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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Captioning software dilemma......
Craig Peterson, Photographer
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St. Petersburg | FL | US | Posted: 2:48 PM on 10.05.05 |
->> When I started working with Icon awhile back, I was told that they did not prefer their submitting photographers using Photoshop CS (which I had) for captioning, and the two choices were either Foto Station or Photo Mechanic.
I chose to go with FS, and boy am I regreting it now.
Now Icon has changed their parameters, and the new captioning directions don't even include FS, but now have PS and PM as the main software for captioning!
Under the new parameters, I have to use a combination of FS and PS to get the correct captioning, which takes a lot more time. I have thought about just using PS by itself, but I think that will just make it worse time-wise.
Is it me, or is FS just falling to the wayside? It seems that PM is the industry standard and is taking over, and no one likes to caption with PS because it's too slow....Should I just suck it up and go with PM? |
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Craig Mitchelldyer, Photographer, Assistant
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Portland | OR | USA | Posted: 2:52 PM on 10.05.05 |
| ->> yes. PM is under $150 and worth every penny. You can caption, rename, crop, ftp, e-mail, etc, etc, etc all from PM. |
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Delane B. Rouse, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Washington, DC & Seattle | WA | US | Posted: 3:41 PM on 10.05.05 |
->> Craig P- If you're serious about your work and if this is really work (as opposed to just a hobby) for you then you should be able to easily justify the cost of PhotoMechanic in the time savings alone.
Unfortunately you have to bite the bullet in the fact that you purchased Foto Station, but with PM you'll have a software solution that solves all of your problems and makes you more productive.
dbr |
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Paul Cunningham, Photo Editor
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New York | NY | US | Posted: 3:58 PM on 10.05.05 |
->> Craig,
I use both FotoStation and Photo Mechanic and I share your frustration with FotoStation. Photo Mechanic is a terrific program and really very affordable.
If I were you, I would buy Photo Mechanic now. You'll be thanking us all in a couple of days. |
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Craig Peterson, Photographer
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St. Petersburg | FL | US | Posted: 5:26 PM on 10.05.05 |
->> Photography is not a hobby for me, it is what I do for a living.
Although I only caption images when submitting to Icon, I would still like my workflow to be efficient as possible. I really don't see that happening with PS.
I can justify the cost, it just sucks that I had the opportunity to choose PM initially but went with FS instead for some reason. Why, I have no idea.....Oh well. |
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Alan Rogers, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Carbondale | IL | USA | Posted: 5:33 PM on 10.05.05 |
| ->> If PhotoMechanic is out of the question, you might want to look at a plugin for Photoshop called SCC Caption. You access it through the filters menu in PS and it lets you edit all the caption fields from a single window much like PM. It's not automatic, but it's fast. |
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Clark Brooks, Photo Editor, Photographer
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Urbana | IL | USA | Posted: 5:56 PM on 10.05.05 |
| ->> What is the problem with FS? I've been using for a couple of years and haven't had a problem with it. What isn't it doing? |
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Jeff Stanton, Photographer
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Tucson | AZ | USA | Posted: 6:11 PM on 10.05.05 |
->> For me, it's pointless to piss away money on additional software when I already have one that does the job - PS, and I have set it up to work efficiently for me by using actions.
I typically set up a unique action for each occasion. Last night it was the Phoenix Suns opening practice. I then went into the indiviaul photos by using the shortcut to go into the file info and dropped in individual player information.
I also have individual quick key actions that set dimensions for high resolution, web resolution, vertical sizes, horizontal sizes, anything you want.
Learning the shortcuts in any software saves a lot of time and headaches. Where I work, I'm astonished at the people who use PS or Quark everyday and still perform nearly all the tasks the long way. |
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Craig Peterson, Photographer
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St. Petersburg | FL | US | Posted: 8:48 PM on 10.05.05 |
->> Clark....Icon requires (edited) images to be saved in PS or PM.
They also require the .JPG in the file name to be in lower case, and I could not find a way to do that in FS, at least in the 4.5 version which I have.
I'm just tired of using three different programs to accomplish something that one program (PM) can clearly do all on its own. I'm all about speed and ease of use, and from the research I've done so far, PM is getting rave reviews over PS.....FS is not even mentioned. |
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Alan Look, Photographer
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Bloomington | IL | United States | Posted: 9:57 PM on 10.05.05 |
->> Craig, I too am hooked up with ICON and FotoStation 4.5.
Drop a captioned image off to Tim and ask him to create a PS template for you. After you get it and load the template, open an image and apply the template. Close the image in PS and then open it in FotoStation. Save the template in Fotostation and you'll be all set.
It's so easy, I couldn't believe it and Tim had mine back to me in no time. |
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