Here in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s still the middle of winter and many of us are in “slow season” for wedding photography. However, (especially here in Southern California!) peak wedding photography season can sneak up on us very quickly!
So, right now is a perfect time to prepare and perfect your workflow for the coming year, so that it is safe, efficient, and easy. This can be a daunting task, especially for wedding & event photographers, or any portrait photographer who does high volumes of work.
How do you manage all of those photos, week after week, month after month? It’s very important to have a system, and stick to it, day in and day out.
Zoner Photo Studio X | Manager Module Tutorial
Above all else, your workflow needs some sort of management system. There are two aspects to this, the software itself, and your own personal process of how you use it. Today, we’re going to be going over how we use Zoner Photo Studio X (ZPS X) and its Manager Module to keep our workflow running smoothly.
Personally, one of the things that I really like about ZPS X is, it’s BOTH a catalog system and a direct file browser. This means that you can use the catalog system to organize your photos, which comes with many benefits such as loading speed, keywording, ranking/flagging, (culling) and having multiple collections of your images without having to actually move them around on your computer hard drive.
However, if you want to simply browse your computer’s “actual” folders directly, you can also do that any time you want!
Truly, this is the best of both worlds. For wedding and event photographers in particular, having an efficient, streamlined, fast workflow is absolutely essential. You’re going to be capturing thousands of photos almost every single weekend! Then, you’ll have to download, backup, import, cull, color-correct, retouch, export, and deliver hundreds or thousands of final images to your clients. Can you do this in a timely manner?
If you even hesitate to answer this question, you need to read this article, and gain a full mastery of the ZPS X Manager Module. Today’s tips will help you keep your images safe, organize them however you want, and then cull & edit them as swiftly as possible! With that said, let’s dive in…
Download & Backup: Choose An Import Process That Works For You
Everybody’s brain works a little differently, so this tip can be a bit subjective. The important thing is not that you follow our advice exactly, but that you find what makes sense for you, and is a process where you are the least likely to either forget a step, or (heaven forbid) make a mistake.
With that in mind, there are two main ways you can get your photos off a camera and onto a computer. You can either manually transfer them using Windows Explorer, or you can use the “Import” tool in the ZPS X Catalog section of the Manager Module.
I’m oldschool; I actually like to manually transfer all the data from my memory cards to a specific folder on my computer, and then manually perform an external backup, too. I like being able to compare the two (or or more) folders and see very clearly that the number of files, and total gigabytes, match perfectly. Only then do I feel comfortable formatting my memory cards!
However, the advantage of using the Catalog “Import” tool is that it saves you a bit of time. You’re going to do it eventually, anyways, so now you don’t have to jump between two different applications. You can get roughly the same reassurance that all your photos are, in fact, safely on your computer once the import process is complete.
Creating A Catalog VS Directly Browsing “This PC”
Our primary recommendation is, indeed, sooner or later you will import your photos into a ZPS X Catalog. Doing this offers quite a few advantages:
- You can keep track of all your images, even if some of them eventually get archived on an external hard drive and aren’t on your main computer (fast SSD) hard drive anymore.
- You can take advantage of high-speed culling tools, namely the “Smart Raw” feature in ZPS X which allows you to cull and then edit your images very, very quickly!
As we mentioned in the introduction, we really do appreciate that ZPS X offers direct file browsing. Even if we don’t use it as often, it’s still very useful in some situations.
With that being said, as you import new images into your catalog, we do strongly recommend using the “Smart Raw” tool, and just letting your computer generate those special previews before you begin your editing process.
Once the download process is complete, you should do a quick double-check to see exactly where on your computer the original image files are. We recommend NOT just “dumping” all your photos from multiple jobs into one giant folder; it’s very wise to create actual folders for each job/client, and then have additional sub-folders inside to separate your original raws from your exported JPGs, etc.
Keep Culling Simple & Clean
Now that you have your photos safely on your computer, (and also on a backup device or cloud!) …you’re ready to start culling them! In ZPS X, you have a full assortment of options, including a star ranking system, a color label system, and a simple “keeper” flagging system.
Honestly? Don’t over-complicate it! Keep the culling process as simple as you can. With nine color labels and six star rankings, (zero is a number too) …things could get out of control very quickly. We actually never use more than just two or three number ratings, and maybe three or four color labels. Here is an example:
- 1 star = keeper, 0 stars = reject
- 5-star = keeper, also portfolio / blog / social media
- Red label = un-edited keeper
- Yellow label = color-corrected, but needs advanced editing
- Green label = fully edited, ready to export!
Of course, you might choose a system that is slightly more complex, or slightly less. Just find what suits your needs and is a good balance that keeps your time management efficient. This aspect of the workflow is subjective, and Zoner offers more than enough flexibility for everyone.
Eliminate Distractions | Use the “Viewer” or “Full View”
I don’t know about you, but for me, I’ve noticed that even a hint of ADHD behavior can easily creep into a culling workflow and cause repeated distraction. So, one of the best tips I have found to eliminate distractions is to simplify what you’re looking at. Here are some suggestions that will allow you to work productively for an extended time:
- Close all other windows and tabs on your computer. Bonus: you’ll give ZPS X more CPU/RAM resources, anyways!
- Put your phone down, face down, OUT OF REACH! Set a timer, and don’t touch your phone until that timer goes off in 30, 60, or 90 minutes.
- Simplify the visual interface of ZPS X using “Viewer” or “Full View”. When culling, you have two main options in Zoner Photo Studio X that can help you dramatically reduce distractions compared to the main “Browser” or “Preview” interfaces:
- With the new “Viewer” interface, you get a clean, simple, full-screen view of your images. Also, any time you need to see the filmstrip along the bottom, or the tool panels on the left or right, you can bring those up simply by moving your cursor to those edges of your computer screen! This is yet another “best of both worlds” offering from ZPS X.
- With the traditional “Full View” mode, (hotkey F3) you can quickly access the clean, one-at-a-time image viewer, but you won’t get quick access to editing in the Develop / Editor modules. (You can still display image data in the upper left corner, by the way, and you have a few tool options that auto-appear near the bottom of the image.)
- De-Clutter The Manager Module To Your Taste. This will be different for everyone, but it’s important to note that whenever you’re using the Browser or Preview sections of the Manager (or Develop) Module, you can “clean up” the interface a little bit here and there.
For example, you can quickly use the F6 hotkey to hide/show the left-hand organization panel, or F8 to hide/show the right-hand adjustments panel.
Also, you can hide or reveal any of the tabs you don’t use, such as the computer’s Network or “OneDrive” on the left panel, or a particular category/tab of adjustments on the right panel.
Use Filters & Keywords While Culling & Color-Correcting
Okay, so, the stage is set for your workflow to begin! The next tip is very important: Use a balance of tools to organize your images in a way that makes sense to you, and allows you to perform subsequent tasks rapidly, too.
For example, you can use the filter system to look through the images from one camera (bride prep) separately from another camera. (Groom prep? Ceremony details?) Or, you can use filters to cull low-light images (with a high ISO) separately from others. This becomes more important later, when you’re applying things like noise reduction, or correcting for subtle color shifts in a particularly difficult indoor lighting situation.
Aside from using the filter system, you can also create keywords for your images, to further speed up the editing process later. We’ll talk more about this next: it can be extremely helpful to keyword your bride/groom prep images, wedding detail images, portraits, candids, etc!
However, a word of caution: don’t overdo it! Find a balance that works for your particular type of photography. In our experience, we might use the filter system just 2-3 different ways, and create 6-12 different keywords, while culling and then color-correcting.
Use Presets To Set Your Baseline
Simply put, you should virtually eliminate the number of times you find yourself applying the exact same edit to multiple images in a row. If the next five or ten images you’re color-correcting all look like they could use roughly the same “bump” to your exposure or white balance, then select them all, and apply that edit just once.
The ultimate method to drastically reduce repetitive tasks is to create some presets. There are many different ways to go about this, but we recommend creating different presets for all of the various types of images you might capture.
For example, on a wedding day, you could have a preset for your detail photos, a preset for your bridal portraits, a preset for miscellaneous candid images, …and likely at least a dozen more!
Alternatively, another editing “secret” that we have poured thousands of hours of testing into at our own studio is to organize images by their lighting conditions, and create presets for each of those categories. For example, maybe you capture some portraits in harsh sun, but you capture other portraits in very soft, flattering light. You’re definitely going to edit those two types of images differently, so, create presets for each common lighting scenario.
Take Advantage Of Batch Editing Tools
There are many other ways in which batch editing can help you streamline your workflow. Even after the whole above process has been completed, (we call it a “first pass”) …you should go back through your whole set of images, (probably in the “Browser” Manager Module) …and reapply the same tactics:
Do you see a handful of images with white balance that’s a bit too warm/cool? Tweak them as a batch.
Need to double-check the noise reduction and sharpening for all of your ISO 3200+ images? Do it as a batch.
Only Go “Advanced” On A Few 5-Stars
Last but not least: are there any images that actually require high-end retouching or other advanced editing techniques? Save these edits for last, using either a color label such as Red, or a star rating such as 5-star. Then, take those images into the Editor module, (or Photoshop etc, if necessary) for whatever is necessary.
Our own general rule is, if it’s going to result in a new file being saved, such as a TIF or DNG file, then save it for later! Don’t interrupt the “flow” of your workflow! NOTE: we usually keep this to a minimum of 2-20 images per 100-1000 images delivered.
Oppositely, if you’re performing color-correction and there is a minor local adjustment that needs to be applied to the raw file without breaking the streamlined workflow process, go ahead and do that. Just don’t get too carried away with brushes and gradients; it’s usually not necessary to do local adjustments to more than 10-20% of your total delivered images.
Conclusion | Zoner Photo Studio X ManAger Module Tips
Having such a versatile, customizable Manager Module is one of the many things that makes us happy to use ZPS X for our own editing, both personal and professional, even! It’s super convenient to be able to browse all the folders on your hard drive. It’s also increasingly effortless to cull and edit photos, the more you dive into the Manager Module itself, and the specific panel tools such as the “Viewer” interface. For more information about the latest version of Zoner Photo Studio X, be sure to check out the latest news here! You can also get right into a 1-week trial without any worries.
