Lessons
Lesson Info
Class Introduction
the content of this class came about a recognition of the need to stay organized, need to be able to find our stuff. And at the same time, over my years of working with people's, I realized No. Two people are the same. So one of things that frustrated me when I first got started was I would sit down with people and I would watch their workflow and I'd be like, That's amazing and I would go home and I would revamp everything I did to follow that workflow and then two months later, I would still be. We'll find anything so I'd go take another workflow class when I come home and had revamp my workflow. And every time I was revamping the workflow, I wasn't behind the camera, spending more time with the computer, trying to redo all that stuff. So what I've realized over the time is that everybody is somewhat unique, so we have to figure out how to build work flows that help people with that. So that was the kind of the seed for the class. What I wanted to get people to a point where we could...
apply some of the tools that are available and then actually build a workflow that make sense for who we are. So I've got some, uh, Kino slides here. We'll start with, and that's gonna allow us to jump in and kind of take a look at some of the things that are common for most of us as we go on ahead and do that. So, yeah, that's that's That's the auto correct. I actually type what I think on its learned to fix this light for me. Um, so one of the first things we have to do is we have to identify what the problem is that one of the problems is everybody's got something different. If you're a wedding photographer, if you're a commercial photographer, if you're a fine art photographer, you're dealing with a different set of problems. And unfortunately, what happens to most of us as we just get overwhelmed, We don't know what to do, so we don't spend the time to actually identify what is the problem. What are we trying to solve? That's one of things we're gonna talk a little bit about today is how do we identify actually the problem? The next thing we're gonna look at is, um, file naming is an example of this. So one of the things I have learned over the years to is when I'm working on something, have a final file final client project. Except it's not really the final. That's then I have number one and then I have number two, and then I actually have really the final. And then I have the really, really final. Okay, so those all sit on my computer because I wasn't done? Oh, no. We know client wanted something else. I have one more. So now I've got these files on my desktop, my documents folder, my pictures folder through on an external hard drive so that when the client calls back six months later, it's like we kind of need to change something. I want that file again. I'm like, Is that the one from the desktop that I've thrown away? Is that one for my documents? Folders? I had no way of knowing what any of this stuff was. The other problem I noticed is that the client wants the file, and I have decided to call everything untitled. One of my absolute favorite photographers is Ah, finally, Carver named Michael Kenna. And when you study Michael Caine is work. He has trees, water and things like that. He has tree study number one tree steady number two and it's different than I was. That's a great way of organizing your stuff. So I went with Untitled. So I'm entitled number 123 and then because I me my entitled number one raw file is not my entitled number one Photoshopped file, because that would make sense. So I end up with a hodgepodge of these weird names. So these are the kind of things that I was grappling with in my work. I was having stuff in multiple places, multiple locations, and that wasn't working. So then I was like, Oh, I know exactly what I'll do. I'll get a piece of software that'll make it easier. That's by the way, never happened ever in the history of software, because if I go back and look at my next piece, these are all the decisions I have to make in the import dialog box of light room. So I've gone to decision. I'm gonna make it really easy. I'll use light room. They tell me light rooms easy and comparatively light room is incredible. Easy. But if I make a different decision here every time I'm still back in my same problem I had before. So I got some software. I want to make things easier, but I still have to have a big set of problems. I have to do a fight. So ultimately, what do we want? Our work flows. And as I've interviewed now, hundreds of people, it comes down to three very basic things. What we want is a consistent workflow. We want a reliable workflow and we want a repeatable workflow. At the end of the day, if you left here and you only knew and did one thing and that was these three things you would be better off than you are today. It really doesn't matter what you name your files so long as every time you need them the same way. It doesn't matter how you store them as long as every single time. You store them the same way. Because when you come back in, you can see that. Oh, my gosh. What I was doing yesterday I'm doing today, I'm doing tomorrow. The other thing that happens is we pick up efficiencies in our workflow when we do things the same way over and over again because eventually muscle memory builds and you just learn how things are. If you think about that first time you picked up your camera and your learning to shoot and you're like I choose white balance, I gotta change f stops. I gotta change all those things. Eventually, muscle memory starts to go in your hands and fingers just move on the camera. Digital organization in your workflow is the exact same way. The other thing is, once it starts to get consistent, then we can automate it. Then we can start to use some of the tools and the software that actually do make it easier to stay organized. But if we're not consistent in that, we're not repeating the same thing over and over again. The automation doesn't do any good, because automation once the exact same thing to happen every time, and that's when automation breaks down. So what we want to try to do is get to where we have these three things
Ratings and Reviews
user-01901f
I would consider myself an advanced Lightroom user, but this class challenged me to rethink the way I use it in my workflow. Daniel is a great instructor with an incredible wealth of knowledge!
Beatriz Stollnitz
Great class if you're a beginner Lightroom user or if you're looking for ways to improve your workflow.
user-2866a3
Daniel Gregory talks fast. Real fast. But he has really good ideas about workflow with Lightroom. What to do? While watching "Automating", have your copy of LR open in another window. When Gregory triggers an idea that works for you, pause the class, switch over to LR and try out what he said, make the changes that work for you. I learned a lot from Gregory in this class and highly recommend it. His structure (Commercial photography) isn't applicable to me but I saw things that I needed to do.