SportsShooter.com - Ideas to cut down on post processing time?

	Knoxville \| TN \| USA \| Posted: 3:45 PM on 11.11.10
	->> I agree with Thomas, I've been using Aperture since they released version 3 this year and it has been great. I like having everything in one place, import, toning, captions and then export and I'm done. It's been months since I've opened Photoshop and I don't miss it at all. Give it a try if you have a Mac.

Mike Huffstatler, Photographer, Assistant

Rancho Cucamonga | Ca | United States | Posted: 4:04 PM on 11.11.10

->> Just a quick note here, but I think you can do a great deal of your workflow in native LR 3.xx. It does a good job of noise reduction, profiling, toning, and then exporting to specific sizes and qualities. I know several people that ingest with PM, move selects to LR and complete everything else there.

Probabyl would not be too hard to define an export process to automate the upload time as well.

Clark Brooks, Photo Editor, Photographer

Urbana | IL | USA | Posted: 4:24 PM on 11.11.10

->> Mat,

If you want to cut your time down dramatically shoot RAW plus large jpeg. Unless your exposure or white balance are really way off, the jpegs will be fine to tone and adjust white balance for transmission in PhotoShop or whatever image editor you use.

You are also getting killed on injest time. Instead, open the folder on the card, select your picks, and copy the jpegs to a folder on your hard drive. Then edit the photos (tone/wb/sharpen) in the new folder if needed, then caption and send.

Another short cut, is tag the frames you want to consider between plays. Then in PhotoMechanic you can view, then copy those files to the hard drive. You won't have to spend the time looking through the entire first quarter take.

Generally, when I get back to my office I then delete the jpegs and archive the RAW files.

Question: Do you really need to shoot the end of the second quarter???? For the sake of efficiency it would be better to shoot the first quarter and the first six minutes of the second quarter, then go edit and transmit. That gives you the last six minutes of the quarter (assuming we are talking high school football) to work and a lot less of the game.

Clark Brooks, Photo Editor, Photographer

Urbana | IL | USA | Posted: 4:30 PM on 11.11.10

->> Opps! Forgot to mention... the reason for shooting RAW + jpeg is so you save time on the RAW conversion process. On my older laptop, doing this saved me a minutes and half per image not having to wait on the conversion. x6 images, I'd save 9 minutes right there. Ingesting a full 4GB card took 6 minutes. Editing off the card and sideline tagging knocked that 6 minutes off my time. There is a savings of a precious 15 minutes right there.

Hope this is clear and helps.

Mat Gdowski, Photographer

Las Vegas | NV | USA | Posted: 1:18 AM on 11.12.10

->> Hey all..

Thank you for your suggestions. Unfortunately, I use a PC, so I don't get to use the Mac options. :-(

I didn't really think about using the noise reduction in LR3. It's one of those things that I've always used NN for the noise and just kind of went with that and incorporated it into my workflow.

So, I'll try that. Plus, I'll switch to PhotoMechanic to FTP the images.

The problem is, for my work, I need to get the images down to 2mb/each for upload. We tried to do it through the regular LR3 export, but when it compressed the files, it stripped the IPTC/EXIF data and that caused a LOT of problems. However, if I used the Mogrify plug-in to do the compression to 2mb/each, it retains all of the IPTC/EXIF, but that takes a ton of time for it to process each file. I swear it feels like it's 2 min per file (I'm sure it's not, but it truly feels like it)

I was told to try the compression in PM, but I don't know how to get the images from LR3 back to PM to do that (and then just upload from PM as well). I wish I could just drag the images to LR3, do my corrections and drag them back to PM and then I'd be really happy. LOL

So, I figured that if I can just start tagging the files between plays, only load those into PM, caption, drag to LR3 for corrections and then somehow bring them back to PM for compression/uploading, that would help cut a lot of the process down. Just don't know how to "move" them back to PM after the LR3 updates. :-(

Again, I appreciate all of the help and suggestions. Gives me a lot to try and think about.

Clark - Normally I would just shoot the 1st & 2nd quarter and try and upload at half time, but it seems to take too long to do that and I feel I'm missing big plays by editing/uploading instead of shooting, but as we all know, we have to get those images out to the media ASAP. And true, I can shoot the RAW+LJPG...I guess I'm just always paranoid of the JPGs not being quite right. LOL

Joe Andras, Photographer

	Orange County \| CA \| USA \| Posted: 2:12 AM on 11.12.10
	->> Mat said... >>The problem is, for my work, I need to get the images >>down to 2mb/each for upload. We tried to do it through >>the regular LR3 export, but when it compressed the >>files, it stripped the IPTC/EXIF data and that caused a >>LOT of problems. Mat, in the the Export Files dialogue, try unchecking "Minimize Embedded MetaData". Joe

Sam Morris, Photographer

	Henderson (Las Vegas) \| NV \| USA \| Posted: 3:04 AM on 11.12.10
	->> Who is the end user of your photos?

Paul Nelson, Photographer

	Temperance \| MI \| USA \| Posted: 7:32 AM on 11.12.10
	->> I do all of my work on a PC and recommend FastStone Photo Resizer for quick file-size reductions. Easy to batch process and has many options for compression type. http://www.faststone.org/FSResizerDetail.htm

Pat Lovell, Photographer

Bloomington | IN | US | Posted: 9:02 AM on 11.12.10

->> Mat wrote: >> So, I figured that if I can just start tagging the files between plays, only load those into PM, caption, drag to LR3 for corrections and then somehow bring them back to PM for compression/uploading, that would help cut a lot of the process down. Just don't know how to "move" them back to PM after the LR3 updates. :-(

I use almost the same workflow you are using Mat, before I get to the game I make a folder for the game, and sub folder (ingest, selects, transmit)

Ingest into PM, select and move to "selects folder" then open in LR3

Crop, make minor fixes, NR, and export from LR3 into transmit folder

Open transmit folder in a new contact sheet in PM, caption and FTP, I like to caption last to make sure I don't make any mistakes. PM ftp gives you many options for size, IPTC data, etc...

I used to leave about 2 minutes before halftime to do this but now I leave right at halftime and make it back at the start of the second half or in the first minute.

Chuck Liddy, Photographer

Durham | NC | USA | Posted: 2:08 PM on 11.12.10

->> Mat, I'm trying to figure out why it takes you so long to download then process nine images.....Pat's suggestion is pretty much a great way to do things. Tag your images as your shooting, ingest them with a basic caption field already filled out in the IPTC settings, then pull up the tagged images. Correct what needs to be corrected. I have several suggestions....1) why are you shooting sports on RAW in a deadline situation. None of the sports shooters at our paper do that, for a couple of reasons...one, if you're a heavy shooter it will take forever to download a disc and two as our boss told some folks at a seminar last week he would go broke buying SATA drives to store all the games we shoot. Anyway, depending how heavy you shoot not shooting RAW will cut out what could be several minutes in your download time. The other thing is I'm confused why you add an extra step to resize your image to the "required" 2meg filesize....why don't you just change your cropping settings when you're imaging to make the photo the proper size to begin with? that cuts out a whole step. granted I don't use what some of the other folks here suggested but if you're just tasked with sending nine or ten photos I'm kinda scratching my head at it taking a whole quarter to do that.....good luck.

N. Scott Trimble, Photographer

	Lake Oswego \| OR \| USA \| Posted: 2:39 PM on 11.12.10
	->> i'VE AUTOMATED SO MUCH USING LR3 AND DON'T USE MECHANIC, SO MY EDITS ARE LIGHTNING FAST, WHETHER USING MAC OR PC. I WOULD SAY DUMP PM FROM YOUR WORKDFLOW AND DEPEND MORE ON LR.

Mat Gdowski, Photographer

	Las Vegas \| NV \| USA \| Posted: 11:11 PM on 11.12.10
	->> Joe said -- "Mat, in the the Export Files dialogue, try unchecking "Minimize Embedded MetaData". Joe" Joe, thank you so much. I never saw that option before when I was using LR2, so I pretty much just avoided using that option all together in LR2/LR3. I'll have to check that out. Thank you!

Mat Gdowski, Photographer

Las Vegas | NV | USA | Posted: 11:25 PM on 11.12.10

->> Sam -- The end user is a media company, but it goes out to newspapers, magazines, etc..

Paul - Thanks for the info, I'll have to check them out. :-)

Pat - If you don't mind me asking, what are your LR3 export settings? If you don't want to share them here, can you please email them to me? Maybe you have something set that I haven't seen/done to make it quicker for me. :-)

Chuck - One big thing is I wasn't tagging the images in between plays. I was doing that after ingesting the entire card once I got off the field. So, as I'm finding out, that is taking up some time by me injesting the entire card and then looking at the images to select. I've always shot RAW, so that's what I do to keep the most in the files. However, I have also learned here that it's causing (as you stated) a ton of time to be used up by downloading. Looks like I'm going to switch over to JPG to make it faster on download and no conversions. I didn't realize how much time the conversions were really taking. As for the cropping, it's not a "size" issue, so to speak. They just want the jpg file size not to be any larger than 2mb, but not by cropping the photo. So, ultimately it's just compressing the jpg a bit more so that each file is the original dimensions out of the camera, but the file size is 1-2mb. I'm not quite sure how else to explain it other than if it came out of the camera at say 800 x 600 at 7.0mb, I need to make it 800 x 600, but at 2.0mb.

N. Scott - I was considering that as well. Just ingesting them directly by LR3, but I'm so familiar with all of the IPTC sections in PM that I have it all prefilled out before I even go to the game/event to make it easier/faster. Maybe I'll have to take time and look at both at the same time to see if I can create an import preset just as easily in LR3. Thanks for the suggestion.

Pat Lovell, Photographer

	Bloomington \| IN \| US \| Posted: 9:00 AM on 11.13.10
	->> Mat, are you talking about overall settings or export settings? I don't have a problem sharing them here.

Pat Lovell, Photographer

Bloomington | IN | US | Posted: 9:08 AM on 11.13.10

->> Sorry, just saw the export settings in the post, don't know how I missed it.

I export to my "transmits" folder using these settings

export to hard drive

file settings - to jpg, 100% (you could specify the size here but I do it below)
image sizing - resize to fit - 2mb and I check don't enlarge
output sharpen - for screen - amount - standard
meta data - write keywords as lightroom hierarchy (uncheck minimize data)

also, you might try optimizing your catalog or use a specific catalog when you are on site. I find that the larger my catalog is, the slower LR3 runs.

Mat Gdowski, Photographer

Las Vegas | NV | USA | Posted: 12:55 AM on 11.14.10

->> Pat - Thanks a bunch for the info. I might have to look into my settings and change them and see if it speeds up things.

If I recall, mine is the same, but I use the Mogrify plug-in and set it at compressing to 2.0 mb (like yours, but not through regular LR3 export).

What does the "write keywords as lightroom hierarchy" accomplish? I also saw, today, the minimize data (plus, the suggestion from another poster to uncheck it) as well.

Every day my LR3 updates/backs up/optimizes my catalog. I actually try not to keep much in the catalog if I don't have to.

I'm wondering if the Mogrify plug-in is slowing things down. I think I'm going to try a batch tomorrow of specific images via the Mogrify plug-in (as I have it set up now) and time it and then do it through your LR3 export settings and time it.

Then I'll just have to slim down my other processes and it might get me into the right ballpark. :-)

Thanks again!
Mat G.

Pat Lovell, Photographer

Bloomington | IN | US | Posted: 8:43 AM on 11.14.10

->> When you check the write keywords as lightroom hierarchy it keeps keyword hierarchy intact.

For example, if I use the hierarchy Basketball > NCAA > Division 1 > Indiana > 2010 Season > Opponent

with the option checked it keeps that hierarchy, if not, you will get flat keywords Basketball, ncaa, division 1, indiana, 2010 season, opponent

I use 2 computers (laptop and desktop) with several hard drives, and on export from the laptop, I can open on the desktop and keep the hierarchy, it helps organize my future image searches and organization.

I've never used the mogrify plugin, so not sure if that is slowing it down.

Sam Morris, Photographer

Henderson (Las Vegas) | NV | USA | Posted: 1:42 PM on 11.15.10

->> Mat, if your end users are newspaper and magazines, and if time is of the essence, I would switch over to shooting jpeg. I never shoot RAW, even for our glossy magazines, and it has never been an issue. And I'm using old 1D MKII's.

Here is what I do at sporting events and it works well for me, enabling me to get a 3-5 photo gallery at halftime: instead of ingesting, I just drag the files into a pre-made folder then open those in PM. I don't like to chimp much and I don't often tag images in the field, so I tag the images in PM. Usually I have an idea of what my best images are going to be so I can go right to them instead of editing the whole half. I then open the tagged photos in PS to crop, size and tone, then do a "save as" into a new "selects" folder. I then apply the stationary pad to the photos in the selects folder that is already filled out with information and basic caption - this is where I find a big time savings by not ingesting because PM is only applying the IPTC data to a few frames instead of everything and I get the images into my computer much faster. I then finish the caption for the individual photos and upload the folder to an ftp server.

I do the same for the second half (actually, there are a handful of other things I have to do, but it is proprietary for our website so I'll leave all that out) so I have a gallery up quickly. Later when I have the time, I will go through and edit out all the unusable photos and apply the stationary pad, with any additional info like the score, to what remains.

FWIW

Sam Morris, Photographer

	Henderson (Las Vegas) \| NV \| USA \| Posted: 1:45 PM on 11.15.10
	->> And like Chuck says, I size the photos using the crop tool.

Mat Gdowski, Photographer

Las Vegas | NV | USA | Posted: 10:35 AM on 11.22.10

->> Pat - Thank you for the info regarding the hierarchy. :-)

Sam - Thank you for your info on your process. I'm shooting with a MIIN, so I'm right there with ya on that.

Looks like I need to start shooting jpg. It appears that's my biggest hurdle in this process. That and me ingesting, renaming & captioning the entire card before I do my selects. Looks like it's best to work off the card and try and make the selects in the field to make it go much faster.

Again, I truly appreciate everyone's input with their information. It has helped me tremendously.

Take care...Mat

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