Action Sports Cartel

How do you all post process? As in, what does your workflow look like and how long does it take? I am looking for ideas to be a bit faster, since time is money.

Also, what ways do you all use to correct whitebalance and skin tone issues? Do you use levels or go with curves, etc?

I am just getting ideas and figure they could also help others by showing different methods.

When I have a little more time I will get into my workflow but in the meantime can you share with us what your workflow is?

I totally forgot to put mine in.

Mine is typically like this.-- create a dated job folder, import files to the folder along with the assignment sheet. I might start using the d300s video to make a short video of detailed job information that isn't in the assignment sheet.
Then I use nikonview to go through images and tag usable ones. (I havent used photomechanic) Once I have 3-4 shots, I go in photoshop and do my toning, D&B, sharpening along with the sizing and the file info for the assignment. Then I send them off to the paper.

In photoshop though, I have been correcting skintones usings a percentage method in cmyk. basically its C=1/2 to1/3 of M and Y is a few points higher. So basically your average white person is around 12, 30,35. That is typically how I correct. If the shot has no people, I just find a neutral and work from that.

For WB, I use an exybalance, which works ok. Generally, it gets shots very very close, sometimes I dont have to correct and colors, others I have to do some.

But, I am always tweaking stuff looking for better ways to get stuff done. I used to use curves for everything, but now I am going back to levels and doing my contrast increase/ D&B and sharpening all in LAB. I have been toying with hue and sat to get more pop without a boost in contrast (I use to do a S curve in RGB to boost color, which also tended to throw the color alittle and the contrast)

So that is what mine looks like at the moment.

I mainly get contracted for Press Conferences by the groups putting them on and sporting events so my workflow is quite different. You are shoot smaller number of images per assignment where i am shooting anywhere from 100 - 10000 images per event.

I recently decided to start working with the DNG raw file over my native Raw file because I am not a fan of side car files and I dont like relying on a catalog file to save my edit info. Check out this video to help explain what I mean. Of course this is for the Lightroom shooters out there.

Download it here: lightroomkillertips.com/2010/video-dng-and-auto-saving-changes/

I then import the new DNG files into Lightroom and am able to tag, keyword, edit metadata, edit etc from there. I use a RPG Keys keyboard to help edit fast in Lightroom! Fantastic product, expensive but its saves me hours of editing time.
www.RPGkeys.com

From there I tend to batch my sharpening action in CS3 or if its a basketball game I have a batch action with Noise Reduction and sharpening.

I use a plug-in called IOpener Pro that allows me to build special batch actions and render up to 8 different file types at the same time. For example when I shoot a basketball game I need to run my NR + Sharpen batch but from that I need Full Rez Jpegs, jpegs for sales gallery so it adds my water mark and resized jpegs for uploading to animoto to make a slideshow. This is done all at once, I just have to press play! Its also has a process at a later time feature where you can add as many jobs as you like and have it start at midnight when you are sleeping its working!

IOpener Pro is a PC only program but I know there is a similar solution for MAC I can't remember the name right now but if someone is interested I can locate it.

Its also great for portrait and commercial shooters as it has speed keys build in for fast ways to apply any action or group of actions with a simple click.

www.imagefire.com/Products.htm

Since you mentioned PhotoMechanics check out this workflow video by Zack Arias, it might help you as well. Its a full workflow demo over an hour in length but its worth checking out.
www.zarias.com/workflow-photo-mechanic-t...otoshop-to-delivery/

I hope this helps.

Kelly