Event/Sport shooter question

Bodley · May 1, 2006

I've been shooting sports for several years. My model has been to shoot, cull, crop, process then upload the results. This is very time consuming and makes the the outcome "Less than Minimum Wage" (can the fed's arrest me since I pay myself below MW :rofl ).

I need help with a better workflow. Another photog suggested a different site where you upload your unprocessed shots and the host site contacts you with your orders. Then you process the requested photos and fill the orders. I originally chose my method because when I uploaded the shots I was finished. I want to stay with SM (mostly b/c of the customer support and Dgrin) but can't come up with a good model on SM except completed shots. Unfortunately, the completed shots I've been uploading could be better given more time to spend on them - I just don't have it.

I've got no time for my own family, but I don't want to quit shooting. Can someone help me? :dunno How are you guys doing it?

Jeffro · May 1, 2006

Bodley wrote:

I've got no time for my own family, but I don't want to quit shooting. Can someone help me? How are you guys doing it?

I've been shooting motocross for about 2 1/2 years now. I shoot jpeg large fine. I bump up the sharpness and saturation in camera...played around until I found what I like.

After a day at the track and a thousand plus photos later, I load them on the pc, look at each one full size. If I don't like it, it's gone. When I'm done I load the uncropped unphotoshopped file to SmugMug. If someone wants a 20x30 the file will support that, no problem. If they want an 8x10 they have choices, full image, or crop it themselves.

There is no way I no the taste of everyone that orders, so I shoot in my "style" and if they want it tighter they have that choice. If they want something else, they can always ask, and have. Sometimes they will come up to me at the track and ask about shooting at a particular jump, with what they are looking for.

I don't spend more than an hour or so doing "post" work. No money there....not for me anyway.

The pictures are selling better than ever with SmugMug, maybe it's because they can crop their own?

If and when I shoot a different sport, or event, the same rules apply. First and foremost this is a hobby for me, that just happens to pay for some new equipment from time to time.

Hope this helps you out.

Jeff:D

Andy · May 1, 2006

Bodley wrote:

I've been shooting sports for several years. My model has been to shoot, cull, crop, process then upload the results. This is very time consuming and makes the the outcome "Less than Minimum Wage" (can the fed's arrest me since I pay myself below MW ).

I need help with a better workflow. Another photog suggested a different site where you upload your unprocessed shots and the host site contacts you with your orders. Then you process the requested photos and fill the orders. I originally chose my method because when I uploaded the shots I was finished. I want to stay with SM (mostly b/c of the customer support and Dgrin) but can't come up with a good model on SM except completed shots. Unfortunately, the completed shots I've been uploading could be better given more time to spend on them - I just don't have it.

I've got no time for my own family, but I don't want to quit shooting. Can someone help me? How are you guys doing it?

It's not an easy problem to solve, but I have my preference.

Advantages of "Proof and Reupload upon purchase"
* upload immediately after the event
* customers can order right away!
* you only process those shots that get bought

Disadvantages of "Proof and Reupload upon purchase"
* you're not displaying your best work, color, exposure, crop, spot finishing, etc
* you have to deal with the administrivia when the orders come in: process individual shots, replace photos or upload the new ones... this could be a constant thing for events gone by over the past week/month/quarter etc.

Advantages of the "Do it Once Immediately" method
* process in batch, upload, and be done!
* your best work is being viewed by the potential buyers, right after the event
* you don't have to worry about revisiting those images again. Ever.
* orders come in, get fulfilled, off to your clients with ZERO involvement from you
* you're free to spend time on the next event, or just as important, GETTING that next event (marketing, sales, business, etc).

Disadvantages of the "Do it Once Immediately" method
* lots of time up front, for no guarantee of gain on each image
* longer upload time for the event's batch(es) of photos

With practice, the extra time up front can be mitigated by good photoshop techniques, batch processing, and actions. Uploading can be done overnight while you sleep.

Personally, when I'm done with an event of 400, 500, 1000 photos, I want to get them off my cards, through my photoshop process(es) and up to my site for sale. And I don't want to deal with them again.

Sounds to me, Bod, that you need to invest some precious time in the processing workflow bits of your business. I think such an investment will pay big dividends

StevenV · May 1, 2006

I'm right there with ya', Bodley, though I'm getting better. A 3-hour event used to mean ~2-3 hours in front of PhotoShop, now I'm down to ~1-2 hours. I've gotten a little faster on the mouse, a cleaner workflow, and a little less particular.

I cull pretty quicly using PhotoMechanic and edit in PS: straighten, crop to 5x7 aspect ratio and grab a levels adjustment layer. Then I've got an action that makes sure the Copyright's correct and tosses a touch of contrast and saturation, then I save as psd. If the lighting's wonky, I take a little extra time on one image, then leave it open and copy it's levels or curves layer into other images as I open them.

Then I've got an action that I apply batch that does the .jpg conversion and I upload while I sleep.

I'd love to cut the time even shorter, but for me I can't see using the "upload everything and let the customer sort 'em out" method; there's still way too many gunky shots that I'd be embarassed to show.

:

Andy · May 1, 2006

StevenV wrote:

and a little less particular.

Excellent point, Steven - and where do we, as Pros, draw that line between pefection, and what will sell? For me, it's different for certain events. I did Youth Tae Kwon Do yesterday, and I'm sooo not fussy about some of the kid's white robes blowing out, the moms and dads are paying for the kids' expressions, and the money shots

Bodley · May 2, 2006

Andy wrote:

Advantages of the "Do it Once Immediately" method
* process in batch, upload, and be done!
* your best work is being viewed by the potential buyers, right after the event
* you don't have to worry about revisiting those images again. Ever.
* orders come in, get fulfilled, off to your clients with ZERO involvement from you
* you're free to spend time on the next event, or just as important, GETTING that next event (marketing, sales, business, etc).

Disadvantages of the "Do it Once Immediately" method
* lots of time up front, for no guarantee of gain on each image
* longer upload time for the event's batch(es) of photos

I do like the once and done approach, hence the reason I've been using it

Andy wrote:

With practice, the extra time up front can be mitigated by good photoshop techniques, batch processing, and actions. Uploading can be done overnight while you sleep.

Sounds to me, Bod, that you need to invest some precious time in the processing workflow bits of your business. I think such an investment will pay big dividends

May be my photography needs some work to achieve more consistent results which leads to better batch processing.

All my shots are outdoors with constant changing lighting (clouds or direction) or harsh sun. The harsh sun, as we all know, hides the face of ball players under the cap shadows. Sometimes this can be somewhat negated using the dodge tool to show some eyes. No batch here. Could be I'm too anal

I have several actions I use but have had some trouble batching with the open-save-close calls especially with raw files. What actions or correction are ya'll applying via the batch process?

I'm frustrated - for each hour I shoot (300 shots culled to 150) I spend 1.5 hours, or more, processing.

Bodley · May 2, 2006

Jeffro wrote:

I've been shooting motocross for about 2 1/2 years now. I shoot jpeg large fine. I bump up the sharpness and saturation in camera...played around until I found what I like.

Jeff:D

Have you tried tone curves?

I need to investigate the in-camera processing a bit more - thanks

Bodley · May 2, 2006

Speaking of photoshop techniques - One problem I'm having is since I've moved to CS2 is efficiently opening files from bridge into CS2. Seems to be a delay. I've got to where I'll select about 25 shots in bridge and choose open and after a bit they will be open in CS2.

Any tips?

Andy · May 2, 2006

Bodley wrote:

Any tips?

Power. I have a Quad G5 with 6 gigs of Ram, and I never wait on Photoshop CS2 or Bridge. Sunday night, for some of the work I was doing, I was opening 30, 40 Canon 5D files at once.

Bodley · May 2, 2006

Andy wrote:

Power. I have a Quad G5 with 6 gigs of Ram, and I never wait on Photoshop CS2 or Bridge. Sunday night, for some of the work I was doing, I was opening 30, 40 Canon 5D files at once.

Like salt in the wound

I'm running windows XPpro SP2 on a vaio P4-3.0 CPU and 1 gig mem.

Should I be having problems?

Andy · May 2, 2006

Bodley wrote:

Like salt in the wound I'm running windows XPpro SP2 on a vaio P4-3.0 CPU and 1 gig mem.

Should I be having problems?

Well, I can't say for sure. I do think you could use more Ram. That's an easy, inexpensive-ish upgrade.

Bodley · May 2, 2006

Andy wrote:

Well, I can't say for sure. I do think you could use more Ram. That's an easy, inexpensive-ish upgrade.

I'll do it - I've been wanting to add an additional internal drive anyway.

Does anyone have an idea how much it would help if I double the RAM (2 gig)

Catto · May 2, 2006

Bodley wrote:

Like salt in the wound I'm running windows XPpro SP2 on a vaio P4-3.0 CPU and 1 gig mem.

Should I be having problems?

Bodley - I would seriously suggest, from a workflow standpoint alone, looking at Raw Shooter Professional (http://www.pixmantec.com - and no, I don't work there) for your event image processing, especially since you have a 1DMkII like myself.

The ease of previewing images en masse, applying batch corrections with cut & paste, and the sheer speed of the software leave PS CS2 for dead as far as I've found. All that, and you're working with RAW files - so if, God forbid, you don't get it right in camera, you've got more latitude for repairs.

The other amazing thing about the software is that it's incredibly small, doesn't chew up processing power like Photoshop, and can be run on your laptop just as easily as a result.

Example - two years ago, I photographed the New Zealand Int'l Arts Festival, and took ~5000 images (at a rough guess); from that, processing as I went along during the four weeks, I delivered an a-list of 162 images for their use.

This time, during the '06 Festival in March, I took 20,000 images, and (editing daily, as before) managed to keep on top of that many files, and turn around 1200 finished a-list images. That's how much more efficient I've become in my workflow, two years later - and THIS time I was using RAW, rather than .jpg (on a 10D) in 2004! So not only was I able to capture more (okay granted I spent more time photographing it, too), but I was able to process them faster, and deliver MUCH better results.

Give it a go - I think you'll be pleased. It also has an incredibly quick web-size preview output that you can use to create small .jpgs to upload. Smooth...
R!

Bob Bell · May 2, 2006

Bodley, I was having similar problems with workflow. Some days I would shoot birds, go to an ad shoot on location and the next day shoot events. I never had enough time to process all of the images, especially the commerical stuff. That is until I found Photo Mechanic. It was my savior. You can do all of the ITPC stuff for comments. You can batch export to jpg if needed and because of how fast you scroll through image (almost full screen for me) I reduced my time per image from about 3-5 minutes to around 1-2.

I don't upload to services very often, mostly I cull and edit and culling in photoshop is horrid in my opinion with how slow ACR can be.

So now I go through all of my images, I find out, click on edit, open in ACR then PS. Sharpen, color correction, write copyright, crop to size, save as tiff and im done. I am only opening images that are good because I can scroll through almost full screen as fast as my mouse will go. I have a dual core 3 gig proc with 2 gigs of ram, Sata drives, x800 video card and opening 20 shots is nothing.

I don't know how I was getting through 1000-2000+ images over 2 days before. Actually I do, I remember this HS football game, top ranked school in the state against 3rd I think from last season. Spent 12 hours editing all of the images. Now that is a 2-3 hour task with a nice glass of wine or two.

I have raw shooter as well and I haven't mastered it enough to switch to it yet. Its all about finding ways to automate tasks

Liza · May 3, 2006

I sort all my images and batch process with Raw Shooter, then do levels and sharpening in Photoshop. I don't do much cropping either, as I try to compose correctly as I shoot. Raw Shooter has made my life a lot easier in terms of post processing.

colourbox · May 3, 2006

Bodley wrote:

All my shots are outdoors with constant changing lighting (clouds or direction) or harsh sun. The harsh sun, as we all know, hides the face of ball players under the cap shadows. Sometimes this can be somewhat negated using the dodge tool to show some eyes. No batch here. Could be I'm too anal

Have you experimented with Image>Adjustments>Shadow/Highlight? It's pretty amazing at opening up shadows and closing down highlights, and is batchable, so it may reduce the number of photos you have to manually dodge in Photoshop. In the Photoshop post action I use, I added a Shadow/Highlight step. If I need it, I test for best setting on that shoot and turn it on. If I don't need it, I run the action with it turned off.

I understand that some of the alternative Raw converters have a similar feature, which may help you avoid doing it in Photoshop.

Speaking of photoshop techniques - One problem I'm having is since I've moved to CS2 is efficiently opening files from bridge into CS2. Seems to be a delay. I've got to where I'll select about 25 shots in bridge and choose open and after a bit they will be open in CS2.

Are you already doing as much as possible in Adobe Camera Raw? For example, if I make a curve that works in ACR, slamming that same curve into a hundred other similar raw images using ACR or Bridge's ability to copy/paste settings is so much faster than Photoshop and I don't have to open all the images.

As far as batching open/save with RAWs, I got several tips from the book Real World Adobe Camera Raw for Photoshop CS2. Now they go pretty smoothly.

(Disclaimer - I am not a sports photographer, was just reading the thread.)

Bodley · May 3, 2006

Catto wrote:

Bodley - I would seriously suggest, from a workflow standpoint alone, looking at Raw Shooter Professional (http://www.pixmantec.com - and no, I don't work there) for your event image processing, especially since you have a 1DMkII like myself.

Give it a go - I think you'll be pleased. It also has an incredibly quick web-size preview output that you can use to create small .jpgs to upload. Smooth...
R!

Catto - Glad to see your still around

Thanks for the Tip I'll check them out.

Bob Bell wrote:

Spent 12 hours editing all of the images. Now that is a 2-3 hour task with a nice glass of wine or two.

Now that sounds more like it

I'll check out PhotoMechanic as well.

Liza wrote:

I sort all my images and batch process with Raw Shooter, then do levels and sharpening in Photoshop. I don't do much cropping either, as I try to compose correctly as I shoot. Raw Shooter has made my life a lot easier in terms of post processing.

I try to compose as I shoot but with sports action I shoot looser. Thanks for the tips.

colourbox wrote:

Have you experimented with Image>Adjustments>Shadow/Highlight? It's pretty amazing at opening up shadows and closing down highlights, and is batchable, so it may reduce the number of photos you have to manually dodge in Photoshop. In the Photoshop post action I use, I added a Shadow/Highlight step. If I need it, I test for best setting on that shoot and turn it on. If I don't need it, I run the action with it turned off.

I've been using S/H on some shots but have not added to an action for batching - Good tip

colourbox wrote:

Are you already doing as much as possible in Adobe Camera Raw? For example, if I make a curve that works in ACR, slamming that same curve into a hundred other similar raw images using ACR or Bridge's ability to copy/paste settings is so much faster than Photoshop and I don't have to open all the images.

Didn't know you could do that

I'll check that out

USAIR · May 3, 2006

Bodley wrote:

I'll do it - I've been wanting to add an additional internal drive anyway.

Does anyone have an idea how much it would help if I double the RAM (2 gig)

These two threads might help Link

Bottom line for me was dual core and 2gs helped a lot.

Fred

Catto · May 3, 2006

USAIR wrote:

Bottom line for me was dual core and 2gs helped a lot.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for more power - I'm on dual core / hyperthreading 3.2GHz with 2GB of RAM too - but RawShooter runs at about the same speed on my laptop as well. I do everything in there (except IPTC keywording) that I could do in Photo Mechanic, plus converting from RAW in the background at the same time...

Try the $99 of software solution (or use their free Essentials software first) before you spend x thousands on more technology, that's all I'm saying.

Aside from that - sure, it takes some processing time to get through images, especially with the motor drive speed of a 1DMkII, which does tend to rack up the file numbers - but that's all billable to the client, right?
R!

p.s. Raw Shooter Professional also lets you straighten & crop images before converting the RAW file - that helps when shooting looser.

mercphoto · May 3, 2006

Bodley wrote:

I've been shooting sports for several years. My model has been to shoot, cull, crop, process then upload the results. This is very time consuming and makes the the outcome "Less than Minimum Wage"

Be judicious about when you click the shutter. Don't take the picture if you know it isn't a keeper. That will help with the culling to a certain extent. I throw away a lot fewer photos now on the computer because I simply don't take photos I know won't make the grade any more.

As per cropping, if you are shooting with a zoom then crop in-camera. Some sports practically require a prime lens though, and I don't know what type of sports you shoot. When I (briefly) shot youth football you have no real alternative but to crop a lot of photos. I found no quick way around this problem.

As per process, it appears you are shooting RAW. May I ask why? Ask yourself if it is really necessary. I know almost no sports photographers that shoot RAW. The football guy I shot with last year shoots a four million pixel 1D as JPG and still crops the JPGs, sometimes by quite a bit. His photos are superb, however.

Per changing light and those pesky shadows under ball caps. Have you ever considered shooting at +1/3 exposure compensation? Helps with those shadows. And is probably not enough to make blown highlights bad. Better solution, any chance you can use flash? Last choice, run an automated action to bump up the shadows, just a touch, and batch that.

I need help with a better workflow. Another photog suggested a different site where you upload your unprocessed shots and the host site contacts you with your orders.

But you still want to cull, and I would strongly suggest still cropping yourself. The above does not solve that problem. It will, however, remove any post-processing (after cropping) and it will make the upload time of the gallery as much as 10X faster (upload 400x600 JPG's). This may or may not turn into extra sales if they are available online faster.

Try shooting large-fine JPG. Adjust your camera settings to get a near-print-ready output. Try and automate as much as you can. You can't automate culling or cropping. But you would be surprised how much you can automate sharpening and color enhancement, which is what I do. Sure its not optimal, sure I could do better by hand. But even the 20x30's look fabulous.

Bodley · May 3, 2006

mercphoto wrote:

As per cropping, if you are shooting with a zoom then crop in-camera. Some sports practically require a prime lens though, and I don't know what type of sports you shoot. When I (briefly) shot youth football you have no real alternative but to crop a lot of photos. I found no quick way around this problem..

Mainly shoot baseball, basketball and gymnastics

mercphoto wrote:

As per process, it appears you are shooting RAW. May I ask why?

I don't shoot raw for baseball or basketball (unless it's for T&I's or other posed shots). Gymnastics is a different story - I shoot RAW+L and use the JPEG's if I can but the RAW is nice to have and a necessity much of the time.

mercphoto wrote:

Try shooting large-fine JPG. Adjust your camera settings to get a near-print-ready output. Try and automate as much as you can. You can't automate culling or cropping. But you would be surprised how much you can automate sharpening and color enhancement, which is what I do. Sure its not optimal, sure I could do better by hand. But even the 20x30's look fabulous.

I need to work on the in-camera processing. I really believe I'm spending too much time trying to tweak more than necessary out of the shots.

Also - upload time has not been an issue since I've been using StarExplorer.

mercphoto · May 4, 2006

Bodley wrote:

I need to work on the in-camera processing. I really believe I'm spending too much time trying to tweak more than necessary out of the shots.

And that is probably correct. What camera, and what settings are you using?

Bodley · May 4, 2006

mercphoto wrote:

And that is probably correct. What camera, and what settings are you using?

Have A 1DmkII and 1DmkIIn - For the II generally all zero's but on occasion I punch up the saturation.

Just got the IIn and have tried the punching up the sharpness some. Not a fair trial since the IIn has been front focusing :splat . Shot several at f2.8 before I processed any - at first I thought boy you had an off day (generally don't miss focus - exposure yes focus no). Kept processing and thought I must have accidentally left the 2xTC on for the shots to be this soft. Checked meta at f2.8 - no 2xTC. Noticed how sharp the ground was 2-3 feet in front of the players and realized what was going on. Grabbed both cameras and several lenses for some test. The II was spot-on and the IIn consistently front focused across several lenses. :splat:splat:splat(Hey it's better than typing ugly words). I'll test my next camera right-out-of-the-box.

What settings do you recommend? Tone curves? Thinking that after I play with this a while I can zero in on settings for different occasions. Maybe figure out a setting that will eliminate the high yellow saturation on the grass I've been getting when shooting into the sun.

mercphoto · May 4, 2006

On my 20D I use "Parameters 1", which is roughly equivalent to the Standard Picture Style on your II-N. I'd try that. I have yet to try my newly acquired MarkII yet but the advice I have received is to use the Standard tone curve, the Highly Saturated color matrix (#3), and maximum sharpness and contrast.

Liza · May 7, 2006

mercphoto wrote:

As per process, it appears you are shooting RAW. May I ask why? Ask yourself if it is really necessary. I know almost no sports photographers that shoot RAW.

I know a lot of professional sports photographers who shoot RAW. They post on Fred Miranda.

:

StevenV · May 7, 2006

I'm just a "semi-pro" sports shooter, and I shoot RAW almost all the time. In the darkness of the local parks and high school arenas I can use all the help I can get.

marlinspike · May 8, 2006

If you shoot RAW definitley look into rawshooter premium. I used to use PS CS and it worked for me, then PS CS2 came out and with 1gb ram and a p4 2.4ghz bridge was basically useless...just about any raw work with adobe was useless, but then I tried RSP...SOOOOOOOOO much better. I mean like 10 times as fast better. I still have to do some finishing stuff in PS, but since it's dealing with jpegs its no biggy.

mercphoto · May 8, 2006

Liza wrote:

I know a lot of professional sports photographers who shoot RAW. They post on Fred Miranda. :

I should have said "event photographer" because that was what I was thinking as I was typing.

The term sports photographer was too wide a net.

Event/Sport shooter question

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