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Fast Event Workflow to online gallery for clients: What do you use?

Ian L. Sitren

pro member
This post is from Nill Toulme's popular thread on Sportsshooting workflow. Here we want to deal with social events such as weddings, parties, fundraisers and such. Ian's post is a good kickoff for this discussion. Asher




For a number of years I shot on assignment, the larger amateur and professional bodybuilding competitions around the country, typically 25 or so per year. Along with my client, I pioneered the concept of shooting and then having the photos uploaded for the viewing audience within a few hours of the end of the show. For the first few years all of the other magazines never beat me even when they deployed teams of people to get it done, brought in full desktop machines and even a T-1 line. For me it was myself and a guy pulling overnight duty back in Idaho to do the actual galleries and getting them online.

My first secret was actually simple, I did my absolute best to nail my exposures and to get my photo right every time I pushed the shutter button. And although I might be shooting 500 or more frames during a show, the other photographers around me were shooting 2000+. And all those extra frames were a huge time burn in processing and uploading.

The next part of my secret was PhotoMechanic, simple the fastest tool for editing photos by a long shot. I would shoot in RAW, cull out the few rejects in PhotoMechanic and then use the 'extract jpg' feature, run them again to size for online use and convert to sRGB. And then upload a zipped file to the servers in Boise. The other guys were trying to use Bridge, PhotoShop and other misc programs and while they were slaving all night with it, I would be kicking back, maybe having a drink in the hotel bar.

My third secret was logistics. I would always make it a point to stay in hotels with the fastest internet service. Typically for me this was Marriott with their 'iBahn' service, very consistent and fast across the country. Other hotels would struggle along with limited DSL upload speeds while my stuff was flying out. And then for big events where 8000 people would be leaving trying to get a shuttle bus or cab back to their hotel, I would have a limo waiting for me.

That is the way I did it. In the last two years it has changed somewhat but that was also something I started when I uploaded the first photos from a show while it was still going on by using wireless WiFi to the T-1 line for our video broadcast.
 
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Ron Morse

New member
For a number of years I shot on assignment, the larger amateur and professional bodybuilding competitions around the country, typically 25 or so per year. Along with my client, I pioneered the concept of shooting and then having the photos uploaded for the viewing audience within a few hours of the end of the show. For the first few years all of the other magazines never beat me even when they deployed teams of people to get it done, brought in full desktop machines and even a T-1 line. For me it was myself and a guy pulling overnight duty back in Idaho to do the actual galleries and getting them online.

My first secret was actually simple, I did my absolute best to nail my exposures and to get my photo right every time I pushed the shutter button. And although I might be shooting 500 or more frames during a show, the other photographers around me were shooting 2000+. And all those extra frames were a huge time burn in processing and uploading.

The next part of my secret was PhotoMechanic, simple the fastest tool for editing photos by a long shot. I would shoot in RAW, cull out the few rejects in PhotoMechanic and then use the 'extract jpg' feature, run them again to size for online use and convert to sRGB. And then upload a zipped file to the servers in Boise. The other guys were trying to use Bridge, PhotoShop and other misc programs and while they were slaving all night with it, I would be kicking back, maybe having a drink in the hotel bar.

My third secret was logistics. I would always make it a point to stay in hotels with the fastest internet service. Typically for me this was Marriott with their 'iBahn' service, very consistent and fast across the country. Other hotels would struggle along with limited DSL upload speeds while my stuff was flying out. And then for big events where 8000 people would be leaving trying to get a shuttle bus or cab back to their hotel, I would have a limo waiting for me.

That is the way I did it. In the last two years it has changed somewhat but that was also something I started when I uploaded the first photos from a show while it was still going on by using wireless WiFi to the T-1 line for our video broadcast.

That is very interesting. Do you still use photomechanic?
 

Ian L. Sitren

pro member
That is very interesting. Do you still use photomechanic?

Yes I do, but I stopped shooting front row press pit shooting at these shows. So my needs are not the same.

I now use PhotoMechanic if I want to quickly look at a shoot, rename an entire shoot, generate really fast previews etc. No other program is nearly as fast as PhotoMechanic.

For most of my work I have pretty much settled in on Lightroom, but there are features I like in Aperture and Capture One. Sometimes I will just use Bridge for that matter.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
For Event Photography, Does Photomechanic hold the edge on Lightroom?

For a number of years I shot on assignment, the larger amateur and professional bodybuilding competitions around the country, typically 25 or so per year. Along with my client, I pioneered the concept of shooting and then having the photos uploaded for the viewing audience within a few hours of the end of the show. For the first few years all of the other magazines never beat me even when they deployed teams of people to get it done, brought in full desktop machines and even a T-1 line. For me it was myself and a guy pulling overnight duty back in Idaho to do the actual galleries and getting them online.

My first secret was actually simple, I did my absolute best to nail my exposures and to get my photo right every time I pushed the shutter button. And although I might be shooting 500 or more frames during a show, the other photographers around me were shooting 2000+. And all those extra frames were a huge time burn in processing and uploading.

The next part of my secret was PhotoMechanic, simple the fastest tool for editing photos by a long shot. I would shoot in RAW, cull out the few rejects in PhotoMechanic and then use the 'extract jpg' feature, run them again to size for online use and convert to sRGB. And then upload a zipped file to the servers in Boise. The other guys were trying to use Bridge, PhotoShop and other misc programs and while they were slaving all night with it, I would be kicking back, maybe having a drink in the hotel bar.
Here's the issue: photograph an event, use available light where flash is not allowed or else on camera flash. Now select the best, correct, deal with highlights and shadows, crop and upload jpgs for clients to order.

What's your solution? Is iview Media Pro, a.k.a., Expression Media by Microsoft, part of the plan or now irrelevant? What's your link between your software and your FTP site?

Who still relies on Photomechanic for the exceptional speed advantages Ian Sitren praises? So has Lightroom simply wiped out advantages in iviewmedia and Photomechanic etc?

Asher
 

Kathy Rappaport

pro member
Lightroom now for me

Asher,

As you know, I went to another workshop at the Santa Fe Workshops to change my processing to Lightroom. It's like day and night to the raw workflow I was doing in DPP and Zoombrowser. I can almost edit the whole thing with an hour to classify and a few hours to make some global edits and an import to a folder to my website and then to proof.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Asher,

As you know, I went to another workshop at the Santa Fe Workshops to change my processing to Lightroom. It's like day and night to the raw workflow I was doing in DPP and Zoombrowser. I can almost edit the whole thing with an hour to classify and a few hours to make some global edits and an import to a folder to my website and then to proof.
So Kathy,

Do you load your website directly from Lightroom. Can you synchronize the labels so they work with your gallery?

Asher
 

Kathy Rappaport

pro member
Plugin

I am looking at the various programs that will upload. I use a program now that one click uploads for me very quickly. I have the fastest available internet both at home and the office and I can generally upload about 100 pic in a very short time frame (I haven't actually timed it but maybe in a half an hour)
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I am looking at the various programs that will upload. I use a program now that one click uploads for me very quickly. I have the fastest available internet both at home and the office and I can generally upload about 100 pic in a very short time frame (I haven't actually timed it but maybe in a half an hour)
Kathy,

Could you find out your upload speed in megabits per second or else megabytes per second. The latter is the former divided by 8! That's why they generally give the former as it's a larger number.

In uploading images, there's uploading jpgs for visualization and then uploading larger files for the company to print for you. So I'd love to have software that one can set and it will do the same job each time once the pictures are selected for an event. For sure there are standard packages that work with Lightroom, Photoshop and the rest.

Asher
 

Kathy Rappaport

pro member
Full Rez Files

Asher - I upload full res files - my website links to the lab. It will also burn a backup dvd if I needed one. If I use a compressed file, then my back up will be low res.
 

Nill Toulme

New member
FWIW, I use exactly the same workflow for an event as I do for sports, as detailed in the thread referenced above: RAW --> Downloader Pro --> BreezeBrowser Pro --> Capture One v3.7.8 --> BreezeBrowser Pro --> web. Print orders get Capture One v3.7.8 --> PS for sharpening & retouching --> Qimage for the prints.

To me, event shooting is very much like high school sports shooting... fast paced, lousy/variable/unpredictable lighting (with or without flash), and you don't know till after the fact which shots are going to be "important." RAW is good for that. ;-)

Nill
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
FWIW, I use exactly the same workflow for an event as I do for sports, as detailed in the thread referenced above: RAW --> Downloader Pro --> BreezeBrowser Pro --> Capture One v3.7.8 --> BreezeBrowser Pro --> web. Print orders get Capture One v3.7.8 --> PS for sharpening & retouching --> Qimage for the prints.

To me, event shooting is very much like high school sports shooting... fast paced, lousy/variable/unpredictable lighting (with or without flash), and you don't know till after the fact which shots are going to be "important." RAW is good for that. ;-)

Nill

Thanks, Nill,

Unfortunately Breeze is not for Macs although it would run in PC emulation. Do you have an opinion as to how Breeze competes with Lightroom and Photomechanic in the initial sorting.

Asher
 

Nill Toulme

New member
Sorry no I don't as I haven't used either of those products. I do know that PM is very highly regarded for that purpose as well as others, and is probably the primary tool used by professional sports photographers who are uploading to media recipients.

Keep meaning to try LR but just haven't had time.

The nice things about BB in this particular regard are: (1) it's fast as it uses the embedded jpg for browsing, and (2) it gives you a full-screen sharpened view of each image.

Nill
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Nill,

Thanks,

In your workflow, do you just do final work on the image as orders come in or else they are cropped right in BB and that's it? Also do you print or is it sent out?

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Ordering Prints

Do folk order pictures from you online? If so, what size files do you upload to the service where your pictures are shown online? Do you ever have the company color correct and optimize your pictures?

Asher
 
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