Post Production Workflow Follow-Up

I've had a few questions about my previous entry about my Post Production Workflow, and thought I'd take a few minutes to address them here.

Josh, thanks for your excellent write-up. I'm also looking for ideas for a rating system & your mention of being critical with ratings caught my attention. I'm sure you apply strict criteria for the 1-5 star ratings ... wonder if you could share that :)

I do indeed have a reasonably strict rating system I use, though I haven't actually sat down and written it out, so I'll try to here...

When I rate images during ingestion process, I only use 0, 1 or 2 stars for my images. Images that are pretty plain, boring, and otherwise uninspired get 0 stars. Anything above this, that I think has value to me gets 1 star. If there is a stand out in a series of images, it gets the second star. Some shoots gets a few one star images and nothing more, sometimes I'm passing out 2 stars like I'm a kindergarten teacher. Though I try to resist at this point, if I see an image that looks like a portfolio piece, it might get a 3rd star. If I'm shooting for a client, 1 star images are ones I will show to the client from a job, and 2 star images are the best of the shoot that I would recommend to the client.

Once ingested, processed to DNG, and added to iView, I'll re-sort the 2 star images into 3 or 4 star images, but only if they warrant it. Even with my growing archive of about 30,000 images, I'm still reserving the 5th star for down the road, and currently only have six 4 star images. I try to follow Peter Krogh's suggestion to have the number of images that get each additional star rating be 10% of the rating below. For example, if I have 10,000 1 star images in my archive, I try to have 1,000 2 star, 100 3 star, and 10 4 star images. This will keep the rating system working like it should. If you're passing out high ratings to too many images, the point of having a rating system at all goes out the window...

I'm also looking for ideas on how to manage offline backups. I appreciate that hard disks are getting cheaper everyday but so are file sizes as new (camera) bodies come out. The other thing is that hard disks can fail ... which is why we burn to DVDs etc. Could you also share how you catalog offline images?

As this topic can get pretty in-depth, I'll split it up into two sections for clarity:

1) Backups of my images

All of my DNG images are saved to a 500GB drive in an old Dual G4 PowerMac I'm now using as a file server/backup machine. This is the primary place my images are stored, and are "online" (as in accessible from my workstation) at all times, or at least when I'm in the office, and connected to the network. The files are always available to me to work on, view etc. I make a backup of this drive to a 500GB external drive every time I add new images to it (this is the 2nd copy of the files). I use a cool little app called ChronoSync to do this. You can have it do all sorts of cool stuff, but I use it to make an exact copy of this drive, so that if the internal 500GB drive fails, I can just hook up the external and get on with life (and eventually replace the internal drive and copy all the images back to it from the external).

As I am using the "Bucket System", I burn a DVD of each bucket as it fills, which becomes my 3rd backup copy, and I store this off-site. DVD's are an essential part of a good backup system because a) they can't be overwritten, and b) they aren't susceptible to viruses. DVD's are not an option, the are a requirement.

I backup my Working Files (images that are in the process of being ingested/rated/adding metadata, etc) in a similar way. I have another 500GB drive in the ol' G4 that is specifically for these files, as well as holding most of my other important files (Word Docs, etc). As these files change often, I have another 500GB external drive I leave attached to this machine all the time, and again use ChronoSync to make backups. You can schedule ChronoSync to run as often as you'd like (the options are near limitless), and I have it run a backup of this drive every evening. I have it set to move deleted/altered files to a special folder called "Archived_Files", so that if I accidentally delete a file from this drive, it will still be recoverable (as opposed to my main image backup, which is an exact mirror of the internal drive) from the "Archived_Files" folder.

(As the question was about offline images, iView will allow you to view offline images in an iView catalog. It even will allow you to store a screen res preview of the image in the catalog file itself. You can view all metadata, and even edit it, without actually being connected to the image file.)

2) Backups of my computers

All this image backup is great, but what happens if your main boot drive in your machine spins down? If you're working on an assignment and your computer goes kaput, how will you finish the job? I use another cool app called Super Duper that is capable of making bootable backups of your computer's hard drive. I have a 200GB external drive (lots of drives involved...) that I've partitioned to allow me to make bootable backups of all the machines in the office. If you have a boot drive failure, just plug-in the drive, press the Option key (Mac, of course) while you press the power button, and you will now be able to choose this drive to boot from. All of your e-mail, applications, preferences, fonts, etc will all be where they should be, just like nothing happened. Back to work you go, and deliver the job. Then you can replace the internal boot drive, copy the boot volume back to the internal from your backup, and it's as if nothing ever happened...

Bottom Line: Not cheap, not (super) easy, but absolutely necessary. Go run your backups!

Questions, Comments? Fire 'em below.


Cheers, Josh
Copyright © 2008 Josh McCulloch.

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Post Production Workflow

I get a lot of questions from other shooters about digital photography, and the technology behind it. I was writing a long e-mail about post production image workflow to a colleague of mine this morning, and figured there are probably a lot of people that could benefit from this stuff, so here it is.

Here's what I do, mostly learned from Peter Krogh's book The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers:

STEP 1
Software: Image Ingester Pro (The website is a bit cluttered, but the application rocks)
What I do with it:
- Ingest from memory cards to folders. It makes a backup of the files on a second drive during the import process
- Adds a metadata template (that I created in Bridge/Photoshop) to each image with all of my copyright, contact info, etc
- Adds a Camera RAW preset I created that sets basic exposure/colour/sharpening/etc to all of my files. (Note this helps greatly speed up final touch-ups)
- Batch renames on import to my file naming system (very customizable)
- Automatically opens the folder with the ingested, renamed, batch colour-corrected, annotated files in Bridge once it's done
- It can do more than this, but I stop here.



STEP 2
Software: Abode Bridge CS3
What I do with it:
- Add bulk metadata (location, keywords, caption)
- Check Sharpness
- Rate files with the star rating (I am very critical with my ratings)
- Once I have rated the files, I open the best (usually 2 star+) in Camera RAW direct from Bridge, and do further exposure, colour correction, sharpness, CA reduction, etc in Camera RAW. Once done, I click done. This makes the changes to the files, nothing else.
- Return to Bridge, select all the files, open them in Camera RAW, where I click "Save..." and save all the files as Adobe DNG RAW files (this takes LOTS of time, I usually cue up a bunch and let them run overnight). I use DNG files for a few reasons:
1) It stores all metadata/image adjustments, etc inside of the file itself, not in an XMP sidecar file that can get lost.
2) It can store a full-res JPG preview of the colour corrected RAW file inside the file itself, which makes batching out lo-res very fast (see Step 3)

Thumbnail View

Checking Sharpness

Camera Raw Adjustments

STEP 3
Software: iView MediaPro (now Microsoft Expression Media)
What I do with it:
- Add further, more detailed keywords and captions to individual, high-rated images (optional)
- Organize images into iView's "Catalog Sets"
This basically completes my capture-to computer workflow. iView is now the basis for everything I do with my images. I use it to:
- find files for myself and clients
- batch out lo-res JPGs (I can batch out 400 DNG files to lo-res JPG in 2 minutes for agency submissions, and because of the rating work I did in step 2, I can quickly find my best)
- send files to Photoshop for more critical colour work. Any changes made are reflected back in iView
- pretty much everything else

iView's thumbnail view. You can see an overview of the ratings of all of my files on the top left, an overview of all of my "Catalog Sets" center left, and the actual folder structure where the images are stored on my hard drive bottom left. Catalog sets are like virtual folders, an image can live in as many of these as you'd like, without affecting where the physical file is located on your hard drive.

iView's Media view. Here you can view images as full screen or actual size, and you can also see all of the EXIF & other metadata on the left.

Note that my RAW (DNGs of course) file structure is based on Peter Krogh's "Bucket System". Basically I make a folder called RAW_001, and fill it until it is full. How do I know when it's full? When it's the same size as the backup media I'm using (currently DVD+R, which are about 4.5 GB). Because I'm doing all of my organization in iView, I am free to use my folder structure as a platform for simple backups. Once a bucket is full, I back it up to DVD, make another folder and put any new files in there. Repeat as necessary! It was odd to switch from descriptive folders and filenames to functional ones, but once you let go, life is much simpler.

My RAW folders

My folder structure for files that are newly ingested and haven't been converted to DNG's and/or imported into iView yet is a bit different.

My working files folders. I rarely use 1_RAW, 2_Renamed is where the files get saved to during the import process with ImageIngester, 3_Ready for DNG are files that have been rated, batch colour corrected, checked for sharpness, etc, 4_Converted are where the files are saved to after converting to DNG, and 5_Transferred to Archive are DNG files that are done, and have been copied to my main image drive. They live here until I have made a DVD backup of the bucket they were copied in to. Once copied into the current bucket, I launch iView and import them.

It took me months to learn all this stuff and then implement it on about 20,000 old scans and dis-organized digital files, but now keeping up with high volume shoots is much more manageable. Questions or comments? Fire them in the comments below.


Cheers, Josh
Copyright © 2008 Josh McCulloch.

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New Published Work 2008-02-14

Thought I'd pass along a couple of recent tear sheets, enjoy!


This is from the recent winter issue of Island Home and Style Magazine.


Special thanks to James at Blue Planet Kayaking for the help getting this image!

Feel free to see more of my published work here.


Cheers, Josh
Copyright © 2008 Josh McCulloch.

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Photography Quick Links 2008-02-07

A few blogs I read send out quicklink posts, and I always get something good out of them, so I thought I'd start sending out quicklinks of my own. These are tidbits (or large chunks) of great photography related info. WARNING: These can eat up some serious time. Best to read them while at your day job.

- Meta-Metadata: This article written by Marc Rochkind is for those of you that are serious about analyzing your images.

- Speaking of Marc, his attention to detail (as noted above) is just what you want in a software developer. Marc makes a slew of great, small apps for photographers like ImageIngester, ImageVerifier, and ImageReporter (the software referenced in the previous link). ImageIngester (I use the Pro version) is a critical part of my digital workflow. Check out his software site here.

- It must be Marc Rochkind week on the web... Got a question about backing up your data? (you are backing up everything, aren't you?) This article is for you. A great breakdown of all the threats to your data and how to manage them.

- This great post by Ed McCulloch (not related) will help you keep a positive outlook. Ed runs a great blog about the business of photography and is worth checking out.

- Leslie Burns Del-Acqua has just released here latest Manual over at Burns Auto Parts. Leslie is a presenter at the ASMP Strictly Business conference, and publishes monthly manuals for free to help you grow your photography business. Check it out, and while you're there make sure to find out why her business name is Burns Auto Parts...


Cheers, Josh
Copyright © 2008 Josh McCulloch.

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Canada's West Coast Card Series

As I alluded to in an earlier post, I have been working on a couple of big projects as of late, and one of them is a new greeting card series I am producing themed "Canada's West Coast". After nearly a year in various stages of concept and production, the cards are finally off to the printer this week...

The series of fine art cards features 24 of my best west coast landscapes, and were designed and produced by myself here in Victoria, BC. The cards are being professionally printed in Vancouver, BC on a high quality 50% recycled FSC certified paper. In addition, each card will have a hi-gloss laminate over the image and title and a matte varnish over the remainder of the card to produce a striking contrast in both colour and texture, making these the finest greeting cards available showcasing the beauty of Canada's West Coast. I am very excited about them.

Here are a few of the card covers for you to check out:









The back of each card will have a crop of the front image, along with 2 paragraphs of text about the image and the location where it was taken, as well as other interesting facts abut Canada's West Coast. Here is an example of the back of the Sheringham Point Lighthouse card shown above:



The cards are going to retail for $3.95, and will be available to retailers at wholesale prices. Anyone interested please contact me directly. While I already have a distribution plan, if any of you would like to suggest a good venue, I'm all ears! Please check out the full Canada's West Coast Card Collection here at joshmcculloch.com.


Cheers, Josh
Copyright © 2008 Josh McCulloch.

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ASMP's Strictly Business 2 Review

As I mentioned in my previous post Off to Los Angeles for ASMP's Strictly Business 2, I attended the SB2 conference last weekend in Torrance, California. Here I've put together a summary of the weekend's activities for y'all, and to share my thoughts about the conference.

After a rather boring plane ride (2 actually), I arrived at LAX Thursday evening around 6, and made my first stop the Apple Store in Manhattan Beach. I have never been to an Apple Store, so I made sure to visit one while in LA. Very cool. They had every mac model available in multiples to play with, including about 20 iPhones on display. As previously confessed, I am an Apple junkie, and have been wanting an iPhone ever since it was announced at MacWorld 2007. Along with a copy of Office 2008, I got my iPhone and headed for the Conference Hotel and some room service.

Friday morning I was up early and headed for registration. Though the conference doesn't officially begin until the Friday evening reception, some of the presenters are available for one-on-one 30-minute consultations on Friday at the rate of $75 each. I had booked 3 consultations, one each with John Harrington, Judy Herrmann, and Leslie Burns Del'Acqua. Being able to sit down for 30 minutes with each of these people and discuss just my business and the topics I wanted to discuss was worth the trip alone. Here is a quick breakdown of each discussion I had:

Judy Herrmann: Judy is the current president of ASMP, and a very talented and successful photographer to boot. We discussed general topics related to my business, such as general direction of my business, marketing options, goal setting, etc. Judy was my first consultation on Friday and our talk was a good starting point for the weekend.

John Harrington: John wrote "Best Business Practices for Photographers" (if you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend it), and is a guru on the subject of Business, especially as it relates to photography. In his book he shares, and encourages the use of his contract as a template to develop your own. Previous to owning his book, I had no contract (a big no-no), and John's book set me on the right path to getting my paperwork in order. I had a few questions regarding my contract, invoice and model releases that John was able to answer, and he also shared information from his experience to help me answer these, and some other questions that came up during our discussion.

Leslie Burns Del'Acqua: Leslie is a former Photographers Rep turned Photographers Consultant. She runs a very successful consulting business and is a great resource for marketing information related to photography. We had an in-depth look at my website from an Art Buyers/Editors POV, including ease of navigation, portfolio galleries, etc. As I do my own web development, I look at my website from my POV, not from the outside, and Leslie's input, though hard to hear (you're always sensitive about your own work), was very good advice. Look for some improvements to joshmcculloch.com in the near future as a result of Leslie's advice.

Friday evening brought the opening reception, and the first opportunity for attendees to meet each other. One of the biggest benefits to attending SB2 is the other photographers you meet there. The opening reception is a great icebreaker, and about 20 of us headed out for dinner after the reception.

Saturday was the official start to this two day conference, and was a long, info-packed day. Breakfast at 7, with the first presentation at 8. About 8 different presenters throughout the day covered topics including image licensing basics, copyright info, necessary paperwork, current digital topics including metadata, a discussion of UPDIG and PLUS, marketing yourself, and more. Different videos were shown throughout the day with interviews of other well-known photographers talking about the each of the subjects we were covering that day. Saturday's last presentation was an inspiring keynote by award-winning photographer Sean Kernan. Following Sean's presentation was an informal Q&A with all of the presenters, which was a great opportunity to ask questions and expand further on topics covered earlier in the day.

Saturday evening there was a reception hosted by Digital Railroad, and another good chance to network and meet other photographers. As I mentioned above, one of the most valuable benefits to attending SB2 is connecting with so many other talented photographers. The contacts I made there will last a lifetime, and will surely help my business in the form of information sharing, giving advice on jobs, contracts, pricing, and marketing, website link exchanges and more. This is something you cannot put a price on... After the reception, a few of us we were off to explore a great little restaurant in Redondo Beach, where I had a great dish called Poulet au Poivre.

Sunday was much more hands-on than Saturday, and began with a presentation and discussion about negotiating. Negotiating is one of those skills that takes much experience to learn, and that experience usually comes initially at the cost of lower creative and usage fees, copyright transfers, bad contracts, etc. Three groups of two presenters acted out typical scenarios for us, with one playing the role of the art buyer/editor, and the other as the photographer. It was great to see them challenge each other, and their responses. One thing I certainly took away from the negotiating was to understand that in a negotiation, at least one involving a client, is that the person you are negotiating against is not an enemy, or your competition, they are your counterpart, a partner in a deal that (generally speaking) both side want to work. Negotiating is a give and take, and each side needs to feel as though they are getting good value from a negotiation. In this type of negotiation, there are no winners and losers (negotiating the price of a vehicle on the other hand, is usually more adversarial in nature, with each side wanting to win).

After the negotiating demonstrations, we split into small groups of about a dozen and were given written examples of actual inquiries from buyers to act out. The person playing the buyers role was given the details, and the photographer had to work from what the buyer told them, and attempt to get as much information from the buyer as possible, including timeline, budget, rights desired, etc. This was a great opportunity to work on negotiating skills without the risk of giving away the farm or losing a client. Negotiating is a difficult skill to master, but I certainly feel more prepared now when a client calls.

After lunch on Sunday, we were given the choice of attending two of four different 90-minute workshops, based on what subject we were most interested in learning about. I chose the following two workshops:

John Harrington - Business Workflow to Bring You Profits In this workshop, we covered the need for clear estimates, writing good emails, delivering and billing for files, registering your copyright (which is a different situation for us canucks), building a stock file, managing finances, and nurturing clients. John is a master at business, and while I have read his book, and actively follow his blogs, I learned much from this workshop and have further refined my paperwork and general business workflow.

Blake Discher - Is Your Website Doing All It Can to Get You Work? While I handle all of my own web development, I am always looking for ways to improve, especially when it comes to SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I follow this stuff pretty carefully (see my post Website Basics for Photographers for more info), but I was able to glean lots of useful information from Blake's workshop that I plan to implement on my site. Plus, having over 200 photographers to network with means lots of link exchange potential...

So, that's it, a short wrap-up of SB2. My advice: If you are new to the business of photography, are just getting started, or wish to refocus your business, SB2 is for you. If you live in or near one of the conference cities, sign up right now. If you live somewhere that requires you to fly (like me), the cost can be significant, but the cost of not going, in my opinion, is much higher. I can see what I have learned at SB2 already beginning to make positive change in my business, and it's only been a week. Not bad. Now go sign up and better your business...

Check out SB2 on the ASMP website for yourself. Here are the upcoming SB2 dates and locations:

February 22-24: Atlanta
March 7-9: Philadelphia
April 11-13: Chicago


Cheers, Josh
Copyright © 2008 Josh McCulloch.

PS: I returned my iPhone, as it was Firmware 1.1.3, and as yet, not unlockable. Alas, the wait continues.

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Off to Los Angeles for ASMP's Strictly Business 2

Hi everyone,

I have been very busy as of late completing a few big projects, one of which I will be telling you all about next week. In the meantime, I'm off to LA tomorrow morning to attend the ASMP's Strictly Business 2 conference...

Here's the 411 about SB2 straight from ASMP (I love acronyms):

"Take control of your career. Attend the American Society of Media Photographers' weekend conference series Strictly Business 2. Learn to negotiate your prices and contracts. Get answers to your marketing questions. Prepare yourself to build a successful and sustainable business. Don't miss this rare opportunity to gain first-hand experience from the experts.

ASMP’s Strictly Business 2 is a weekend conference that will teach you real-world business skills and help you thrive in our highly competitive industry. SB2 brings you consultations, lectures, video presentations, a keynote address, workshops, hands-on negotiating training, and social gatherings to share and learn from your peers. This weekend will change the way you look at your business."

In addition to the conference, I have signed up for three 30-minute consultations with leading photographers, and photographers consultants to help me in some specific areas. I will be meeting with John Harrington to discuss contracts, forms and the logistics of running the business itself, Leslie Burns-Dell’Acqua to discuss my portfolio, and Judy Herrmann to talk about my marketing and business direction. I think these consultations will be invaluable.

I have been working hard this past year growing my business, and learning as much as I can, and I am hoping this conference will be another step in this direction. I'll make sure to post some details here about it when I return!

I'm also very excited to check out an Apple store while I'm in LA. Any of my readers from Canada want me to pick up an iPhone for you? :)

Cheers, Josh
Copyright © 2008 Josh McCulloch.

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