Author Topic: Where do you get hung up in the process? (Read 3374 times)

mantonino · « **on:** May 12, 2008, 16:40 »

There are only a few steps to microstock photography, essentially. Goes a bit like this:

1) Conceptualize & schedule model for shoot.
2) Shoot
3) Edit the images from the shoot.
4) Keyword & IPTC for the images you edited.
5) Upload images to various sites.
6) Submit images once FTP’d.

Honestly, 1, 2 and 6 aren't usually bad (6 is harder on DT and FT though) So the main question is - how can you speed up the editing process?

I think three places:
- Learning photoshop hotkeys, shortcuts, actions, etc.
- Taking better images in the camera
- Taking the time to figure out what you're spending time on & how to remove those steps.

(this is what I blogged about today on N2M and I have a backlog of 900 images so this is what's on my mind)

Phil · « **Reply #1 on:** May 12, 2008, 18:24 »

1 & 2 are good.
3 I like but my skills needs more work.
4 I hate
5 no problem
6 I hate categories

melastmohican · « **Reply #2 on:** May 12, 2008, 19:00 »

900 images is about month of work

I still try to review and process my old photos. I am done with 2002

Old photos, especially the one I scanned myself from negatives seems to be most time consuming. With digital photos I hope to optimize my workflow around Adobe Lightroom. If I have to lunch any editing software it seems to be big slowdown in my process.

Still working on better keywording.

FTP part is easiest for my just running siteupdate overnight (all site definitions are in place, just droping files to right folder).

Categories are waste of time too. I guess nowadays search engines should be optimized around tags and categories are only for cataloging purposes.

I think more about microstock when I am shooting right now. Better suited photos mean less work.

digiology · « **Reply #3 on:** May 12, 2008, 19:23 »

Quote from: mantonino on May 12, 2008, 16:40

4) Keyword & IPTC for the images you edited.

YUK!

PeterChigmaroff · « **Reply #4 on:** May 12, 2008, 20:51 »

1 and 2-- are givens. You can try and streamline here but you get out what you put in.
3 and 4-- require more horsepower from your computer to speed up. It's the one area I hate being in. Lightroom or Aperture to enable a quick edit and flow through PS.
5 and 6-- kill off 1/4 of your worst earners. Much better to spend the time on 1 and 2 than flog a dead horse for a few cents a month.

nativelight · « **Reply #5 on:** May 13, 2008, 09:40 »

I have two character traits that are my downfall. I get bored easily and I procrastinate. I have thousands of images sitting on my hard drives that need to be edited, keyworded, etc. Most of these were not shot specifically for stock, but there are many saleable images regardless of why they were shot (i.e, vacation photos). But I get bored going back through all of my old stuff especially when I know I have a vacation, roadtrip, camping trip, etc. coming up soon. Keywording is my biggest downfall though. When I have some free time to edit, I think about all the keywording (and titles and captions) that has to be done and I get turned off quickly. Then I procrastinate and nothing gets done.

Also, I work on a computer all day every day (programmer) so I tend to dread booting up my computer at home in the evening.

jsolie · « **Reply #6 on:** May 13, 2008, 12:42 »

One thing that slows me down is the pen tool--I just wish it could go quicker. Keywording can be pretty onerous, too. It'd be pretty cool if Lightroom had a metadata spell checker--that way I could catch things before final jpegs are produced.

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Author Topic: Where do you get hung up in the process? (Read 3374 times)

mantonino

Phil

melastmohican

digiology

PeterChigmaroff

nativelight

jsolie

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