Workflow and FTP

[markingramphoto]

Hi All

I'm a sports photographer in Scotland and just wondering about everyone's workflow.

Mine is:
Ingest locked images into PM5 and add captions and meta
Import them into Lightroom which renames them, then give them a quick crop, straighten and slight edit
Export as a 2mb clean image jpg file
FTP via FileZilla

Any improvements I can make to speed my work up?

Cheers!

[FVlcek]

You can make soft crops right inside PM, it's faster and the crop gets read by LR/ACR if you have PM set up correctly for Adobe products compatibility (there might be a few pixels difference in the crop since LR/ACR can do lens geometric distortion correction to the RAW files, unless you turn it off in LR/ACR, but I never found it to be a problem, but if you do, you can always turn it off. And with long lenses there is almost no distortion to start with).

[Linwood]

I agree with Frantisek, once I started cropping in PM I found my workflow is much, much faster as in many shoots I do not even need to do further adjustments in lightroom, at least not for any quick needs like a press release or social media posts.  Lightroom has annoying lags going in and out of develop and the crop tool, that are just a second or so, but it adds up fast.  I make a culling pass in PM, then go back and from the remainder I do a crop pass (and a closer look and sometimes change my culling choices), and add individual captions while I crop.

In the crop tool do some saves of different aspect rations (the lightning bolt), then you have preset aspects as well ready to apply, for example if you are sending to someone who wants certain aspects as opposed to unconstrained.

As to exports, I try to use the LR publish tool whenever I can, as it remembers if I did subsequent updates and will refresh, but that depends on your target.

[Jen Mack]

After covering 7 political rallies in 6 days, probably not as high volume as sports, but about 450-650 shots in a a 40-60 minute window, I settled on:

Ingest whole card (LCD not good enough for critical sharpness), renaming, and folder sorting in PM, along with generic captions/meta.
First pass, anything in focus (can’t count eyelashes, no shot) gets one star
Hide zero stars
Good poses get 2 stars, adjust captions as needed
Hide one stars
Select all 2 stars and drag to Lightroom
Apply preset on import to do lens/CA correction, base clarity, calibration, and masking
Now they’re developed, the ones to upload get 3 stars, fine tune exposure as needed
Filter for 3 stars, select all, export with preset for service to a desktop folder, which also opens the exports in PM

Since PM pops up with all the images in the export folder selected, hit cmd-U and click send.

I pretty much have to use Lightroom for the NR and exposure bump, since these events are as well lit as most caves. Also my lack of IS lenses forces my shutter up, so everything is chronically underexposed.

[fabianlujan]

Hello everybody,

My workflow is:

Canon 1D >> PM >> Adobe CameraRaw* >> FTP

I do selections, foldering and iptc in PM. When all separated, I edit them in ACR.
If further edition is needed (*) Photoshop is the solution.
Otherwise, I upload everthing to FTP with PM.

[toptog]

This is a failing of PM if it had a lighten photo slider and select crops there would be no need to use other software to edit photos and it would a lot faster which is what I understood was the main goal of PM. To me PM is not advancing as it should it should be moving to a destination where no other software is required.
By the time Lightroom (snails pace)has been introduced to the equasion I have to ask my self if PM is being used for the right reason ,one may aswell do it all in LR.

[Hayo Baan]

This is a failing of PM if it had a lighten photo slider and select crops there would be no need to use other software to edit photos and it would a lot faster which is what I understood was the main goal of PM. To me PM is not advancing as it should it should be moving to a destination where no other software is required.
By the time Lightroom (snails pace)has been introduced to the equasion I have to ask my self if PM is being used for the right reason ,one may aswell do it all in LR.

Sure, Lightroom can do it, but at a cost of speed and power (no variable substitutions for instance). I have had many photography colleagues who were once doing everything in Lightroom switch to a combination of both PM and Lightroom. Both are used for what they are good at; Lightroom for image editing, PM for selecting and metadata editing. But each to his/her own, of course

[tombearyphotography]

Just wondering what the most efficient way of bringing selected files into Lightroom?

I currently drop and drop to a folder on my desktop which i have set as 'Auto Import' in Lightroom .... this automatically imports the files and can apply a generic develop module pre-set too if i want.

Also, i then FTP straight from Lightroom using a plug-in... 

[fabianlujan]

Just wondering what the most efficient way of bringing selected files into Lightroom?

I currently drop and drop to a folder on my desktop which i have set as 'Auto Import' in Lightroom .... this automatically imports the files and can apply a generic develop module pre-set too if i want.

Also, i then FTP straight from Lightroom using a plug-in...

Edit them in Adobe Camera Raw (instead of Lightroom) with the same tools panel.
Save them and back to PM, upload them to FTP.
Can't find anything faster than that

[judophotos]

On the subject of workflow and speeding it up I would like to suggest this.

If it were possible to build into Photomechanic the ACR button that is at the top of the Adobe Bridge Library page then that would be near perfect for a fast workflow for news and agency images. I think it would work something like this:

1) Ingest into PM
2) Cull, sort and add finishing captions to selected images for ftp.
3) Apply PM's crop as needed.
4) Whether RAW or jpeg, and if needed, open directly from PM with a possible PM built in ACR button into ACR for adjusting of temperature, clarity and dark shadows etc.
5) Save jpegs directly back to PM ready for FTPing to newsdesk, agency or website.

I think that would be nearly ideal for a speedy and near perfect workflow. Certainly for me it would be with everything controlled via PM.

David

[tombearyphotography]

Just wondering what the most efficient way of bringing selected files into Lightroom?

I currently drop and drop to a folder on my desktop which i have set as 'Auto Import' in Lightroom .... this automatically imports the files and can apply a generic develop module pre-set too if i want.

Also, i then FTP straight from Lightroom using a plug-in...

Edit them in Adobe Camera Raw (instead of Lightroom) with the same tools panel.
Save them and back to PM, upload them to FTP.
Can't find anything faster than that

i just wish that Lightroom could interact with PM the same way..... where you could open individual files in Lightroom and then save them back to PM!

[tombearyphotography]

Hi All

I'm a sports photographer in Scotland and just wondering about everyone's workflow.

Mine is:
Ingest locked images into PM5 and add captions and meta
Import them into Lightroom which renames them, then give them a quick crop, straighten and slight edit
Export as a 2mb clean image jpg file
FTP via FileZilla

Any improvements I can make to speed my work up?

Cheers!

have you considered this for ftp?    http://lightroomsolutions.com/ftp-directly-from-lightroom/

i use it and it works perfectly .... can export my files from within Lightroom 

[Mick O (Camera Bits)]

I just wanted to add one thing that I have been using lately:  In the Lightroom export dialog, at the bottom, there is the option to open your newly exported files in an application.  I have been setting this to Photo Mechanic - so that as soon as I export files in Lightroom, PM opens a contact sheet to that folder with just those files selected -- good for final rename and metadata tweaks if needed, and FTPing or other upload.

-Mick

[neil@dg28.com]

I agree with fabianlujan here - select images from card in Photo Mechanic, caption and rename selects in Photo mechanic using variables, autocomplete and code replacement where possible, export in batch to Adobe Camera RAW, save JPEGs in same folder as the RAW, FTP the JPEGs. Fast, accurate and repeatable.

[tombearyphotography]

I'm continually refining mine .... this is what i currently do while pitch-side:

• Ingest to PhotoMechanic - (Auto Ingest, Copy Locked Photos only,Apply generic IPTC Caption)
  
  Apply individual captions including player names using code replacements linked to team-sheets
  
  Cmd + Y to move selected files to a folder on my desktop called 'Auto Import Folder'
  
  Lightroom automatically imports from this folder whilst applying a sports preset at the same time
  
  Crop & Straighten the photo & apply further adjustments if needed in the Develop module of Lightroom
  
  FTP to agency server using an FTP plug-in from within Lightroom (lightroomsolutions.com/ftp-directly-from-lightroom/)