Workflow help

[JonHob]

Happy new year everyone!! 

I need some help and guidance from you good PM peeps.

I'm fairly new to the whole PM thing and since using it, it has made my workflow feel so disjointed. However, I know it is a great bit of software and I'm not used to it yet!!!

I normally shoot motorsport and use Lightroom for all my work. This work doesn't have deadlines. I'm now shooting football (real football  ) and I need to use PM due to deadlines, IPTC data and captioning/code replacements and specific sized images.

I initially started using PM with LR but, as you'll all know, it's impossible to use LR as it can be painfully slow. This said, I really LOVE LR! Grrrr

So I'm now using PM in conjunction with CS5 (CS6 soon). In practice, I know what should be the ideal workflow. In reality, I think I'm far from it and I'm getting so stressed thinking about it.  It's also making me question my ability to do the job.

I know Scott Kelby did a blog about this very same question. I'd like to know what is the perfect workflow or make mine much slicker. I'm hoping I can get real world answers from PM users. This is the workflow I have and the very basics of what I need...

1. I Ingress images to a folder on my HD and add IPTC data during Ingress then eject the card when Ingress is complete. I choose the option to only import/ingress new images so I can leave the images on the card. Is this the best option???

2. I choose my best images by using the colours (1-6?) or T.

3. Filter these images then right click and 'edit in' CS5. ACR loads and I tweak exposure etc. I have a preset to sharpen and apply lens corrections to all these images.

4. Edited images are then loaded in to PS where I do my crops and straightening.

5. I apply an Action that re-sizes the images to the required 3500 pixels (on the longest length) at 300dpi and quality setting of 10. These images are all saved in to another folder as part of the action.

6. I have another contact sheet open in PM looking for this folder. I then apply the players names using the code replacements.

7. Once all images are captioned I 'select all' and send out via the FTP preset I have in PM

The beauty with LR is I can obviously sharpen, add lens correction, edit the images, re-name and export (to the required size) very easily and more efficiently, but it is much slower 

To try to help speed things up, I've also changed my MBP to a faster i7, fitted 16GB RAM and added a SSD drive along side the Hybrid drive. I'm tempted to add a second SSD (OCZ Vertex 4 256GB) if you this this will also help?

Please can anyone help?

Thanks in advance!

[Hayo Baan]

I don't really see a problem with your workflow so I'm not sure where you need help with.

The biggest speed up would be to narrow down the selection of images as quickly as possible and then to use batch processing/batch application of settings to do the bulk of your edits. You could even use LR for that, but Photoshop has those capabilities as well; just open a whole bunch of images in the raw editor of PS and copy over your settings to each image (this is really quick).

To prepare your file exports and FTP, I'd first have photoshop create full res jpgs or tiffs from the raw files and then have PhotoMechanic do the resizing/conversion to the final format.

Hope this helps,
Hayo

[Juerg]

Not sure I can help as my workflow is with Nikon capture, but perhaps it's worth to try the following:

1. Same

2. Same

3. Convert selected Images into DNG file using PM batch opiton.

4. Filter these images then right click and 'edit in' CS5. ACR loads and I tweak exposure etc. I have a preset to sharpen and apply lens corrections to all these images.Close corrected images from within ACR WITHOUT opening them into CS.

5. Apply crops and straighten in PM and apply the players names using the code replacements.

6. Select images and FTP preset where you select "applying crops" and "resize to fit" ... and hit transfer. All crops are now applied and the pictures resized to defined value in batch prior to being sent via FTP.

I think this may speed things up a little bit :-) ... and save some HD space

The only problem is the you need to convert the pics to DNG so you see the ACR changes in PM (at least when using a Win PC) ... but that's Adobe for you :-)

Good luck,
Juerg

[JonHob]

Thanks for your help and advice. I will read carefully and take on board. I still need a lot of practice. Yesterday I thought I was doing well till I released I made a mess up that set me back 10-15 minutes.

Does anyone know any good video tutorials from a photo journalists point of view? I seen a few but I'm not too impressed with most of em.

Jon 

[bluesnappa]

After the match or during if required, I ingest the card but only the locked files. All are auto-captioned at ingest into a folder. I do all the cropping and straightening in PM then 'save photo as' the same named file in a second folder named Press2Go (sharpen option ticked, file size about 800kb. From here they are sent via email or FTP. Getting the file right in camera and using a little in camera sharpening (D3S) there is no need to use PS6, saving time. Images are away in the time it takes to crop and caption. In the press, the images look really good and the time taken sharpening etc in PS6 is not worth it for the quality of the print used in the papers. Any good picture editor will do adjustments anyway if he feels it needs it. Works for me.

[photojoca]

+ 1 on what bluesnappa said above. The only thing I'd add - and please don't take this to be a jpeg vs. raw statement - is that shooting high-volume events in jpeg would speed things up for you. I'd bet that your camera gives great jpegs if you fiddle about with the camera settings a bit.

[jknotzke]

  I have a question for those of you who aren't using LR, but instead PM and PS..

  Are you cataloging your images ? Or is your employer ? How are you keeping track of what you shoot ? Through metatags ?

  Thanks

  J

[Woodie]

I've been cataloging with IDimager (IMatch before that) while waiting and waiting and (you get the idea) on the catalog app from Camera Bits.

I use Windows 7, PM and Nikon Capture NX2.  Because PM, NX2 and IDimager play well with NEF files, I don't use sidecar files but I believe IDimager will read IPTC from sidecar files.  I use PM for adding IPTC as well as color and star ratings (which I use sparingly). Then just read the files into IDimager.  The original IDimager was Windows only but I believe IDimager Photo Supreme, latest version, is available for Mac also.