Our huge thanks to Mike  for asking us to be his guest.  We can’t wait!

And in the mean time, a little peek at our new name and logo :-)

“My question has to do with post processing. I was wondered what sharpening method you use, and your secret to getting nice glowy clear skin for your brides :)”

Last time, we tackled skin tones so now its time to address sharpening!  When we were first starting out, we use to get so frustrated that we couldn’t seem to get our images to look as sharp as the other photographers we admired.  We kept thinking that our equipment wasn’t good enough or that we just weren’t holding the camera steady enough when shooting to get our photos to look that sharp and cripsy.  Over time we discovered a few tricks of the trade that made a big difference in our images.

ONE: Shoot with back button focus

We won’t spend much time on this hear, because you can actually read all about this method in this post we did a while back.  To sum it up though, using the back button to set the focus and the shutter button to release the shutter trains you to think of each action as a separate step since they are no longer controlled by the same button: 1) focus & 2) shoot.  There are a ton of benefits to making this switch and one of the major ones is that it creates sharper images (once you get the hang of it.)

TWO: Add +15 to the clarity slider in Lightroom

We have a custom Lightroom preset that we apply to EVERY single image and all it does is add +15 on the clarity slider.  This slider is located at the bottom of the “Basic” edits in the Develop module.  The change is pretty subtle, but it does make a difference.  If you look at the before and after images below you’ll notice more definition in the details after the clarity has been increased – it’s especially noticeable around the eyes, face and hair in this particular image.

THREE: Sharpen AFTER you resize the image for how it will be displayed.

This one is ever so important.  Adding sharpening should always be the very LAST thing you do to an image.  If you plan to put the image on your blog, resize it to the pixel dimensions that you need FIRST and THEN sharpen it.  By doing this, you make the sharpening as effective as possible based on the pixels you have.  If you sharpen and then resize, you won’t see as much of an impact.  And here’s the biggest secret of all . . . we don’t use anything fancy to sharpen our photos.  It’s just the built in Photoshop Smart Sharpen filter.  If you have Photoshop, then you’ve already got it!

For full size images (for burning disks, printing or uploading to our proofing site), we have set up a custom Photoshop action that adds 100% Smart Sharpen to every image.  The beauty of creating this process to run as an action is that you can have your files ready to go (edited, resized, etc.) and then just batch the files using Photoshop to add Smart Sharp as the last step – Photoshop does the work and then you can go watch an episode of Glee :-)

As you can tell, we use actions (and presets) a lot.  Anything that you have to do to your photos repeatedly, SHOULD be an action.  It will help you use your time as effectively as possible.  You’re probably thinking, “This sounds pretty quick and easy. Do I really need an action for this?”  In our world, we regularly processing weddings with 800 images.  That means opening each image in photoshop, applying Smart Sharp, then saving and closing it.  It takes about 10 seconds per image.  That’s 8,000 seconds total which is equal to 133 minutes OR 2 hours and 13 minutes.  Who wouldn’t want to have an extra 2 hours and 13 minutes to do something other than sit in from of their computer?

Sorry for the detour – what can we say?  We’re passionate about actions. LOL! Back to the sharpening . . . when we get images ready for our blog, we add the border & our logo, resize the image and THEN run the Smart Sharpen filer at 75%.  And of course, all four steps are done with a single action.  Take a look at the difference.  The first image was NOT resized prior to sharpening and the second one was resized and THEN sharpened.  Much crispier!

As with so many things in the photo world, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.  (What a weird and gross expression, right?)  If you use another method that works for you, great! This is just what happens to work for us.

We’d love to hear from you guys so feel free to add any additional questions or comments in the comments section below or you can ask us stuff on our Formspring page by clicking here.

Hope this little tutorial has been helpful to you.  Have a great week everybody!

“My question has to do with post processing. I was wondered what sharpening method you use, and your secret to getting nice glowy clear skin for your brides :)”

Let’s start with skin tones – there is not a quick and easy answer for this one, but we’ll share a couple tips that may help.

ONE: Shoot in manual and exposure for your subject’s face.

Hands down, this is the most important thing in having your subjects look their very best.  A good exposure will make your subject’s face look soft and bright.  If you nail this while shooting, you wont even have to bother with a lot of post processing tricks.

TWO: Adjust the orange color slider in Lightroom.

We do 95% of our editing in Adobe Lightroom.  In the basic editing tools in the Develop module, there is a section for Color adjustment sliders.  For nearly every image we move the orange slider between 15-25 to the right (positive) side.  Since skin color generally contains orange tones, doing this will make the subject’s skin nice and bright without changing anything else about the image.  On occasion, we also adjust the red slider if the subject has more red tones in their skin.  It’s a small thing, but it makes a significant difference in giving your subject’s skin that nice, glowy look.  I”ve used this portrait of Lindsay from a recent senior session as an example.  In this case, her skin was well exposed already, so I just bumped the orange slider to 15 to add a nice glow.

To save us time in adjusting every image, we’ve created a custom preset that automatically sets the slider to 15 and we just apply this preset to every photo before we start doing anything else.  (This will also come in handy during the sharpening discussion by the way.)

THREE: Retouch with the Lightroom Brush tool OR Photoshop Healing brush.  Add the final finish with Totally Rad Pro Retouch.

For close up portraits, like the above shot of Lindsay, we retouch any blemishes, stray hairs, skin discoloration, etc.  We stick with the Lightroom brush tool in healing mode whenever possible.  Our ultimate goal is to open as FEW images in Photoshop as possible.  If the Lightroom brush tool just isn’t getting the job done, we’ll go into Photoshop and use the healing brush.  To put the final touch on a close up image, we use the Pro Retouch action from the Original Totally Rad Action set.  We don’t like our images to “look” retouched, but this action really does give the image a nice polished look if you turn the opacity of the retouch layer to about 30%.  It’s very easy to go overboard when it comes to retouching, so we really try to go easy but still make our bride’s look their very best.  Here’s the same shot of Lindsay after our final touch ups with the Photoshop healing brush and the Pro Retouch action.

Stay tuned for Part II in a few days as we share our secrets to crispy sharp images :-)  Feel free to leave any questions or comments in the comments section below.  And if you have other photography related questions for us, you can ask them HERE, on our Formspring page.

This little baby traveled to Seattle, Portland, San Francisco & Coronado Island with us these past few months.  And, due to a little incident with a can of spray on sun tan lotion in Coronado,  it will forever smell like vacation.  Mr. Speedroller, you’ve already become a fond friend :-)  We were able to pack pretty much everything we needed in this handy little bag, although I liked to have my camera body and a couple lenses on me at all times in case we needed to take a few mid-travel snaps here and there.

That’s where my ever so handy Kelly Moore Bag came in.  I’ve been using this little gray cutie as my primary camera bag for the last 6 months, but boy did it prove that it’s worth it’s weight in gold while traveling.  My absolute favorite feature is the convertible strap which allows you to wear it as a purse that just happens to hold an SLR camera.  Love, love, love it!  I carried this bag the entire time we were traveling, whether for sightseeing, visiting friends or a night on the town.  And of course, when it was time to shoot a session or wedding, I just popped on the other strap.  It’s attractive and fashionable like a regular purse while still meeting the needs of a photographer on the go.  Can’t say enough good things about it!

I’d be one happy camper if a red one of these showed up under our Christmas tree with my name on it :-)  Hint, hint.  A girl can never have too many great purses.

By the way, if you ever have questions for us about other photography related stuff (or non-photography related stuff actually), feel free to CLICK HERE and ask away!

We have learned a lot of things in the last 3 years that could totally help out someone else who’s trying getting a handle on things.  Now keep in mind, we’re not saying that all of the tools we use will work for everybody, they just happen to work for us.

First on our list of awesome Photo Biz tools . . .

ShootQ is an online studio management tool that’s designed to meet the needs of photographers.  We refer to ShootQ as our office manager cause it pretty much does all the work a real live office manager would do for us!  It contains our contact list, accounting information, client records and a ton more.  And the best part?  It’s all online so we can access it from anywhere, even our iPhones.  It’s an A-MA-ZING program and we were up to our ears in outlook folders, excel spreadsheets, file folders and lots and lots of paper before we had ShootQ.  Now we’re so much more organized and can lend a nice nod to the environment since our studio is almost entirely paperless :-)  Here are some of the features that we use the most:

Calendar Management & Appointment Scheduling

ShootQ syncs our personal and business calendars so we can have an easy snapshot of what we’ve got going on and what’s coming up.

When we need to set up a meeting with a client we can actually send them a meeting request by defining just a few easy fields.  Then the client can choose what date and time works the best for them.  It factors in any conflicts on our calendars and only allows them to choose from our available dates and times.  So much easier than trading dozens of emails back and forth just to schedule one meeting!

Email Templates

I love writing the same email over and over again, don’t you?  I THINK NOT!  ShootQ has made us a ton more efficient when it comes to keeping our inbox under control and streamlining our correspondence.  We just set up a bunch of templates and then do our emailing from within the ShootQ interface.  Every email is tracked and linked to the client or lead, which is extra nice with there being two of us.  This way we don’t both accidentally email someone about the same thing!  A simple click of a button now creates the email we used to retype every time.  After applying a template, you can still customize the message based on your relationship with the client or any specific questions they have.  Using a template is just a great way to avoid having to retype all the standard info over and over again.  The templates can even be designed to fill in the name of the client and other important details for you :-)  ShootQ takes such good care of us (sigh).

Lead Management

When ever someone inquires about our services through our website or blog, the ShootQ contact form automatically sets up a lead profile with all the wedding/session details and alerts us via email so we can go check it out and respond to them.

The lead tracking section of the site allows us to categorize each lead, track our correspondence and set up reminders to follow up with them after a certain amount of time has past.  Easy peasy :-)

Shoot Details

Once a client books us, their lead profile is converted into a client profile where all the information for their wedding/session can be kept in one place.  Contact info, notes and correspondence, workflow tasks, package and billing information and even other vendors related to their shoot can all be accessed from one easy place.  There’s A LOT of information to keep track of for every client and this flawless system makes it so easy to make sense of it all.

Client Sites, Surveys & Contracts

Every client gets there very own password protected client site where they can update information about their wedding, track the progress of their album, make payments and interact with us in a variety of ways.  The very first thing they do on this site is sign their contract & pay their deposit.  No more waiting for contracts or checks to come in the mail!  It’s all in one quick, easy, online process that’s super convenient for us and for our clients.

We also use the client sites to send surveys.  These surveys are an easy way for us to gather information for planning a couple’s engagement session or confirming all the logistical details, portrait list and schedule for the day of their wedding.  There’s even a handy feature that asks our wedding couples to enter the contact information for their other vendors.  When they do, it’s automatically entered into our ShootQ contact list, making it really easy for us to connect with their vendors before and after their wedding day.

Workflow (Task Management)

I’m a total checklist person – mostly because I’m naturally pretty forgetful!  The only way I’ve found to combat my forgetfulness is to be very organized.  Before the days of ShootQ we would spend hours creating tasks in Outlook for each of our shoots so we wouldn’t forget to do anything.  It was horribly tedious, difficult to share between both Ryan & I and a huge waste of valuable time.  ShootQ allows you to create workflow templates with all the typical tasks related to every shoot.  We have one for portrait sessions, weddings, engagement sessions, album production and a few others.  You define how many days/weeks/months, etc. a task should occur in relation to a shoot or booking date and ShootQ does the rest. During the process of booking a new client we apply the appropriate workflow and BAM!  All the tasks are created for us.  No muss, no fuss.  And every day when we log in, there is a lovely little preview of what needs to be done and what’s right around the corner so we never miss a beat :-)

Seriously, we don’t know how we were getting by before investing in ShootQ.  It has made our business better in a thousand ways.  We’re more professional, more organized and can provide much better customer service to our clients because of it.  And for us, it’s worth every single penny.  Now in case you’re wondering, ShootQ didn’t ask us to write this post.  I’m sure they don’t even know about it, but we feel so strongly about what they’ve done to help our business grow, that we felt inspired to share it with you.  We highly encourage you to check them out – just click the link below and take a tour!

If you have questions about how we use ShootQ feel free to leave us a comment or email us.  Or if you have another photography related question you can ask us over at our Formspring page. Thanks for reading and we really hope that you found the information helpful!

By separating the act of focusing with taking the actual photo (shutter release), it allows you to choose your focus point, lock it in, and have the ability to recompose your image without refocusing. For all you Nikon users out there, here’s how you can set it up in camera because unfortunately it is not the default setting. These settings should be pretty much the same on the D300 & D700 and possibly the D3 model.

Separate Your Focus & Shutter:

Step 1: Go into your custom settings menu

Step 2: Select A (autofocus)

Step 3: Select A5 (AF Activation)

Step 4: Choose AF-ON only

Now, you can use your AF-ON button to set your focus and the shutter button will only release the shutter. Once your focus is set you can release the AF-ON button and reframe the shot. By separating those two functions, it allows you to be more creative and think outside the box when it comes to composing your images. It also, helps in getting the sharpest possible photos.

Lock Your Center Focus Point:

We also used to manage our focus location by moving the focus points all around with the dial. When your camera has 51 focus points, this method is slow and frustrating. Once we started shooting with back button focus, we locked the focus in the center by turning the lock focus dial to the L position and never touched it again. This part of the set up isn’t required to use back button focus but we have found that it works well for us and simplfies the process even more.

Now you can simply put the subject in the center, lock in the focus, release the button and have the freedom to recompose them in the frame. If any of our fellow “Nikonians” have any other questions about this, feel free to leave us a comment or send us an email. Hope this has been helpful!

NOTE: Based on the comments below, we thought it may be helpful to add a quick note about a few common questions:

1) If you’ve set all of your camera settings as we’ve described above, but you can’t release your shutter, try changing your Focus Priority Selection (Custom Settings, Autofocus).  If it’s set to focus priority you will probably have some issues getting things to work right.

2) Using back button focus does take a little practice.  If you’re images are turning out soft when you release the AF-On button, you may be inadvertently changing the distance between you and your subject.  You can only recompose the shot after locking in the focus – if you move too much (take a step forward, lean in closer, etc.) than your focus will need to be locked in again.  You have to be mindful of this at first, but knowing how much you can move does become second nature after using it for a while.

3)  BBF works in either AF-S or AF-C mode.  We shoot in AF-S because we feel like this setting produces more consistent results, but others have said the same about AF-C.  We’d suggest that you try both and see what you’re more comfortable with.