Incorporating AI into your Pre-Outsourcing Workflow: From Ingesting SD Cards to Editor | Photography Business Coach
Welcome back to the blog. Today we're diving into the fast-paced and slightly overwhelming world of AI in the photography industry.
I know, loaded topic.
As someone who started out in 2008 when technology was about as basic as a flip phone, I've struggled to wrap my head around just how much AI has become part of our culture today.
I firmly believe that AI should be used as a tool, not a human replacement. We've got to maintain the integrity of the photography industry, right?
Over the past 4 years, I've been on a mission to find ways to integrate AI into my business without sacrificing what makes us unique. We've found some game-changing tools, specifically the AI Unicorn software, Aftershoot.
Aftershoot has revolutionized our pre-outsourcing workflow (aka from getting home from a shoot to outsourcing to our editing team for post-production). It's like having a personal assistant who deals with the first phase of base culling, color coding, and adding our base preset (but so much better than that!). Talk about a productivity boost! And the best part? Despite this AI magic, I've managed to keep my entire editing team employed.
Below, I am going to walk you through the exact steps you need to take to get started with Aftershoot. We'll cover how to keep and back up all your precious RAW files, stay digitally organized and maintain complete control over the final product. One important thing to note is that this workflow is based on having a separate Lightroom Catalog for each shoot. Please note this is based on having a separate LR Catalog for each shoot that you do. If this is totally new and overwhelming to you, I recommend watching the two intro videos I have linked below! Get ready to level up your post-production workflow :)
Incorporating AI into your Pre-Outsourcing Workflow: From Ingesting SD Cards to Editor
What you will need:
Computer
2 SD Card readers, plugged in. Multi-card readers can be very helpful! Recommendation
Aftershoot, installed and set! Here is a referral code with perks if you do not already have Aftershoot!
Lightroom, installed and set to prompt every time you open it with "select catalog" or "create new
1) The very first thing you want to do, is create your parent folders. Please see Module 1 Lesson for this, it explains everything. Master hard drive, year, shoot type, shoot name, with a raw folder inside.
Ex: Master Drive > 2023 > Wedding > Jack & Jill Wedding > Inside main folder is Jack_Jill_LR_Cat and a "RAW" folder
2) For those of you who shoot with two cameras you will need two card readers to streamline your workflow. For this process let's assume you have two SD cards, and for those of you who only have one you just use one. Open aftershoot, click new project insert your first SD card, and add the photos. In the lower right-hand corner click "Add More." Insert your second SD card and click Add Photos. At this point, Aftershoot, we'll build all of the metadata from the entire shoot.
3) Fine-tune your settings for culling, and click cull.
TIPS: I recommend "Medium" and customizing your custom labels and colors to align with your workflow. For example, in my business, yellow means preset applied and the red label means the images are done adn ready to deliver to the client so I have aftershoot label the highlights and top 25% red and yellow, and the duplicates green that I cull out immediately. Eyes closed are purple and "blurry" is blue which my culler gives a quick second pass in person.
4) When the project is complete (culling), you will see all of your custom colors auto-populate within the software. It defaults to only exporting the highlight images in aftershoot. However, we would never get rid of any of our raw files so we export all of the images into Lightroom directed to add the raw files into your parent folder that has already been created.
Make sure to select all (nothing is left behind) and click export. When Lightroom pops up as an option, double-click. Lightroom will open and prompt you to create a new catalog.
5) Create a new catalog just as you normally would. Direct it to your parent folder where it will live give it a title, and direct the raw images to drop into the RAW folder.
Shoots with 2photographers: Repeat this entire process with a second folder titled “2nd_Shooter_RAW” (it is critical that you keep your Raw files separate from an assistant’s)
6) Lightroom opens: Click "build smart previews" and choose your master develop preset to be applied.
7) Once all images are in Lightroom, you can reject the duplicates immediately (I label mine green). From there you can pick up your normal organizational workflow. Now you have a partially culled catalog with duplicates removed, and galleries created (i.e. part 1, part 2, part 3 of the shoot applied to your niche).
8) From there, follow the exact directions in my outsourcing guide to export the catalog, compress the previews and catalog, send via the cloud to your editing team to cull, create a highlights gallery in the quick collection (shortcut is B), and move on with your day!
TIP: When working with smart previews, make sure your catalog is set to backup every time Lightroom exits.
If you are brand new to this, I recommend watching an introduction video below on how to streakline your systems and get started!
Don’t stop here! Learn more about our resources for photographers here :)
