use the dust noise remover set to heal to clear zits, and the skin soften brush, then use luminance noise reduction at about 20-30 or so. Most of the pores are reduced enough where the skin still looks like skin, just better. Photoshop not needed.
Comment by Dave — December 9, 2010 @ 12:05 pm
My best office workflow tip:
Save everything you do, and reuse it. This is especially helpful with emails. How many times do you sit down to an inbox full of emails, and dread having to reply to them? How often do you struggle with the right thing to say, type it all out, and then move on to the next one and start all over again? I have a folder in Outlook where I save sent emails that I send all the time. I copy and paste them, customize a little bit, and go. I have probably 30 or 40 emails that I use regularly. I have a wedding inquiry response, all I have to change in the date of the wedding, the dates I can meet with them, their names, and throw in a line to say hi specifically to that person. Otherwise, everything else is there – what happens next, where to look on my site for more info, how to reach me, etc. I do this for portrait inquiries, for all steps of scheduling, ordering/proofing/pick ups, etc. It saves SO much time and effort, and keeps you consistent!
Comment by Wendi Riggens-Miller — December 9, 2010 @ 1:49 pm
Here is an office tip to save time…studies have shown that using a dual monitor when at work can improve your productivity by upto 50%. Having worked in the software programming industry for 5 years…i totally agree with this.
Comment by Derryl — December 9, 2010 @ 11:30 pm
Not really a workflow/office advice, but to help in addition to the ‘shoot kit’ I always carry black electrical tape for guys shoes, as some shoes have had soles come away and wrap a little tape around it [95% of guys shoes are black] and you virtually do not notice.
Also, I carry spare shoe laces, both brown and black, the number of times I have had to hand a pair over for various reasons in the past several years is amazing.
Comment by trev — December 10, 2010 @ 12:30 am
Here is my tip: stop shooting RAW for a while!
OK, before dismissing this, let me explain:
I shoot professionally, mostly editorial (magazines and newspapers). I started shooting in the 90′s where we shot slides (Velvia 50 and Sensia 100), first with a Nikon F3+MD4 and then Canon EOS5 and EOS1.
In these days, you shot two or three rolls per assignment and dropped them off for processing. The following morning, when someone picked up the results, you’d better have a good image to publish!
There was no preview on the back of the camera, and no RAW image processing. Photoshop was used after scanning by the technicians who tweaked just to adjust for paper quality and CMYK profiles, but the image had to be OK in the first place, or it was rejected.
I shoot with the same mindset now. I have the LCD turned off (less distraction, better battery duration). I can press a button to review an image, but I do this only when needed, at a tricky situation. When I press the shutter button, I (try to) know what I am doing and what the result will be. I have tweaked the settings of my camera in order to get the colours I like and the amount of sharpening that is almost always ideal, and when I shoot an image under good light, I am almost there most of the times. My workflow is much much faster when I need to copy jpegs to my backup disks and then spend not more than 30 seconds for each (Levels and/or Curves, maybe a little Vibrance and that’s it).
Do I shoot RAW? Absolutely, but only when I know that I will need it, for example when shooting dusk/dawn or dark and tricky images. When I shoot in strong daylight in ISO100, a well-exposed image in highest quality jpeg (no compression) is no worse than the same image shot in RAW and then converted to jpeg for printing. The only difference is the time one spends wrestling with RAW images!
OK, my tip is “stop shooting RAW” but I don’t actually mean it. What I really mean is “shoot your digital camera as if there is no post-production”. Try it as a personal challenge, maybe not on professional assignments but in personal projects. Shoot jpeg without looking at the LCD after each and every shot. If you can do that, then your workflow will be much faster-you will have less work to do!
Comment by Costas — December 10, 2010 @ 6:30 pm
My Office workflow tip follows what many say the rule for actions in Photoshop is.
That is if you do something more than once make a checklist to do it. I try to automate anting thing that can be. I found that checklists make things easy to repeat weather you do it many times a week or once a year like taxes. Also, in Photoshop the next best automation tip for Photoshop is custom panels that way you can automate every process even the ones that require your input. For those that use Outlook I was listing to an old podcast and there seems to be a template for photographers that allow you to create checklists automatically for gear when you add the shoot to your calendar by populating your gear and then using a checkbox to book it for a job. It would also help deconflict jobs from using the same equipment. I have to re listen to the podcast or do a search to find out what is called.
Comment by Mickey — December 11, 2010 @ 12:16 am
My workflow tip – before importing images into LR3, cull them in photo mechanic. Say you start with 2000 images from a wedding with a second shooter, Bring them into a folder as RAW files, open in photo mechanic, cull them down to 600 or so by staring each image that should move on for the edit as a 3. Then make a new folder that has the event_edits. Sequentially rename them at this point and import the 600 into LR3. This step saves me 2 hours or so per wedding as I don’t have to cull in LR3 and by the time I develop, I only deal with 3* or better images. As I’m editing I will 4 star deliver images and 5 star blog images.
Comment by Daniel Valente — December 11, 2010 @ 12:37 pm
Hi, my poor-man contribution:
1) Every software has some tool (or eyedropper) to adjust precisely the white balance (WB). But at the end sometimes you don’t want to be so precise (in order to preserve some “mood” in the photo or because there are no good references available). So you have to tweak the WB “by hand”. In these cases I often zoom on the skin, slide the color saturation very high, way to the right, so that any color cast is promptly seen. After adjusting the WB in order to balance the color cast as much as I want (or to bring it to the tonality that I like) I can slide back the saturation to a reasonable value. This way I can often allow more saturated and intense colors in the image, while leaving natural colors on the skin.
2) focus on projects. This is probably obvious for professionals, used to work on assignments. But as an amateur I often lost hours of time tweaking pictures in random order. Stick on some project, maybe a book, then select photos accordingly and concentrate the post-production work. It’ll be more productive and more instructing.
3) use referenced libraries. Both Lightroom and Aperture will let this possibility. I know: there are basically two schools, and pro and cons apply to both referenced and managed libraries. Keeping the RAW photos in an ordered directory tree (like year/month/project) will free you from the choice of the photo-management project. Moreover, photos can be kept on separate Hard Disks, (to be duly backed up on several places/supports) while the library itself (with photo tags, edits and previews) is lightweight and easily shared on several machines (I use the unix command “rsync” to keep the Aperture library synched on different machines).
Comment by Simone Paoletti — December 11, 2010 @ 6:30 pm
I agree with Daniel there. My workflow consisted of fundamentally the “bucket” method by Peter Krogh (hope I got his name right), of 4gb folders, sequentially named. Download a series of Original files (direct from your SD/CF Cards), with a duplicate backup. I import using Photo Mechanic for renaming+keywording+culling+rating. Then the star rated ones got copied and renamed slightly (or in my case I decided to go for the DNG method) into the “Working” folders. I then use LR3 to import them into the catalogues, start developing them, further cull if necessary, or photoshop them if required. From here on it is LR3 oriented. I have folders for “Proofs” for web-uploads, prints (you do not need to keep this permanently), resizes for FB, proofs for customers, etc.
My backup strategy all involves the “bucket” 4Gb folders. Once a folder gets to 4gb, it is burnt into a DVD and a new subsequent folder created. All at the same time, the files get synchronized and regularly using Allway Sync Pro to two backup HDD. “If it doesn’t exist in 3 copies, it doesn’t exist!” I have been following this advice.
All these folders seemed silly for a wedding perspective but it is actually easy to backup, and since LR3 lets you create Collections, there is no need to divide your files into different job folders.
My two cents. :)
Comment by AL — December 12, 2010 @ 1:11 am
For the office workflow tip, mine would be look at your workspace ergonomics. You can assign yourself a few hours for post processing, but a lot of that time can be lost because you spend thousands on the latest ultra fast computer and latest version of Lightroom/Photoshop but then spent only a few hundred on the monitor, chair and input devices. That ultra fast computer is not that fast if you are not sat down in front of it because you have eye strain or a sore back! Think of the monitor, chair and graphic’s table as lenses, good ones will last years, computer is only a camera body.
On the digital workflow, take a step back and study your workflow, do your workflow out as a flow diagram and time how long it takes to complete each step for a typical shot. See where the bottle necks are and address them one by one starting with the slowest step. There is a lot of information out then on individual steps in the workflow, what software to use and how to use it, but you can waste a lot time learning something that sounds great but is only going to save you a few minutes.
Also when you are sat down to do post processing, don’t get distracted by emails, it is so easy to see the “New Mail” alert, curiosity gets the better of you, you see a new product is being announced, and before you know it you have wasted an hour surfing the net!!
Check your emails in the morning, respond to the urgent business ones, then shut the email programs down and only open them after lunch and at the end of the day.
If something is really urgent, people will phone, as long as you respond within 24hrs to an email enquiry, people won’t be upset.
John
Comment by John Ahern — December 13, 2010 @ 8:39 am
My best office workflow tip is a financial tip. I attempt to do my best to automate most of my financial matters. It starts with using Mint.com to manage/view my transactions. All of my purchases are made on my business credit card which is linked to my Mint.com account. The card is paid from my business account, also linked to my Mint.com account. This makes it super easy and automated to track purchases, expenses, income, etc. Lastly, at the end of each month, I have a spreadsheet that I use that will automate where to send that money. For instance, I enter a figure for that months income and it will automatically compute how much I need to send to my retirement account, how much I need to set aside for taxes, how much I want to set aside for charity, how much I need to set aside for expenses, and how much is paid out to myself for my own personal savings. By automating this process, it only takes a couple hours of month to have a pretty good handle on my finances. It’s not exact, but close enough to keep the ball rolling for you until you can get it in the hands of your accountant at year-end.
Comment by Dan — December 13, 2010 @ 4:25 pm
Digital workflow tip: speed up processing by editing photos on your local drive before moving them to the network.
I use network attached storage and previously imported my photos directly to the network drive. However, I found that I could improve processing speed by importing the photos to my local drive first and keeping them there while editing them. Only when the vast majority of edits are finished do I migrate them to the network (while I’m sleeping or when the computer would otherwise be idle).
Comment by Michael Ty — December 14, 2010 @ 4:20 am
Digital workflow tip:
if you’re using mouse – get yourself a really good one with lots of programmable buttons. I use Logitech MX Revolution. I program most used shortcuts in those buttons like “open new file”, “undo”, “merge visible layers”, “merge down”,”zoom to 100%” and my favorite which I use a lot in PS – “fade”. My keyboard has some programmable buttons too, which I also use.
Nice thing with that mouse is I can have different shortcuts programmed for each program I use, so PS and LR3 have their own shortcuts programmed.
In PS I hide menu items which I never or rarely use.In some cases I use color coding in menus.
Comment by Mariusz — December 21, 2010 @ 12:09 am
Comment by Neil vN — December 27, 2010 @ 1:39 pm
Comment by Neil vN — December 27, 2010 @ 2:17 pm