workflow

As photographers stepped out of the darkroom and into the digital age they took on an extra role once handled by the lab techs.  We all know that we make more money behind the camera so it only makes sense to shoot with that goal in mind. Remember every mouse click in your post processing workflow could be a shutter click and taking the time to streamline your workflow means more  money in your pocket and more time doing anything other than post production.

Faster Post Production Tip #1 – White Balance

I venture to guess that most of the time wasted in Lightroom, Aperature, Bridge, Photoshop etc is attributed to color correction. It’s all fine and dandy that you shoot RAW, I encourage it! But that doesn’t mean you should ignore your white balance settings while you’re shooting.

Often times simply selecting a camera preset will do just fine.  If you’re outdoors or in a room with a single light source try using a preset. If the lighting is a bit more tricky or mixed go custom. I carry with me a Grey Card and will randomly snap a shot of it to use for post processing. I don’t go thru the whole setting up the custome white balance in the camera usually. It’s just as easy to select the shot of the Grey Card in post make my adjustments then copy them to a group of photos either as a group or selectively.  For me at least, as I’ve improved my in camera white balance I find myself clicking next in the RAW editor rather than fiddling with the adjustments.

Faster Post Production Tip #2 – Manual Exposure

I’m going to go out of a limb and guess that the second most time consuming post processing task is correcting inconsistent exposures. There is simply no reason for not using manual exposure for large parts if not all of a wedding day. The camera makers have spoiled us with cameras capable of doing the thinking for us. The only problem is that it’s often easy to fool the camera brain given our subjects (bride in white, groom in black).  It might help if you think of the presets as “Oh Shit” buttons and use them as such. They are perfectly fine to use when things are changing too fast to worry about making manual adjustments on the fly. When you arrive at the church take a few quick meter readings or test shots and watch your histogram. You’ll often find that you’ll be good with one setting for the entire ceremony especially since we are normally not allowed to use flash and the altar and surrounding areas are fairly evenly lit. The same is true for your formals both inside and out.  Check your histogram every so often to make sure something hasn’t changed dramatically but if everything goes well you probably just saved yourself a few hundred clicks in post.

Faster Post Production Tip #3 – Manual Flash

I’ll be 100% honest with you guys, the thought of using manual flash used to scare the crap out of me. I was petrified of it and thought it was something I couldn’t get right on the fly. SURPRISE! it’s pretty darn simple once you get the hang of it. Start simple and use it during your  church formal first, a time of the day when you have the luxury of planning a bit ahead. To start pick the surface you’re going to foof off of then set your flash to about 1/4 power and fire off a test shot. Watch your histogram and adjust the flash output up or down as necessary. Once you find that magic setting you should not need to adjust it and the amount of time spent fiddling with sliders in post should go down dramatically.

Faster Post Production Tip #4 – Forget Fixing it in Post

Fixing it in post is always a possibility but is it the best choice? I can guarantee you that the time it takes you to pick it up will be less than the time it will take to clone it out of every altar return formal.  And sure you can clone out that stop sign but why take the time to do it after the fact if all you need to do is scoot a bit left or right or simply raise or lower your lens a bit. Having this magical ability to digitally erase something has made many of us lazy but fact of the matter is that paying attention to your backgrounds, foreground and the details can often reduce the amount of time you spend trying to fry your retinas. Shoot like there is no such thing as post production.

Faster Post Production Tip #5 – Learn ALL the Shortcuts

The software and hardware gods have been good to us! They have given us all these wonderful tools that can take complex things and make them simpler. But many of them fall short on the organization and execution stage. Using a product set like DQquikeys or OSK (open source keys) or even just an X-keys can take your workflow to a whole other level. After the initial setup you’ll find yourself cruising through RAW files and edits like you never could with just a normal keyboard and mouse. The ability to assign complex tasks to a key-stroke is simple a timesaver. And let’s not forget the built in shortcuts in programs like Photoshop or Lightroom. Using keyboard commands is always going to be faster than using drop down menus or searching around your oversized action pallette for the most often used commands.

Back Home

Possibly Related Posts: