THE LIGHTROOM WORKFLOW WORKSHOP

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Paula Fletcher
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WORKFLOW & ORGANIZATION DAY ONE Whether you are a wedding, portrait, or landscape photographer, or a serious amature, creating a high volume of superior images requires forethought, planning,

2 WORKFLOW & ORGANIZATION DAY ONE Whether you are a wedding, portrait, or landscape photographer, or a serious amature, creating a high volume of superior images requires forethought, planning, organization and execution. Day one begins with a tour of my studio, leads you through the process of securing, selecting and organizing your images. All of this will prepare you for the lessons to come which will take you even further into editing and publishing your images. The first day is critical to all photographers, professional or enthusiast. You will learn every step in securing your images and protecting your work against theft, fire and corruption as well as how to organize yourself so that you never misplace your images. In fact, day one will get you started down the path that will allow you to find any image you have ever shot within seconds. But it all starts with the lessons in Day One of the Lightroom Workflow Workshop. VIDEOS 1. The Studio Tour 2. The Pipeline Workflow 3. Camera Operation 4. Perfect Exposures in the Studio 5. Perfect Exposures on Location 6. Computers and Hard Drives One 7. Computers and Hard Drives Two 8. The Lightroom Catalog System 9. Collections 10. Setting up the Working Catalog 11. Setting Your Preferences One 12. Setting Your Preferences Two 13. Installing Plugins and Presets 14. Ingesting Photos 15. Importing Photos into Lightroom 16. Selecting 17. Selecting by Comparison 18. Organizing Your Images 19. Cleaning up Your Catalog 20. Fast Keywording 1 1

DAY TWO IMAGE DEVELOPING VIDEOS 1. Outsourcing Editing One 2. Outsourcing Editing Two 3. Updating the Catalog 4. ShootDotEdit Stylematch 5. Default Lightroom Camera Settings 6.

3 DAY TWO IMAGE DEVELOPING VIDEOS 1. Outsourcing Editing One 2. Outsourcing Editing Two 3. Updating the Catalog 4. ShootDotEdit Stylematch 5. Default Lightroom Camera Settings 6. Syncing the Develop Module 7. Normalizing Your Images 8. Adding Style to Your Images 9. Creating Presets 10. The Develop Module Tour 11. Advanced Develop Adjustments Advanced Develop Adjustments Advanced Develop Adjustments Advanced Develop Adjustments Advanced Develop Adjustments 5 Once you have the organization down, and you have selected the images, it is time to get into the very challenging task of adjusting the images you have chosen to show to your clients, or your family, or the world. But depending on the volume of your work, that can bog you down and make you rethink your career. On Day Two, I will walk you through two different workflows. Our first workflow is for the high volume photographer and it is an outsourcing workflow, which is the most efficient way to deal with wedding and portrait work, but in that workflow there is a lot to learn even for the enthusiast, the landscape photographer or the commercial artist. You will learn important lessons in Lightroom catalog portability. adjustment process quickly with synchronization methods, building and using presets and even teaching Lightroom how to do most of the work for you before you even look at your images. Finally, we will explore the Develop module and teach you everything you need to know about the tools at your fingertips, how and when to use them and the most important lesson of why to use them. 2 Our second workflow is for everyone else. You still need to get that work done as quickly as possible, so we will teach you how to move your images through the 2

IMAGE EDITING, RETOUCHING AND PRODUCTION DAY THREE With the basic adjustments done, you will either want to send your images out to the client right away and start getting feedback and orders, or you

4 IMAGE EDITING, RETOUCHING AND PRODUCTION DAY THREE With the basic adjustments done, you will either want to send your images out to the client right away and start getting feedback and orders, or you will want to further finesse your images in preparation for sharing them with the world. This all depends on what kind of photography you are doing and who your client is. If you are an artist and creating work for your own edification or a commercial photographer, you may find yourself retouching a small set of images, but if you are a wedding or portrait photographer, you will need the client to provide feedback on your images. Either way, Day Three is all about this process. We start with lessons on retouching in Lightroom and manipulating images for Panoramic and HDR work and we even dip into Photoshop a little for serious retouching and image structure manipulations. This work can be done before the world sees your images, or after you have presented your work to the client and they have ordered prints and books and thank you cards. So we close out day three with the production work required for sharing your images with your client. This is the time to push those images through the process of making proof books, online proofing sites, proof prints, slideshows and album / book designs. With these beautiful proofing products in hand, you will have the ultimate way to showcase your images in front of your clients so those orders can start rolling in. And don t worry, if you are a travel or a wildlife photographer (or any other kind of photographer) you can use these production lessons to make products like art books, portfolios and catalogs. VIDEOS 1. Lightroom Retouching 2. Brush and Gradient Tools 3. Radial Gradients 4. Local Adjustments 5. RAW HDR Images 6. Adding Contrast to HDR Images 7. Merging Panoramas 8. Compositing Panoramas 9. Photoshop Retouching 10. Body Contouring with Liquify 11. Organizing the Job 12. Creating Proof Books 13. Lightroom Proof Books One 14. Lightroom Proof Books Two 15. Stylizing Proof Books 16. Finishing Proof Books 17. Online Proofing 18. Proof Prints 19. Slideshows 20. Animoto Slideshows Smart Albums 22. Laying Out Albums 23. Finishing Your Album 5

DAY FOUR WORKFLOW & ORGANIZATION VIDEOS 1. Tethered Capture in the Studio 2. The Tethered Portrait 3. Completing Tethered Shoots 4. Combining Catalogs 5. Remote Client Collaboration 6.

5 DAY FOUR WORKFLOW & ORGANIZATION VIDEOS 1. Tethered Capture in the Studio 2. The Tethered Portrait 3. Completing Tethered Shoots 4. Combining Catalogs 5. Remote Client Collaboration 6. Tethered Shooting Wrapup 7. Sharing Images One 8. Sharing Images Two 9. Archiving One 10. Archiving Two 11. Portfolio Management 12. Shooting and Sharing Fast 13. Mobile Apps 14. Lightroom and Adobe Stock One 15. Lightroom and Adobe Stock Two 16. The Portrait Stock Session 17. Workshop Recap 18. Workshop Conclusion 4 6 There are so many more things to learn about Lightroom and workflow, including tethered shooting for studio and commercial photographers and using mobile apps to share your images wherever you happen to be and selling your images on Adobe Stock, so we cover those workflow issues here in Day Four. However, the most important aspects of Day Four are in the archiving and portfolio management lessons. You will find these lessons will take all of the organizational lessons you learned on Day One and bring them around full circle. That keywording you learned will now be incredibly useful in finding images at the drop of a hat for clients, or portfolio needs, etc. You will learn how to make perfect archives of everything you have taken and with your backup systems in place, the process of archiving is foolproof, you will be able to find your images whenever your client calls and you will never lose a file, not even for a minute. Day Four also includes a detailed wrap up to walk you through the entire process from start to finish so that you can put all the information you have learned in pieces together and solidify the process in your mind.

6 THE PERFECT IMAGE BACKUP SYSTEM 16 BIT PROPHOTO RGB TIFF JPEG 90 QUALITY SRGB DRIVE 1 JPEG 100 QUALITY SRGB SMUGMUG PHOTO SHELTER WHCC RAW DRIVE 2 DRIVE 3 RAID I IMPORT RUN PRESETS SELECT TONE CHECK FOCUS CROP COLOR CORRECT GRAIN SHARPEN PRINT SHARPEN VIGNETTE BURN/DODGE RETOUCH PUBLISH TIFF 16 BIT PROPHOTO GOOGLE DRIVE DROPBOX ADOBE CC PERSPECTIVE CLIENT RAID 1 consists of an exact copy (or mirror) of a set of data on two disks. These drives are contained in one drive enclosure such as the one I use, the CRU RTX220-3QR. Since the data is mirrored on both disks your RAID can only be as big as the smallest disk. Use RAID I for ultimate reliability and simplicity. RAID environments.) The RED drives are slower, which means a smaller failure rate. I tend to use the RED drives for Archives and the faster drives for my working RAID. For up-to-date reviews on hard drives, Google search for backblaze drive reviews. 8 I highly advise against using any disk larger than 3T as 4T drives have a higher percentage of physical failure. I use HGST 7200 RPM and Western Digital RED drives (configured for use in For travel photographers, the CRU Toughdeck Duo provides the same system in a portable unit. CRU RAID I systems are all hot-swapable so it s easy to exchange disks without a second thought.

7 THE PERFECT IMAGE BACKUP SYSTEM IMMEDIATELY BEFORE END OF DAY OVERNIGHT FIRST OPPORTUNITY FIRST OPPORTUNITY COMPLETION DRIVE 1 RAW RAW DRIVE 2 JOB ARCHIVE RAID I SHOOT RAW TO BOTH CARDS PLACE IMAGES ON RAID I WORKING DRIVE IMPORT RAW AND RENDER SMART PREVIEWS SELECT IMAGES FINAL JPGS TO CLOUD PUBLISHING SERVICE* MOVE THE JOB FROM THE SYNCED CLOUD JOBS FOLDER TO A NON-SYNCED CLOUD ARCHIVE ARCHIVE 16 DRIVE 3 ARCHIVE 15 ARCHIVE 14 DONE PORTFOLIO JBOD STORE SECOND CARD IN A SAFE PLACE. AFTER TRANSFER, SWAP DRIVE 2 & 3 STORE DRIVE 2 IN A SAFE PLACE WORKING DRIVE SYNCS TO CLOUD DEVELOP IMAGES COPY JOB TO ARCHIVE & PORTFOLIO DNGS TO THE PORTFOLIO DRIVE* If your camera allows for simultaneous capture to two cards, shoot RAW to both if possible. I use the Canon 5D MarkIII. If you have two sets of cards, place your backup card in a fireproof safe, somewhere away from your work station. Always keep one set of cards on your person until you have three copies. Have enough cards on hand to never overwrite one Use a 2 bay enclosure such as the CRU RTX220-3QR in RAID I configuration for up to 3 TB of redundant storage as your working drive. If you travel with a laptop, use this same system with a travel RAID I drive like a ToughTech Duo 3SR by CRU. Other RAID systems are more complicated, prone to failure and not universally compatible. Plus, you can t separate the drives for fireproof security. Store your catalog in your computer s hard drive (preferably SSD) for speedy Lightroom access. For traveling photographers you can store your catalog on an external 1TB SSD with ultrafast connection to your travel computer. Use an unlimited Cloud Storage option such as Google Drive. Set your RAID I working drive as your default Google Drive local disk. Your working drive will auto- Whenever you finish work in Lightroom, quit and backup your catalog settings to a folder called Lightroom Backups on your working drive. Once the editing process is complete, follow the archive and cleanup steps listed in the Image Pipeline diagram. Use a cloud publishing service such as SmugMug to deliver your images to your clients. Keep a job archive with DNGs on hand for easy access. Keep a portfolio catalog next to your working catalog. Maintain a portfolio drive for all your favorite DNGs, referenced in your portfolio catalog. * See Image Pipeline for details. Set up a non-synced archive folder on your cloud storage. When you move the job from the cloud Jobs folder to the non-synced cloud archive folder, that job will be automatically removed from your RAID I working drive. set till the job is delivered and archived. matically sync to the cloud

8 THE IMAGE PIPELINE SYSTEM RAW RAW SOCIAL SHARING EXTRA DELIVERY CLIENT CREATE ONE FOLDER PER CARD INJESTING RAW RAW RAW CLOUD SYNCED WORKING DRIVE UNTITLED UNTITLED 2 UNTITLED 3 SOCIAL SHARING BLOG PORTFOLIO WEB GALLERIES SLIDE SHOWS WEB PROOFING WHCC PRINTS ALBUM PRINT RAW DRIVE 1 DRIVE 2 JOBS JOB FOLDER RAW CC SHOOTDOTEDIT PROOF SMART ALBUMS WORKING RAID I BLURB IMPORTING INTO LIGHTROOM CATALOG BUILD 1:1 PREVIEWS BUILD SMART PREVIEWS ADD TO MOBILE COLLECTIONS ADJUST CAPTURE TIMES SELECT IMAGES ORGANIZE & RENAME IMAGES KEYWORD ADJUST IMAGES EXPORT OUTSOURCE CATALOG DESIGN PROOF BOOK PRE-DESIGN ALBUM IMPORT OUTSOURCE CATALOG RE-ORGANIZE (if needed) FINAL RENAME IMAGES (if needed) ADD STYLES & RAW RETOUCHING PHOTOSHOP EDITS EXPORT & SHARE IMAGES ORDER PROOF BOOK SHARE ALBUM WITH CLIENT CONVERT TO DNG EXPORT CATALOG ARCHIVE DRIVE VERIFY COPIES WITH DELTAWALKER PORTFOLIO DRIVE Test your service: proceedure differ from service to service JOB FOLDER UNSYNCED ARCHIVE DONE JOB FOLDER RAW (DNGS) CATALOG JPGS PROOF BOOKS SLIDESHOWS ALBUM DOCUMENTS (CONTRACTS RELEASES) PORTFOLIO NEW ADDITIONS DRIVE 1 AUTOMATIC DRIVE 2 WORKING RAID I JOB FOLDER 12 13

9 Profoto is my absolute, number one choice for creating and shaping light in my photographs. As a location photographer, I require a lot out of my lights. Nothing compares to the combination of quality, power and portability that Profoto off camera lights provide. ~Jared Platt

10 fast is best Color and exposure are either correct or they re not. Because Shootdotedit takes care of the science of color correction, I have time to stylize my images to perfection, focus on my clients, and publish my work. Shootdotedit is all about making image processing efficient, a passion I share. Not only are they a valuable resource for leveraging my professional time, we are quite like-minded about how best to accomplish that. In fact, I am proud to be involved in the design of their workflow practices and I whole-heartedly recommend them.

So you have jumped all of the hurdles and you made an amazing set of images, good for you. You have the treasure! Now it s up to you to not screw it up! That s right.

Now make sure you get to keep it. I never want to loose an image and that is why I use CRU Raid One storage devices.

11 So you have jumped all of the hurdles and you made an amazing set of images, good for you. You have the treasure! Now it s up to you to not screw it up! That s right. This is where people fail as photographers. Storage is one of the most critical aspects of photography (even for film photographers). You worked hard to capture the decisive moment. Now make sure you get to keep it. I never want to loose an image and that is why I use CRU Raid One storage devices. CRU makes high quality, rational, easy to use and affordable storage solutions, I trust them implicitly. During the workshop I will walk you through the aspects of image storage and backup and if you do it my way, with the right equipment, you will never lose a file! Capturing people s most meaningful moments is a trust. Living up to that trust requires that we as photographers use the right equipment equipment we can rely on. CRU s storage devices have never let me down, which in turn makes it possible for me to say I have never lost a client s images in all my professional career. ~Jared Platt

12 Tether Tools is a company that, just like their gear, is always good to have with you. They offer invaluable support for workshops and education in the photo industry and Tether Tools is the unsung hero of the photography world. ~Jared Platt more importantly, they make products that support photographers and make difficult things possible. Tether Tools makes the invisible products that hold things up, mount flashes to walls, tether cameras to computers and even give you a place to put your coffee cup. They are the unsung hero of the photo world! When I open my bags to you in February, you will see their little orange logo everywhere! Tether Tools products will change the way you work as a photographer, and you ll wonder how you ever did without them.

Making albums can be the biggest bottle neck in the entire photography process. The design itself is a challenge, but the interface with the client can take months of grueling back and forth.

With Smart Albums, I can design an album in five minutes and present it to the client in the same amount of time.

13 Making albums can be the biggest bottle neck in the entire photography process. The design itself is a challenge, but the interface with the client can take months of grueling back and forth. Smart Albums, my favorite album design software, makes the entire process simple, quick and effective. With Smart Albums, I can design an album in five minutes and present it to the client in the same amount of time. Then, the client can request changes that return to me in my Smart Albums interface as a task list. Make the changes, check off the tasks on the list and print the album. And of course, Smart Albums knows all of the specs for your favorite album company, like KISS or WHCC. That is Smart! Albums were never my favorite thing to do. Smart Albums changed that equation. Now, albums are simple to create and I actually enjoy the process. It s amazing what a good tool will do. ~Jared Platt

14 Music is such an important part of my expression. But music is not free for the taking. Musicians work very hard to create, just like photographers do and they deserve to be compensated when people consume their music. Triple Scoop Music is my source for all of the music I use in creating my multi media projects from slideshows to promotional videos. They were the first and are still the best source for music licensing for photographers. ~Jared Platt Triple Scoop Music: Photography is just one avenue of expression and even though it is often complete on its own, pairing our art with other art forms has great power. Video, text, the spoken word and music can enhance the power of our photography. As a recovering musician, I love enhancing my stories with music and that is where Triple Scoop Music comes in. They make it possible to find just the right music to tell my story. Triple Scoop Music makes it simple to licence the rights to use the perfect songs and furthermore, they do it in a way that is fair to the musicians who are partnering with us in telling our stories. Triple Scoop will become an integral collaborative partner in your story telling process too. Let me introduce you to this process and show you how I incorporate music in everything I do. Triple Scoop Music has graciously agreed to provide every one of my students a Pro Photographer s License for one song of their choice. Go to Triple Scoop Music now and start listening. Then, watch your for a free Pro Photographer Music License from Triple Scoop Music ($60 value). Your images deserve great music, and musicians deserve recognition and compensation. This will get you started on building that relationship.

To reach workflow Nirvana, one must find the

15 To reach workflow Nirvana, one must find the simplest and quickest possible route from the beginning to the end, and that requires the very best tools. Lightroom is that tool, and the perfect companion to Lightroom is the Creative Cloud. There is no substitute for Lightroom. ~Jared Platt

People need to touch things and interact with their memories in a physical way and you need to be

16 It is so important to get physical photos out into the world. People don t just live in a digital world. People need to touch things and interact with their memories in a physical way and you need to be able to make that happen for them. Give them something they can touch. Blurb Books provides a simple and cost effective way to provide clients a physical book directly from Lightroom. ~Jared Platt

17 As important as capture and workflow and lighting all are... if you can t show that amazing detail and perfection in print, you may as well go home! That is why I work exclusively with White House Custom Color for all of my proofs, prints, canvases, framing and so many other printed products. No one does it better and no one delivers faster! ~Jared Platt

18 For twenty years I ve bought equipment from B & H. They are competitively priced, offer quick delivery and have the largest selection of pro equipment in the world. Their site is super organized and informative with plenty of reviews on everything they carry and these are typically professionals reviewing the gear. The customer service is exceptional and the salespeople are absolute experts on photo equiipment. ~Jared Platt

If you care about color accuracy and fidelity like I do then you

you to calibrate your color from capture to print and everywhere

19 If you care about color accuracy and fidelity like I do then you want to know X-Rite. X-Rite makes the tools that make color accurate the world over. Whether you are shooting, editing or printing, X- rite allows you to calibrate your color from capture to print and everywhere in between. Calibration is an essential part of my workflow and I couldn t do that without X-Rite. ~Jared Platt

Throughout the workshop, I will present the absolute best practices for capturing, editing and presenting your images to the world.

equipment and every conceivable way of doing the things we all need to do.

Here are some of the brands and products I use and trust: Think Tank is my bag of choice.

Test every copy with Delta Walker. Deltopia.com Free gear with every order! Go to ThinkTankPhoto.

20 Throughout the workshop, I will present the absolute best practices for capturing, editing and presenting your images to the world. Everything I teach you is something I have tested and use myself and you can rest assured, I have tested a lot of software, a lot of equipment and every conceivable way of doing the things we all need to do. If I recommend it, you can trust that it is the best option available in its class. Here are some of the brands and products I use and trust: Think Tank is my bag of choice. Everything about their bags is so well thought out. I wouldn t transport my photo gear in anything else. Test every copy with Delta Walker. Deltopia.com Free gear with every order! Go to ThinkTankPhoto.com and enter the code below in the Affiliate Code box: af38e SmugMug Pro makes delivering to your clients simple and it connects to WHCC for professional prints. Even better. Smugmug 20% off follow this link: The Spider Holster saved my back. Camera straps are so last century. Use this code for to save 25% on your order at spiderholster.com JPLATT2017

CREATING YOUR PHOTOGRAPHIC WORKFLOW

CREATING YOUR PHOTOGRAPHIC WORKFLOW Rob DeRobertis Jan. 21, 2016 (www.robde.com) Apologies I make photos with a Canon 5D Mark 3 and Canon 7D Mark 2 I sometimes use an Olympus OM-D E-M1 I process images