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Marcus Bell: Workflow and Presets

Excellent. Great. All right, so let's talk about what, Chlo? I'm going back to funeral Richie's wedding. And what I want to talk about now is that here there was 1220 images. How are we gonna process all of those images so quickly and fast on Believe in, you know, days to get him up to the client, like, online and so forth. So, you know, the techniques said, I'll show you Is that where I would do and think differently and in some ways, don't think exactly like a perfectionist. All right, But what I wanna show you is a couple techniques is looking at the thumb now is that I could process, you know, 3/4 of the wedding. And so I'm just gonna go through here with this sequence, select these images just in that right. And I might, like, use a larger monitor for this, you know? So if, um, you know, I afford it, Like, use a 30 inch or 27 inch eyes. I monitor, but if you can't like a great like I'm at 27 inches perfect for this. Just make sure you're calibrating. It is best you can all right, ...

So I'm gonna I mean bridge. Okay. So I should explain that I mean, bridge, which is comes with photo shop, if you and what I'm about to show you is exactly the same as working in light room in the developed, not in the develop module, but in the library module. Okay, Um, so that's where it's just exactly the same. No, you could do this at home. And, you know, if we get time, I'll show you how to create a priest. Okay, but one of the things I've gotten like personally is a very sophisticated system. That's very simple on. Do you keep doing two together? But the fundamentals that I'm sharing with you is you can just apply this I show you by right clicking are going to develop settings, and I have all my presets at my disposal. Now I name our workflow module. Zero is like first. That's the very first numbering that's gonna come up these ones down here once it goes to two. They're like, part of our instant collections. There are, like, individual presets, so we can still use those suddenly. But what? I've got up here and I will open up light room so you can see all the different folders and how you can, um, even devise something yourself or if you want to get out workflow you you're welcome to do that. And I have at the very first section is complete. Look. So, for instance, where we mentioned outside, like, indoor color. Um, And then we have down here outdoor color. Okay. And we have, like, a number of different colors versions that I really like that I know that, like, I really just like that look. And then as I have an indoor black and white outdoor black, But then I have some of the other presets that I love, Um, that I have to rename them. I renamed them because I want them part of my express section. So that way, especially in bridge, that they come up the top. I don't wanna have to go and search for them. Did you have a questioning? Yeah, and it could be coming up even a little further, but I noticed that you picked the four images in the sequence, but there's more in the sequence, but they look like they're a little bit different in exposure. So did you just pick all the ones that were similar? Because if you choose a preset or something and if there's two different exposures, it could Yep, not get what you're looking for. Exactly. And But you know what's great, though, is that like I'm working four images now rather than just wanted and this is the secret, it's working multiple images now? No, this is where two is like, um, you have to make decisions where, for instance, the amount of time is going to represent the quality of the airport. Now, if I wanted t to do this in less time, then I would have selected those images as well, because even though the exposures off just a little bit, the presets will sort of blend that matchup together so I could get away with it. So it would be so. I guess like the it's what do you want to classes your proofs. See our proofs of really high like you know, the images that, like if you go into the blawg and like encourage, I want to go on a blawg, have a look at the blood place. There are proofs. They're the image is exactly the same that, like the clients, see the very, very first time to that level, the quality and is actually using this process. But we do go through a lot more dodging and burning and a little bit more care. So that would probably spend, like, you know, extra hours doing that. So you could spend like, an hour going through all these thumbnails you could spend two hours on by. I mean, and then when you are, too, as you're starting to do dodging and burning, Um, you know, three or four hours, then you're starting to do it. But the good thing to know I'm still talking, like maybe even six hours maximum. You know, I'm not talking three days. I'm not talking one day and then three days, and that's huge. And the reason why, you know, both me and Adam have spent so much time thinking and looking at work flow, you know, for the last eight years, I would say, you know, when we have been doing digital is because we know how important it is for our business to be a bit Teoh, really to produce as well. So let me. Go ahead. Like once we got that first little section these air like images on. And you know what? They pretty probably getting pretty right. But then I have, like, little ones where, like, you know, like plus two or plus one. But in my workflow module, I have also the half stops as well. So if I want to be a little bit more particular, I would just go grab dies on drop them in that folder. So I just keep I have two sets of presets. Sorry to folders of presets, one that's live that bridge is gonna pick up. And the other one which has everything in it. And then I actually have other folders that I create, just copying the presets, um, and then putting him into another photo. I know this. Probably starting to sound a little bit complicated, but once you get used to it, you'll get a feel for what you want to do. And it will honestly, speedy up your your workflow and the time that you spend to get the clients as well. Okay. So here, for instance, like, I'm just gonna make thes like like a black and white like 11, you know, mean, and so it's done A, like a reasonable job. It's so obviously it's gonna be hard with exposure going from my laptop, seeing on this screen and what you're seeing at home, there's gonna be variations. So please, like, you keep that in account, like, say, on my laptop. I'm just thinking, you know, I just need to probably just give that a stop exposure above. So I'm just brought in that by one stop. Okay, so we've here these shots here. Actually, I know these two shots I'm gonna need to go up to show to so I can just quickly do that. And I could reverse it that way if I wanted to see how, like I quickly adjusted that exposure. Now, if I wanted to, I could probably select all those six images and go ahead and say, Look, I want these to be olive neutral. Good. I mean, and it's just going to affect the skin times in a certain way and affect the colors. So it just makes things pop remain. Just makes things just really nice. If I'm looking for a different look say, for instance, these air or like, sort of still along that photo Generalistic moment and you'll notice that the sequence it's similar to the other one. So what I should do is that I'm gonna use that same preset now. I could do that in a number of ways. I could pre select one of the other images and in copy and paste the developed settings or just do it manually. But I won't get into that yet, but because that's just a little bit more advanced, you know, like Teoh. No, the short cuts toe copy and then pace. So I'll just go. And I used it black on my basic 11. And, um and I was really great. I don't mind those. All those other images, except for the last two, is that I want to do the exposure and eyes. Now, if I want to get, like, just a little bit more advanced, Aziz Well, like I could be considering here, Um what images need dodging and burning what images need cropping, you know? And if I was doing this at home, um, or in a two part process where I just want to do this part first, then what? We'll do is, you know, like I could color code it, knowing that I could come back and just do that extra work on those images as well. Yeah. No, um, the four images that you originally started with the ones you just turned black and white. You give those four to the client? I noticed that pretty similar. And the way I was thinking before, when I called down, I wouldn't give images that were similar. You know, I would find the one that best fit the moment. Yeah. Yeah, Like what I wanted to show you was like all the images. So we did call it down from here. So But then sometimes I have a real great problem working out, which is the perfect moment, you know, I mean, and remember going back to the honor and one story at the very start of you know, day one is that what we did is like, I had to think about giving her the choice of what that moment meant to her. There was a good chance that I would have chosen the following moment because one was looking at them, which I just thought Waas, you know, you know beautiful, but the other went through. He saw that little smile on a dad. You know what I mean? And if you remember those words and if you go back to those words and what that meant to her, man, how, like so what if I would have taken that even job? I don't know for I mean, I'm thinking back the way I was thinking before the workshop and completely changed the way I think so. Normally, I wouldn't give those four because they are so similar. But now I think what you just said makes sense. Even though the heads turned a little bit And yeah, you know, she may have a little bit more of a smile on her face, so yeah, it's hot. Definitely changed the way I think. I also think the less the less that you show to a client that's another tool. Another huge asset that you should have. The less you show, the better as well Try to keep it simple. Yeah, Markets. One quick question. Ah, just workflow wise. Is there a particular advantage for you doing this Enbridge vice doing in light room? Or is that just a personal preference. Just a personal preference. You know why? Like Okay, well, you know, one of the lucky things is, um, you know, a WPP. I, for instance, I'll probably get Teoh together with the guys from adobe in And because me And when we talk about this and we go through it all the time, we're saying that we would love this. And so I know that there's been things and we would say, you know, we were using bridge currently now to do it this way, but we would love to do it in library and between that room and three and lettering through for, you know, they listen to us and they made some changes before. And I'll show you, like, one reason reason why, um let me just bring up in image. Ah, I'm putting this stuff in camera roll basing about using expose your adjustments, right? Like sorry. The ah, the localized like adjustment brush is, for instance, see how, like I just lied in that, you know, part of the dress. And, you know, I can go up now. Maybe I don't want to do it as lot up the top of the dress. Now this going bringing your mouse? I haven't pressing new and then going back to that Did you see, like how long like that took me. You don't mean to do all right, so let's think about if I do this. If I just press the said to or the k tool and press it twice, it gives me any brush like it's lightning quick, Another brush. And I mean another brush, you know? I mean, so if I like. If I went over and pressed new all the time but using the mouse and it would just take so long like so And when we're thinking about like looking at 5 600 images and if you if that difference is like a second every time or two seconds, every time you add that up by 500 you know, plus how many you know, and then you could probably times it by 10 because you're probably used 10 different strokes, and I mean, it's pretty amazing the difference that the time you say and that's what the business person of me, like you know, kick scene, you know, is that like, um, we look at the speed of our computers, you know. And one of the things that we would like measure is like, How long does it take for the images to load up in bridge or in a day become a rolling for us to actually do the do the brush and things like that? And if it's taking, like, five seconds, right. But we can buy a new computer and it's doesn't in one second over entire year. That is like thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars off, saving off like of wages as well. And so did like if I've saved $10,000 by buying a $2000 computer what he thinks that's my thing today by that computer, you know, and that's where we gotta think really smartly about when we're in business. And I know that, you know, we haven't gone into too much business over the last three days, but and maybe I'll get to come back and do creative live and do a whole business model because, you know, we've got a like a tremendously successful studio. Um, you know, we should a lot of weddings, and but the foundation is like like how photography. You know, I mean, but because of that, we've been able to build an incredible business. But I couldn't go into the do business straight up if you guys didn't understand how important the photography was. Because that's like our USP, you know, that's what makes us really unique. All right, I just go back to the thumb now mode, because we are going to do that. We're gonna open. Believe it or not, this is Some people may do this, but others that could be brain new. We're gonna open up all of these images in adobe camera raw, all of them all at once. All right, so see, I've now got these images, right, And they're different, you know what I mean? I want a different look for those, even though these air like a photo generalistic portrait, Um, I want to do something a little bit different, so I will, rather than look at my work flow module Oh, come back down a little bit and look at, like, a nice story. You need to really know your presets here. All right, um, so it just sort of did it, you know? And I don't even have to touch those images. That's how good guys presets are. Like all the ones with the workflow ones. You gotta just, you know, nurture him a little bit. Just tweak him a little bit, and you make him your own, and I'll teach you how to do that. How you just create your preset. You can even take my presets, do the tweaking what you like on, and then just say them in making me right. And you put him in your own work for, um so I just sort of coming down and let's just look at another sequence. So say, for instance, right, this was all very quickly, these shots except the ones at the back here, these last to see she's a little bit more in shadow on especially this one. So even though they're in the same lighting and everything like that, I need to think of them a little bit differently. So why would you know what I'm gonna do? This? I'm gonna do just go into what? I show you? What I would do rather than thumb. Now, these need to have a little bit more care. So I would have flagged them to be dodging and burning. So rather, then do the preset. I'm just gonna open up in camera Raw. Now I've got three images in camera. Oh, now you can, like, begin to see why I like, like, I might do this and then just come in and do, like, a bit of Ah, Michael, I think hit the said K tries. I've got another to, um I just want a lot in that corner up a little bit. Now, I got into this image as well and just add that in, bring that back up here as well, bringing another to double I And can you see what I'm doing? I'm shaping the image, and I'm like, adjusting the center of interest. Okay, so So this is how, um, you know, you get photo shop in light room and bridge to all work together just seamlessly on. And that was the other important thing. And so all I do is press done. I don't dio open image now I can come back right now. We've got a lot these six images similarly and now I can go. You know what I want to do? Like them like that Black and white. Oh, what's really nice is like this pewter as well, so I might just do that Putera NYSE images. So when you are just spring this up in adobe camera roll just only so we can see it larger so you can just see how that's that's done. Now you know, mean and it's finished. So again, just when you're in, I don't become a role you just pressed done. You don't open image because what I'll do is like I'll use are quick flow to process all the images in a batch that we talked about yesterday. Alrighty. So just sort of coming in. You know, these are great. Like, we actually work that one yesterday. Um, so let me just work out work the other three, and you remember Yes, I just added, like a blur suffering. So let's just go. Um, just bring that exposure up one, and I won't do anything else just other than soften it, and we just sort of say the difference. It just gives, you know, nice. Look, now let's have a look at this, because remember, what I also said yesterday is we need to be thinking about, um, the center of interest being shopped. So if I noticed that images Ah, like a soft I grabbed my brush like I just reset the like the exposure. I could even leave it up just a little bit. But what I want to include here is the clarity. Bring that right up and the sharpness a little bit. And now what I can do is I can just bring that rushed down in size and just come in here and just shop in the eyes a little. And it was just subtle, but it was important difference because that's where the eye contact going obey. If I can always use the eraser tool, and then I can do that. And if I wanted to look, if these images I'm gonna be just pretend here, they're all the same, right? And this is the one thing that I just love about role say so I've got to read the select so controlled D is like de select or images. So just to remember that it's like a fast key and one of the things living just this is so good that first image selected Then I can hold down the shift k select all of them now it's gonna I'm gonna bring up the synchronized tool And I'm just going on like, normally what I do is like I just put, like, select one, but I'm going to just do it. But see, local adjustments. Remember those local adjustments that I did? So this is another really fast too. So that shopping I did in the eyes and I was just saying Let's pretend like all of them were in the same spot. Um, and this is great for dodging and burning as well is imagine just synchronizing that. So then you only have to dodge and burn one image out of that. Maybe that sequence of three or six so you can start to get to feel like how you could really, really speedy up your work for you. So I'm just gonna like, um so I don't run out of time. I'm just gonna maybe at this stage, just pretend that we've done all the images, you know? I mean, so let's select all images, right? And let's go. Right. Click opening camera roll. Okay, then. Now I'm I'm just gonna say this is because I'm doing this on it. Just to show you that it doesn't matter how many images ripening, you know. I mean, um, it's not gonna make any difference. But what I probably have done, as you know, we've being doing the workflow is tagging images that should be cropped. Maybe that lens correction, um, dodging and burning and things like that. I might be doing some of the dodging and burning. Why I do it and you could see reason Why? Because it's going to speed up that process. So what happens I is, Then I might have a folder. And this is where a lot room is amazing is that you can have a color card that adds to a quick collection. So it creates a quick collection off that color card. So when I just go to the quick collection, then it just actually has those images in it, which is called, um Then what happens? Let's go through and in this situation is that we can access all those images. So, for instance, like all these are similar, right? And if I want to do a big net on those images, I would probably have a preset that did that and so I wouldn't need to do this. Um, you know, So like, here we go like a doctor in it. And it just did that dark of Ignat. Just lightning fast. If you You know what? Like why? It's just there. I'm just going to do something, like like, just so with the exposure, just so you can see how faster doesn't let me bring that or down they have that one half past that waas. So you can actually select all 1220 images. And if you want that 1220 images to have the exact same, um, big Nan, that's how you do it, you know, and again, what you do, you just press done. Don't open images. You will crash your computer if you open 1220 role images. All right, so I'm gonna quickly I've been Photoshopped now, so let's just pretend now that we've got we've gone through all our images that crop the way we want, we are all at the raw stage. We're only at the rule stage. Um, so let's see, I cannot fight a shop and, you know, we're going to a will open up light room just to show you that It's exactly the same principles. You know, Adobe camera raw is is light Ring is exactly the same. Just like room as a whole heap of others. Okay, so push up. Amazing. You know, like, we got to spend time in it yesterday. But what I do is have the script, which is quite quick fly. Um, I just browse where if union Richie's wedding images are which is under creativelive and you know, Richie and UN presses s, but we've been processing them. Um, so we go like that. We just press OK, and we just choose a place to say them. So, like, I'll just go save a new folder, save, you know, to and I press open Now, what I have the option here to do is I compress yes, if I want to play it in action Now, this sudden little magic stuff that you can't do in light room or adobe camera raw. But you could build it into an action where you know you might use, like the goosing birds, soft lights and things like that that just add that little bit of punch or sparkle, you know, to all your images. And it's just very subtle. But people were gonna ask you Well, there's something about your images. I don't know what it is, you know. I mean, and that's what we do. We have, like a special little Photoshopped action that we just run on now images that just give that little bit of sparkle. So we just keep that open. You could also incorporate textures and things like that if you want to do textures and and think about this. This is great for Portrait's Well, like if you just got 60 or 100 images, you gotta process. This is perfect for portrait, you know? And if you wanna have, like, a texture on all those portrait So everything's to saying this is the way to do it So he every chick books will actually create a folder. And then what happens is that the the when we're going through the save a folder is created, and every images is then saved into that folder at that resolution in color space. Now, I know we didn't get into color space, but we're gonna probably work in adobe RGB for our high res files on. We save them as J pig 12. Um or you could choose to saving Mr I picked chains. Then we're going to look at high HD size images and you can change like the pixels if you want him. You know, 1920 by 1920 then standard. If I want a white border, you know, toe, do a nice DVD product or something like that. We've logo. So and, um, if I'm sending it to a ah, wedding planner and just proof or the client, Um and we've artist proof If I'm sending it off and I don't really know the source have big artist proof watermarked on the images. Well, so then I have another lower screen resolution images on below, like Web and blawg resolution images. And what that means is, once I click all of them So let's some just why don't we just click away and, um, I press OK and what's gonna happen, And this is what's important to know is that just do this at the end of the day, you don't mean if you're going to go. If you're at home and work from hime, Um, just do it. At the end of the day, you know if you get a fast computer, it's probably done in an hour, anyway. But like, this will probably take, you know, like, um, you know, 34 hours on this laptop, and it's just gonna process it. So why would I want to press play a 10 o'clock in the morning when I could just press play it, You know, 10 p.m. When you finish work. Wouldn't like Mice photographers day, you know? All right, so I'm gonna just some I'll just let that play just for a little bit longer and then just Well, just evaluate, like, the images, just the images that, you know, we didn't apply presets to these ones That I think, um, which I probably should've dragged him into another photo, but all right, I'm gonna just kill that. So it would just give me a warning signal that you just killed me. What are you doing? So I just quit the scriptural and D stop debugging. Okay, so let's go into explorer now and look for that folder we had that we created to say to see how it created a folder for every safe. So all these different color space is a difference of this one. Like, you know, it's just 43 with a, you know, a whiteboard. So it's nice for presentations. Um, this is great to put a blawg post together. So you see, like, a little logo. So they're exactly the same as a lot logo. So we've all the say. For instance, you have, like, different sizes to put your proof so you can actually put different logos on them as well. You know, a different things that, for instance, he's like a different version. So we got a a bar logo there, then seeking to see the artist proof, going over it as well. So So we got that version. And that's at 1920 pixels. Um, the other ones screen. I forgot what we said. It, I think, was 12 80 pixels. So it just sort of gives you use, like, say, for instance, like you may just want to get something up on the Web straight away. So you may just process just for the Web only, um, and just choose that. Take books. It's up to you guys. All right, so let's some open up like cream. And if you didn't catch like yesterday's discussion. Um, when we're talking about, like, what a mocking and everything like that would be definitely with while going back and looking at that. All right, so we got ah, light rain. So I'll just leave, um, this image up. So OK, so here in, um, develop mind what? The one thing that I d love about light room is that you've got this preview plane. Is that like you get to see you know exactly what that preset does. So we do, like, let me show you all the the workflow ones so workflow like comes with lots and lots of presets, so we've got ones for exposure. So, like, they're already done, like from zero, like every half stop, um, you know, things to do with white balance. Um, you know, sharpens tone ings, grains and big nets because you want to be out of build, you know? And we talked a little bit about this yesterday. Workflow. Our workflow module allows you to build on existing presets where the other presets arm, or like you press a preset and it's gonna globally change. Everything okay on you can change the turn. Those off if you want to bet? But so what I do is that I go through and these older style, different processes, Remember, the star processes also can be all the other presidents as well and all the precepts that you create and that you just love. So what happens to is that I then create a fold accord on. We've we already create one that's included in it, but is like workflow express. So I just put the things in here that I'm going to use all the time, you know? I mean, and, uh, and I may have another one workflow babies or workflow weddings and things like that and have specific presets that we could do that if you guys like working in light room, right, is that you can go back and in here dio exactly the same thing that we were doing before. Like, choose all these images here and go right click develop settings. Now I go to my and what's really good about, um, light room is that you got folders you can have in many folders is one of it. I was your order. Um, I wish, like a cr did this. You know, you could have folded. We can't. So if you want, I want, like, say, for instance, to just bring them up like an exposure. I can do that, Um, and it is just updating that straight away. I'm going to develop settings again and let's say sorry, I just got into the work for express and I might just go, You know, I just want my out or black and white and it's now just gonna update those as well. So exactly the same, you know, so no different. What's important, though, is that you need to go into light room catalog settings and go automatically right changes into X and pick so I can process the three images in light room. But then open up photo shop and use quick play to process the images So it sees it, and it's exactly the same, and it just opens and saves, so it's a great way of doing so that way also to I mean, I like working in life. People would home may just have it like a like a seven preference. I know this is like light rooms, I think, really popular over here as well. So so you can do exactly the same. You know, Just go through here and see because all these air the same and go develop settings. And what's good is about if you know that, like if you don't go to the workflow modules, you just go. You know what? Like I might just go into film lab, and I'm just gonna use, like, a century old with a negative border, and that would just sort of update. Um, And it's just a nice sort of, you know, preset. You know what I mean. So, you know, we have a border, like and everything looks like is take 100 years ago. So, um, so yet? So why don't I show you how you do a prison? Okay? Because you guys might already have old great presets, um, or ideas and things like that. And you could just create your own with you if you want us. Well, you know, So let's just going to develop my module, and I'm going to reset that. And let's just sort of think about like we might just sort of like, um, adjust the highlights a little bit. Let's have a look. What? The shadows just open up a little bit. What's you know, Just maybe just bring that today and just the blacks Just open it just a little bit. Now, let me share something. Um, some little secrets with you so loom in its luminous is fabulous because you Kenbrell ing the skin tone up like her skin times changing. And if I bring this up, that's gonna adjust the war because it's close. But that just tiny little adjustment there, that just little curve, you know, we have luminous will just bring out the skin just that little bit more. You're gonna measure it like you don't overly do it. But it's a great way of saving you time where you don't even have to dodge sometimes because it's doing it automatically for you as well. So another thing that you might want to do is like, let's just warm the image up a little bit. So let's, um just ever so slightly, you know, maybe in the highlights. So it's just like, subtle, you know, um and that's you know, there's so many different things that you could play with, like you play with this module. And the problem is, is that you can literally spend an hour just like, you know, creating one preset. You know, it's like, fine sheen things. And because as soon as, like you move these, you know, you gotta, like, balance it with something else. But it might be just a particular look that you're doing as well. All right, so also under profile. This is where if you're using the extract color checker and do those, ah, two photos and produced, that's where you can actually put your camera profiling as well, and you'll just get another 10% improvement upon what you're doing as well. All right, so what you gonna do to create a preset is press the plus button. And just now, if you want a global preset, you just keep everything checked. All right? So if you're swapping from one look to another But if you just want, like, the things that we change So we changed highlights, shadows, white points of black clippings. We changed. Ah, what did we change? Returning. And we also did a bit of color adjustment, and that was it. So what we can do is we could say new photo. We just call it creative live. Spell it there, right? Why? So we got creative life and we'll put, like, just, um, Qala standard pop breast create. And then what we can do is go back to our live remind and just choose these two images there together, going to develop settings, okay, and find creative life in a color stand pump. And we just adjusted that image. See, how is just like a little puppy. You know, that could be the hugest difference from just changing it from getting out a camera, a swell. And so remember, you got, like, three presets and you go free actions that you can just also, you know, start your workflow with, You know, I mean so and then if you want more, welcome to go to the store and we'll keep this door open for a discount for a little while. So for you. All right. So what about any questions? Yeah, I noticed that you were pretty liberal as you were going through and creating that preset with, you know, changing the highlights in the shadows. Do you worry about post or ization? And is there a new area where you're like, Oh, I can't go this far. Or maybe I should back it off on this side. Yeah, definitely. Look. And that's where having a really good calibrated monitor really helps. So I know where I've just pushed it too far or something. But sometimes we are wanting to push it. Did you see, like, that century old, Sort of, You know, look, you know, like, um that's pushing it far, you know? I mean to get that look, but there's still all this incredible detail and everything like that, but we're not supposed to do that. And it's where I've just spent housing hours just like coming up, because I just love these old looks. And to be honest, I'm just too lazy. Teoh, you know, like, go and get out of, like, a full five camera and create them, you know, mean and eso like I just do it in presets.