Comments on: digital workflow: final files, final installment

By: Jim Talkington

Jim Talkington — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:54:34 +0000

I’ve definitely always saved TIFFs without any compression. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever even tried the LZW compression, always ignoring the little check box that kindly asks.

Jason, that’s an interesting idea about keeping the client out of post production as part of the contract. I’m sure that photographers selling a very distinctive, individual style probably do build that terminology in, it makes perfect sense. We used to have that situation more but now the art directors seem so darn busy they do most everything by email, too busy to spend time “pushing pixels”. We’re not complaining.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:45:14 +0000

Well, since I de-lurked, may as well continue, even though this may be an obvious question to most – I am assuming when you speak of TIFF’s, that you are using lossless TIFF files, right?

As to client back-seat driving, I’ve often heard of some pros that spell out who is allowed in post production and who isn’t under the verbiage of the contract. Anyone here do that?

By: Jim Talkington

Jim Talkington — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:31:00 +0000

It’s not often we have the client in while working on files. In this case, though, they were searching for a new style and wanted to be “hands on”. Once we find the style they’re looking for they generally leave us to do our job on later images.

Mark, you really hit on something there about the client thinking things are easy because you’re good at what you do. I handed my camera to a really difficult art director once and walked away to talk to the end-client. I told him I wasn’t sure what he wanted so would he please show me. After five minutes I was back in control. Believe me, that’s not in my nature but I was provoked.

As for maintaining cool, Bob is the essence of cool in front of the client. But we’ve certainly shared some rants with each other.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:17:59 +0000

Thanks for the great review of workflow. I can see real benefits to your process I have often had to go back after losing an edited image and remember all the tweaks I did to create perfect it. (it was much worse before I learned about layers too!)

About having clients present while editing (especially if they are the ones paying the bills!) I HATE IT. They NEVER seem to value your skills and the better you are at your work the simpler you make it seem and the less they value you. So I end up arguing and nitpicking over bills and in in one case I ended up giving them the files, copy, line art and photos (prints) and saying “You do it on your machine with your software and your knowledge…. Goodbye!”.

Maybe Bob should teach us how to maintain our cool and how to deal with clients backseat driving. That would be useful!

Kind regards

By: Chad LaFarge

Chad LaFarge — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:49:12 +0000

I imagine having the client there can be good or terrible: instant feedback and being plugged directly into the change process really would deliver what they want, and give them a sense of ownership in the result… also I imagine you do a lot of silly pixel-by-pixel “corrections” that would otherwise be unnecessary.

By: Craig Lee

Craig Lee — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:01:48 +0000

Interesting. How often do you have a client sitting over your shoulder while you do the editting? I would have thought most of that would be handled via email or telephone.

By: Jim Talkington

Jim Talkington — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:04:13 +0000

It’s pretty sad, Matthew, that our clients aren’t all on board with color management. We work with designers whose monitors face large picture windows and they change the image on-screen to match what the weather is doing outside. There are stories.

In the old days we at least had a transparency that traveled with the job and the printer could see the photographer’s intent. The guide print pretty much serves that purpose.

By: Jim Talkington

Jim Talkington — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:56:35 +0000

You know, I had to remind myself of how we lit the above bathroom, Mike. 70% of it was probably existing light with just a little strobe fill (with CTO gel) bounced into the ceiling in the extreme corner to camera left. The biggest obstacle here is the glass door and shiny metal door frame. We do additional shots with available lights off and the strobe moved around so that every element appears clean in a capture. I’m sure we used a white card to reflect into the metal frame for a smooth highlight. Then the clean elements are assembled into the overall exposure in Photoshop. It’s really the easiest, most cost-effective way to handle a tiny area like this.

As for zip files, we’ve never had a problem with corruption during delivery (knock on wood). The really interesting thing is that we have had corruption problems with TIFF and PSD files when sending via FTP , but no reported problems with the zips. Go figure but that’s our experience. The zip files are also convenient, the images can all be downloaded as one file when zipped inside a folder. Sending individual files necessitates individual (multiple) downloads.

By: Matthew Botos

Matthew Botos — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:59:17 +0000

It’s interesting how the lack of widespread digital calibration means that a hardcopy print is still the standard reference.

I’d definitely like to hear about color management in a future post; particularly how it can improve final print, digital, and web products.

By: Mike C

Mike C — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:27:52 +0000

Oh, and another question. When you zip up the files for delivery, do they loose quality due to compression? I’ve always been wary of zipping my image files for the fear of image corruption.