Folder Naming Convention
Lesson 28 from: The Business of Professional Photo RetouchingLisa Carney, Simon Peter Raible
Folder Naming Convention
Lesson 28 from: The Business of Professional Photo RetouchingLisa Carney, Simon Peter Raible
Lessons
Class Introduction
11:05 2Who Should Be a Retoucher?
09:18 3Genres of Retouching
15:25 4Comp vs Finish
06:34 5Lisa's Path to Retouching
08:51 6Simon's Path to Retouching
21:01 7Establishing a Look
16:54 8Who is The Client?
11:41What is The Job?
12:30 10How to Estimate a Job
17:25 11Pricing Your Jobs
10:34 12Billing
19:02 13Retouchers at Photoshoots Overview
08:14 14Budget Busters on Photoshoots
05:24 15Photo Coverage on Set
02:29 16Pre Shoot Communication
03:40 17Female Model Examples
12:28 18Male Model Examples
13:00 19On Set Recap
04:12 20Retouchers on Set Q&A
06:40 21Comping on Set
11:36 22Demo Images from Shoot
15:35 23Tools of The Trade
10:28 24Digital Bag of Tricks
14:14 25Getting Hired as a Retoucher
17:50 26Being a Retoucher Q&A
08:23 27Production Management
24:51 28Folder Naming Convention
08:40 29File Naming Convention
15:22 30Mark Ups
31:39 31Workflow Overview
08:44 32Computer Organization Workflow
13:39 33Software Organization & Brushes
11:47 34Libraries & Layer Management
14:31 35Office Space Workflow
07:22 36Build Your Network
07:39 37Finishing Touches Checklist
03:48 38Stacking Order
07:16 39Res-Up Files
03:42 40Sharpening Files
07:28 41Noise on Files
12:23 42File Types
04:10 43Quality Control
25:11 44Delivering Final Files
16:52 45When Issues Arise
03:01 46How to Mitigate Problems on Set
15:21 47Solving Problems in Post
08:29 48Casting Cards vs In Person
03:57 49How to Come Back from Mistakes
05:04 50Business & Promotion
08:31 51Website Portfolio Samples
12:49 52Promotion on Social Networks
05:44 53Organizations to Join
03:54 54Craftsmanship & Work Ethic
11:52Lesson Info
Folder Naming Convention
So, folder naming convention, this is actually gonna be really page two, but it's a detail, but, it's fine. So, I would suggest when you start a job, you get a folder and you call it Assets, I don't call it Elements and Photos, I just call it Assets. I put those word there so you know it's elements and photos. So it's just an asset folder, and inside that folder, you're gonna have hi-res photos, you are absolutely going to beg your client for the XMP they used, so if you get a camera raw file, the designer for example, keep in mind, we're talking from a finisher's perspective here. Someone else designed the file, someone else already opened their raw, they'll give it to me but I need that XMP so I can match the color. And sometimes, you don't get it, no you don't. And that's another conversation. Notes from client, very important, very important. You wanna keep those. Any stock photography, now we haven't talked about stock photography, but what you want to keep in mind, designer frien...
ds out there, rights managed versus royalty free. You're gonna get in trouble, use rights managed, I'm gonna tell you right now. There have been skies, I kid you not, skies used for television shows I have worked on and a sky, you can get skies pretty much anywhere, rights managed skies have been pulled. 10,000 dollars the network had to pay for it and I'm telling you the network is very unhappy when you have to call 'em back and say, "Ha, ha, ha, that sky's gonna cost 10,000 dollars." And I'm not kidding. So, please be responsible. If they're gonna pay for it, that's fantastic, but you call it out. The problem is, keep in mind, here's a television job. You've done 50 comps, they didn't like anything, you're pulling your hair out, you finally pull out a winner. And this poor designer is up at two in the morning, trying to get a comp that they're gonna sign off on, and in their haste, they pulled a rights managed rather than a royalty free. I understand how it happens. It's gone back and forth, everyone's tense, everyone's afraid for their job, the client finally signs off, and some account executive has to call 'em back and says, "Yeah, that one you liked finally, it's a rights managed image." It goes badly for everybody. So frankly, I would suggest you never search in rights managed. Don't even go there. I understand at three in the morning you get desperate and I don't know if you have any tricks on this. Adobe Stock is an option. Yeah, stick with Adobe Stock. Some networks won't let you use Adobe Stock. They do have to buy an extended license occasionally. It's still worth its weight in gold, money wise. But, some agencies, if anybody's gonna go out for a job and is looking for a job and goes into an ad agency to work, you need to know that they'll have a very specific list of stock agencies they are allowed to pull from. So a company I worked from for BLT in Hollywood, great agency, entertainment ad agency, you can only use Getty. You can't use Adobe Stock for them. And that's just their rules and they have it for a variety of reasons. Okay, in addition, you may need fonts. Now, you often need fonts. I have a request with my agencies. I'm kinda known for not dealing with type. You may have seen some typos. Type is really, I'm dyslexic, type and I, we're not friends. So, fonts are not friends of mine either, it's all tied together. So when I get a job from an agency, I ask them as a courtesy to leave their live type inside their comp, ya know, so they can edit it, but in addition, make a shape layer out of the type, so I can res it up and I don't have to worry about it. So I'm gonna say that again. Leave the live type in the file and make a shape layer out of the type so people like me, who are a little challenged don't have to deal with the fonts. Do you have any issues with fonts? Yeah, I don't like it either, but I used to be, I used to do mechanicals, I was a production artist so that was very much part of my daily routine. But, what freaked me out was whenever the font managing software got goofy, so then I would step out of it. Suitcase, Font book, yeah. Yeah, so and then if every six months it would change, and in those six months something new would happen. So I eventually got to where I was like, you guys do the type, I'll do the pretty pictures, man. Yeah, so, and he can spell so maybe he has less issues with type than I do. Alright, so let's go back, this isn't really the main folders now, and when I start a job, I actually have an action that makes this happen, it's just bloop, I know, you can get droplets and actions, we're all into automation. We should do an automation class, that would be really good. Alright, so comps and layouts, and notice there will be notes, there'll be comps, all sorts of things. I like to have the multiple layouts, like if it's gonna have a breakdown and I put all my comps and layouts in that folder. Assets, as we discussed a little bit what the assets are. The assets are quite a big folder, often. WIPs, so a WIP in my world and any friend of mine is a work in progress. WIPs: Work in Progress. And WIPs are always layered files. Alright? And then I have a versions folder. And a versions folder are what gets delivered to client or gets printed. Think of it as a stopping point. It's a check-in. So versions are layered, simplified layered files that go to the client, they're zipped, they're cropped, they're files that go to the printer, they're jpegs, anything that goes to the client and goes out is called a version. Alright? It's a pretty good system, I think it works pretty well. Is this mine coming up? Alright, that was my system. Senor has his own system he would like to discuss. Even simpler still. So I, when I get a job I have four folders. I have stuff coming in, it goes in the In folder. I have stuff going out, so once I'm done working on it and I send it, once someone else has a copy of it, it's in the Out. So inbox, outbox. WIPs is stuff I'm working on, it's layers, beginning to end, and then anything that doesn't fit into present, future, or past, it goes into this catch-all, I just call Support. So I got four folders I gotta worry about. So, as soon as something comes in, I'm like, did I get it? Am I giving it away? Am I working on it now? Or is it something else? And, we'll go through the WIPs layered files with Lisa, very detailed, it's awesome. This is nice and simple for me and all my support, if I make brushes, if I have scans, if I do any little tricky stuff, if I make a Photoshop document and I have to smush it and then work on it later, I'll put it there. Clean, easy, and I don't have to remember so much. I love your technical term "smush." I do wanna say a few things. The support files is actually a really good folder and occasionally I'll stick one in my WIPs and how that is, we do frequency separation a lot for our files. I don't tend to give those out and they can get a little big and complicated. I'll save out a frequency separation folder file and put it in the support folder inside the WIPs so I can go back and get it. And if there's any file that's really complicated, I've had files where I've had to rebuild something and, God, I just didn't know how to do it, I was really struggling. So I saved a separate file out and I made it a working file and it had a lot of bleed and extra, that gets saved in the support folder and then put back into the WIP, so that is handy. He's a simple guy, ins and outs, it works for him. Now, the upshot of both of these systems is, frankly, it doesn't matter. It does not matter. What matters is consistency. So, his job, every job in his job folder looks like this. Every job in my job folders looks like this. And why this is important is, I've got this philosophy, I have workaholic issues, but I'd like to take a vacation. I really would. And in order for me to take a vacation, my jobs have to be picked up by other people easily. So, while he has a different system than I do, if he's out of the country, he's out of state and his client calls back with a change, I can go on his box, and even though I don't like his Photoshop setup, I can find anything instantly because he is consistent as can be, and so am I. And work like this at agencies. So when I worked at the agency for 18 years, I took a month off now and again. A month. But my files were like gold, and if someone came in later, they could come in and they know exactly where to find, if you did an archive search, it's all the same. So whatever you decide, just make sure you're consistent.
Class Materials
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Bonus Materials
Ratings and Reviews
Bill Buckley
I'm a photographer who wants to be as good at Photoshop as possible. In my field few retouchers get hired, so it's all on me. Plus my creative vision cannot be accomplished by photography alone. Not to mention that in the field, as a photographer I can't always be perfect. Photoshop to the rescue. This is possibly THE best class I've purchased on Creative Live, and they've all been good. Great insight, entertaining, well taught Lisa and Simon were awesome. Bought more LC tutorials based on this course.
Kari A. Youkey
This course just opened my world. I started ( back in the Jurassic era) as an illustrator/drafter ( pen and ink), then CAD programmer, then GIS analyst with photoshop just coming onto the scene then...got pregnant and unplugged focusing on parenting and my inner artist. I was gifted an IPad 6 years ago in the mist of my Taxi Mom years. My favorite ‘hobby’ became manipulating images and an addiction to Adobe apps. Now, In my new empty nest status, I have been trying to figure out my next direction in life....and CreativeLive has been a wonderful resource to explore different creative opportunities, feeling somewhere between photography and graphic design, I wanted to ‘paint’ photos with my tool of choice the tablet, not the camera. ...but it wasn’t until this course that I clicked with an Aha! I don’t have to become an photographer? I could get paid to retouch? Other people’s photos?.....and, I have a work history skill set that backs it up! Thank you so much for this course! Loved the instructors and how they shared their experiences and knowledge. You two have just provided a wonderful map and whole new path to explore and inspired a much needed creative spark to get back to work❤️. Thank You!
a Creativelive Student
Lisa knocked it out of the ball park again! Amazing work Lisa and Simon! I just can't find the many words that express how much I gain with each and every course she teaches. Once again, a wealth of information that was given in a down to earth manner. I absolutely love her teaching style! Amazing course Lisa and Simon, awesome job!
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