What software should I use in my workflow

“What software do you use for work flow?”

So I think Taylor and I are on the same page as this, as are many other – I think especially wedding photographers just dealing with sheer volume. Rather than going straight to Live Room (?) for the download, we’ve downloaded Photo Mechanic. If you don’t know what Photo Mechanic is, just Google it – it’s pretty much like a standard line piece of software that doesn’t do much other than make selections of your photos.

Taylor: I think it can, [but] I don’t think I’ve utilized anything other than that, because that’s what it’s best at. It just loads up those jpeg previews so fast.

Dave: Yeah, so you can edit like a whole wedding in real time – there’s no load time going from photo to photo, so it preloads as you move through it. And when we talk about preloading, it’s not like Bridge or Lightroom where it sort of preloads over an hour.

Taylor: It’s like you select the picture and then it takes three or four seconds for it to actually pop up, it’s just kind of instant as soon as you hit the key.

Dave: So pretty much you can be downloading as well, and it will be showing your images while the download’s happening.

Taylor: Or even for same-based slide shows. I’ll just pull it straight from the card, and I’ll just go through and mark on the card, and it’s a little slower, but at the same time I don’t have to spend that 15 minutes or whatever dragging photos on via USB.

Dave: And a tip for that – just in terms of actual workflow there: the way I like to edit is actually – again, I’m talking about weddings here guys, but portrait sessions, you probably want to keep a larger percentage – for weddings I only keep a third of what we shoot, so I pretty much assume everything’s going to get deleted. But I go through everything, obviously, and save shots, so it’s a reverse way of looking at it. So I sort of use my one to save shots, use my two to mark it as portfolio and use my three to [. . .]. So I select everything – make it a three – and then work backwards to save a third of it. It just means I’m doing less keystrokes, and I’m flying through my work a little bit faster. So I know some people like to hold on to the other two thirds of their stuff, but I personally prefer to keep space down and backing up and all that stuff.

Taylor: And from there, if I’m editing I outsource – we both outsource a lot of our editing – just because, again, of sheer volume, and it’s a lot more fun to spend most of your time shooting and less of your time playing with buttons in front of your computer.

Dave: Totally.

Taylor: And if I am editing something, from there it’s straight up lightroom, and I’ll do all of the basic corrections in there, make sure all of the exposures are nice and proper and it’s kind of a 90% finished file at that time. And then I have a Photoshop droplet – I have three of them – and they’re usually pretty good, too. [They’re] exactly what you’d see on my blog, and what I’d give the clients, and it’s just kind of drag and drop. Like, if I want a black and white, it just goes in that droplet and you can even key them off. But for the volume that I’m doing – if I’m editing my own stuff – it’s usually an engagement shoot or something like that, so I’ve already seen the photos and it’s just kind of drag, drop – that type of thing. Photoshop droplets.