Blogging workflow (blogger.com)

[ricardovaste]

<p>Not kidding, it took me around 3 hours last night to post one blog, it was traumatic. Just getting the photos in order and so that they fill the space correctly (640px wide) seems to be so painful. Halfway through I discovered you can upload 5 at a time (linking from my website using the url option) but then they juggle them around and completely out of order! The files are labeled correctly, so atleast I can identify the html codes.</p>

<p>If anyone else uses blogger and has some tips I would appreciate them!</p>

<p>My only thoughts is to cut down on the actual quantity perhaps, although I'd rather not too much as things could feel a bit "cut up". So workflow is really what I'm after, I'll break down how I've been doing it:</p>

<p>PS & Bridge:</p>

<ul>

<li>Re-size/sharpen photos to 640px wide</li>

<li>Drag to template, save as jpeg</li>

<li>Upload to website</li>

<li>Get each url and paste it onto blogger</li>

<li>Blogger multiple upload</li>

<li>Re-shuffle the mess blogger made</li>

<li>Preview and post</li>

</ul>

<p>FWIW my 5th Wedding, still learning obviously... http://www.rharris-images.net/2011/08/joe-louise-wedding-photography.html</p>

[fuccisphotos]

<p>A) If you don't have it already, get yourself lightroom or aperture. It will make your work flow MUCH faster in post and for blogging.</p>

<p>B) If you don't have lightroom, and refuse to get it, at least make a set of actions on photosho for your resizing and sharpening and saving as a jpg.</p>

<p>C) If you are going to continue doing wedding photography and a blog, and time = money, I would suggest you plunk down the extra $200-$300 bucks and get pro photo blog. It made things SOOOOOOOOO much faster for me. It doesn't have those issues with reshuffling, etc. It can do A TON of photo uploads at one time directly through the site, so you don't have to upload to your website and then do a second URL to paste it onto blogger. Also the look is just very clean.<br>

D) I'm of the opinion that the blog should tell the story of the day, but it should also exhibit your best work of the day. Right now I'd say you have way too many photos up there. Some are great, but they are hidden amongst some more mediocre shots. Those other shots aren't bad, just I wouldn't be putting them on display. And some I just wonder why put it up at all, like the one of the ivy on the side of the pew. If it was a spectacular bouquet, maybe, but to me it just looks a little sad. Don't get me wrong, at my own wedding I didn't have much on the pews/chairs. Just the slightest bit of greenery. But my photographer also didn't prominently post a photo of it. The shadows on the wall? Why take this shot? If it was a crisp silhouette shadow of the bride and groom, maybe, but otherwise I'd chuck it. Same with the coffee table and pink sweater. Just ask yourself, would anyone ever want to print this? If the answer is no, then you shouldn't be taking the shot, and definitely not want to put it on your blog. Your food shots are fabu though. I would include those. Cake shot and flower shot and room shot great. Basket and glasses, no. Did they play bocci ball at the wedding? If not, then I'd get rid of that one. I'd also suggest writing more. I know you are a photographer, and you want the photos to speak for themselves, but it is nice to have a bit more descriptions. A good rule of thumb is to start out with only a few photos. Say limit yourself to 10 or 20. Go through the day in either Lightroom or Bridge, and look at your shots and look for ones that</p>

<p>1) Make the bride and groom look as attractive as possible since they will probably be sharing this link with their friends</p>

<p>2) Are photographically superb i.e. good composition, well lit, not too grainy</p>

<p>3) If there were any special events or elements that were special to this particular wedding, a tradition, etc, show shots of that. </p>

<p>I tend to mark the ones I think are highlight worthy in red, and of those in red, I put a 5 star rating on it if I think it should go in the blog. If after you do this, you find you have more than 10 shots, really look at them critically. Have your friends look at them. They are more likely to be like your potential clients than other photographers. See what they say as, WOW photos. Limit it to just those wow photos. If you still have more than 10, that's fine, but keep it under 20 for the first few months. Hope that helps!</p>

 

[ricardovaste]

<p>Thanks for your thoughts Vail.<br /><br />Regarding the actual photos, in short: this is what they wanted. Won't go into details, as that's not what I was trying to address here, but we talked at length about what they wanted so I haven't taken a random stab at it here. As for only showing the "best", that's not something I'm in to. I like to show what I deliver, and not every photo will 'blow you away', but what people seem to appreciate is more the story I try to show, rather than simply posting the "best" from the day and missing chunks in between. If I was putting a wedding portfolio together I might pick out the "best" items, but in this case I prefer to represent what people would get in a more honest fashion.<br /><br />As for the quantity, I'm still not sure. 10-20 sounds low. The blogs that I admire have far more than that and give a really good impression of the entire day. <br /><br />Regarding a "pro photo blog", can you link/suggest any here? I'm unfamiliar.<br /><br />As for the actual process: I have actions with cs4/5 & bridge. Can you explain if lightroom has any advantages here, specifically for what I'm doing?</p>

[green_photog]

<p>I use LR3 and for landscape photos, I just export them with 640px long side. The portrait ones, I have a template setup to do 2 into 1 landscape. I upload them to Google Picasa Web Album and then I paste them to the blog manually in the order I wanted them to be in.<br>

Total time to post a 20 pic blog is about 20 minutes but 15 minutes is actually upload time.</p>

[lachaine]

<p>I don't like blogger for the exact reasons you described. I like tumblr better for photo blogs, to be honest. You have so much more flexibility in choosing from an infinite number of free templates designed specifically for photos... some of which effectively resize images to a decent, uniform blog display size... and let the reader click on it to get the larger size. I know anything can be done with html, but I take pictures... I don't design websites.</p>

[lindsay_dobson]

<p>Richard, Google 'ProPhoto Theme for Wordpress'. That is what Vail is referring to. I use it, it makes everything painless.</p>

 

[fuccisphotos]

<p>I too put up more photos than that, just when you are starting out and you only have so many shots for people to be viewing your stuff, you want to put your best foot forward. I still think showing shots that support the story of the day is important though. I guess just some of the images, like the empty table, or the bocci balls (again, only if they didn't play bocci ball, if they did I would totally leave it in). I'm also not saying to stop taking these types of shots. I think they can really be great in albums to paint the picture of the day. I'm just not sure putting them up on your blog is the best for you. But that's IMHO. =)<br>

For pro photo blogs: http://www.prophotoblogs.com/<br>

If you like their stuff, look for a coupon code online beforehand. I think it makes it about $100 cheaper.</p>

<p>For lightroom vs cs4/5 and bridge, for blogging specifically, here is a the slight advantage. In lightroom you can just select the specific images you want and then click on export, and then from there specify the pixel width, the sharpening amounts, and even keywords (which is great for SEO). Then it just exports it to a folder on my computer. I'm betting there is probably even a way to upload it straight online with a plug-in (I use one for zenfolio that basically does the same thing). I upload those images straight into pro photo blogs, which then maintains the order I had the images in either by date or by file name. </p>

<p>For overall post processing, Lightroom makes my life SOOOOOOOOOOO much better. It basically takes the benefits of photoshop and bridge and puts them into one. It allows you to categorize things really well. Also it doesn't change your original files at all. It just adds on layers of edits, etc, but doesn't make enormous file sizes like a psd file with layers. If you are shooting in RAW (which you should be at weddings!), it just makes your work flow SOOOOOOOOOO much faster. The only thing I tend to use photoshop for now is it's way better cloning tool, liquify filter, and using the unsharp mask + quick mask mode to sharpen key features like eye lashes, etc, on photos that go in the highlights reel that I think are likely to get printed.</p>

<p> </p>

[micah_robinson]

<p>I have to agree with Vail that you should refocus the post a bit more and trim some of the "fat" off so to speak.<br>

It's one thing to show a lot of photos to your client... However people looking for a photographer want to see your best work and if they like what they see then show them a full album (in person) from a wedding so they get a idea of what they can expect.</p>

<p>FYI; your post say's "Joe & Louise were so relaxed a fun to work with, I think the photos show how happy they are together :)"<br>

When I think you probably meant to say "Joe & Louise were so relaxed <strong>and</strong> fun to work with, I think the photos show how happy they are together :)"<br>

I would also consider rewriting this.<br>

It sounds, to me, like you forcing it.<br>

It should convey their love and yet not try to sell it.<br>

But that's just me.</p>

<p>As for your question... I use WordPress and have never used blogger so I can't really help you with that.<br>

But I do rec. WordPress.</p>

[ricardovaste]

<p>@Vail: I hope that didn't come across the wrong way before - I was just hoping to focus on the blogging workflow for now, but I do thank you and I am greatful for your more general feedback :-)<br />@Micah: Similarly, thank you for your feedback, that is appreciated.<br /><br />Now, I am left rather frustrated. You see I only started the blog a few months ago, and I initially went to wordpress as it had been recommended by a fellow photographer, but I couldn't get it to work properly on my computer so I just gave up and went for blogger as it seemed very simple. I had it working in a few minutes, but now I wish I'd tried to sort out the initial problem... anyway, you live and learn as they say...<br /><br />I think I will have to try and re-assess the way I do things, how must I post, and really knuckle down a workflow with my current set up. For example, I only have actions for some elements, not all. But in reality, CS5/Bridge is not what is slowing me down, that's actually working pretty smoothly, it's just getting them from there and onto a blog which is the slow bit. So I may have to look for another solution. Currently, it's smugmug>blogger. I have to paste each link after manually selecting each photo on smugmug as well, so that's another issue even if I do get rid of blogger. I will have to re-assess the entire process I think, as I really can't repeat what I did last time around! I haven't been happy with smugmug for years now, but have been waiting until I have a thicker (ie existent) portfolio until I consider "investing" in something more appropriate. Perhaps I should take time to consider that as well, as I know some people use wordpress as their main site these days.<br /><br />Eitherway, I will try to assess all my options before making any knee-jerk reactions (to the blogging trauma...)</p>

[micah_robinson]

<p>Youtube is your friend on figuring out how to use WordPress.<br>

Just search things like "photo wordpress" and "build wordpress"<br>

You can try searching these things out for blogger if you want to keep it.</p>

<p>The way I use WordPress is on my own domain.<br>

You install WordPress on your domain and work on it on the internet.<br>

You don't install anything on your computer.</p>

[fuccisphotos]

Richard, no worries ;) as for word press, that is what pro photo blog works with. It is actually just a really advanced

theme with reliable plug-ins that make life easier for those of us who don't speak HTML as well as we do English. I

understand basic HTML tags, and CSS etc. But I am not a pro on that by a long shot. I first tried about a zillion free

plug ins with moderate success. Then I looked into the blogs I liked and their source code. Time and again pro photo

blogs kept coming up. I asked people on this forum if it was worth the money. I can tell you now it was worth every

penny and more. The SEO it provides is soooooo superior to what I ad going for me before. I write a blog post and

within minutes it pops up on google search results. The time it saves me from back with the free plug in days is

incredible. I used to spend HOURS on each post. Now the only thing that takes time is writing the post and choosing

the shots I want to put up. The upload time is less than a minute usually. I can't say enough good things about it

frankly. :)

[melissapapajphotography]

<p>Okay guys, now you have sold me on a new blog :) I still use good old fashion blogger and have found it to be a HUGE pain most of the time, but wondered if it really was worth the investment. Vail - the other question I have is how much do you have to oversaturate/sharpen your pictures beforehand? I do that both for Facebook and blogger because Facebook sucks in the quality too :) Also, Richard, in response to your question, if you decide to stay with blogger, I have found that if you start from the top of the upload page - putting in the very last file going backwards, your photos will be in order. As for resizing pics so they are big on the blog - I have found no other easier way than to resize them in html each individually. I would be more than happy to chat with you (you can call me) about how I do it - even though it is still a PIA :)<br>

You can view my blogger blog here: <a href="http://www.melissapapajphotography.blogspot.com">http://www.melissapapajphotography.blogspot.com</a><br>

Seriously, I think I am going to look into getting a new blog though :)</p>