Delivery and workflow

Learning goal

You will be able to deliver the thousands of frames that come out of a wedding or a large event, within the time you gave in the contract, as a selected, edited and well-organized gallery. You will draw up a schedule that divides the delivery period into days and decide in advance each day's job: backing up, culling, batch editing, checking and uploading. To make the wait easier for the couple and the family, you will share a few frames within days. You will divide the gallery into sections following the flow of the day, so the family can find frames easily. You will check in every section how batch editing affects faces of different skin tones, and decide together with the family who can see the gallery and who can download it, especially for children's photos.

The question

As the cards are transferred to the computer, the counter keeps climbing and the wedding folder alone passes two thousand. A message on the phone from the tea stall's owner: "The relatives are asking, when can we see the frames?" The contract says two weeks. Your friend opens the folder and looks at thousands of small frames; they don't know where to start. Even if they looked at each frame for a minute, days would pass. How do you deliver 2000 photos in two weeks, and without keeping the family waiting?

Context

You worked on going through a shoot's frames in rounds and sorting them with reject flags and stars in the culling lesson (Lesson 17.3), and on saving an edit as a preset and applying it to many frames together in the batch editing lesson (Lesson 17.8). In the delivery lesson, too, you built step by step how to deliver a job with an online gallery, a delivery note and a quality stop (Lesson 28.8).

A wedding's delivery brings these skills together at a large volume and without keeping a family waiting. The frames that come out of a wedding are many times those of a portrait shoot, and the family wants to see that day's memories as soon as possible. That is why delivery isn't a job that starts at random after the shoot, but a process planned before it. This lesson, as the last lesson of this track, draws the path that stretches from the wedding day to the day the gallery reaches the family.

Simple explanation

How are two weeks planned?

A delivery schedule is dividing the delivery period given in the contract into days and deciding each day's job in advance. For example, a two-week period can be divided like this: on the wedding night, backing up the cards; the first days, culling; then batch editing and fine-tuning section by section; then checking and uploading; and the last days a buffer against setbacks. The schedule is written before the wedding and no other jobs are put on the days after the wedding. If two events were shot in the same week, the schedule makes clear which job is delivered first.

Culling is the most time-consuming part of the workflow, and it speeds up with rounds. First, blurred frames, frames with closed eyes and repeating frames are set aside with the reject flag; then the strongest frame for each moment is chosen. At a wedding, of similar frames, for example ten ring frames shot in a row, only the best one or two remain. Two thousand frames often come down this way to a few hundred; this is a number the family won't tire of looking at, but in which no important moment is missing.

How do you keep the family from waiting?

A sneak peek is a few selected frames sent to the couple and the family a few days after the wedding, before delivery. Two weeks is a long time for a family; relatives ask, the couple is curious. Five or ten strong frames, for example the rings being put on, a frame of the couple in the garden and the grandmother's frame with the bride, make this wait easier and increase the family's trust in the photographer. The frames in the sneak peek are fully edited so they will also appear in the final gallery.

A gallery section is the gallery being divided into sections following the flow of the day: from the morning's preparation to the ceremony, from the family frames to the couple's minutes in the garden and the night's celebration. The family sees two hundred frames not as a single long list, but in the order of the day and section by section; someone looking for the grandmother's frame finds it in the family groups section. Sections also make editing easier: frames shot in the same place and in the same light are edited together.

Batch editing is done section by section, and the faces are checked in each section. A setting built for the bride's face can change the faces of guests of different skin tones in the same section: it can darken a dark skin, or turn a purplish hall light pink on a light skin. At the end of each section, a few faces of different skin tones are enlarged and, if needed, a separate correction is made to those frames alone.

Who is the gallery opened to?

Gallery privacy is deciding together with the family who can see an online gallery, who can download it and how long the link will stay open. A wedding gallery can be opened only to the couple, to the family or to all the guests; a password, download permission and a link duration are chosen. A separate decision is made for children's photos, moments when photos weren't wanted and family frames; some frames can be put in a section only the couple can see. The delivery note clearly states how the gallery is to be used and until when it will stay open.

Privacy decisions are as much for everyone who appears in the frames as for the family. A guest may not want their frames to sit in a gallery open to everyone; when such a request comes, the frame is moved to a private section or removed from the gallery. A reminder is sent to the family before the gallery's open period ends; that way the link doesn't close before anyone has downloaded their frames.

Visual evidence

Your friend had been unable to deliver the frames of a cousin's engagement party for months. The cards had stayed in a drawer, the frames had been edited at random, and in the end the family had received a thousand small frames in a single long list. The same ring was there ten times, the grandmother's frame couldn't be found.

This time, on the wedding night, they back up the cards to three places and open their schedule. The two days after the wedding are set aside for culling; they bring two thousand frames down to four hundred and eighty in rounds. Before the week is out, they prepare a ten-frame sneak peek and send it to the couple and the family; the tea stall's owner calls at once and thanks them.

In the following days they divide the frames into six sections following the order of the day. They apply a correction for the purple hall light to the civil ceremony section, then enlarge the dark-skinned faces of the groom and two guests; one face has stayed purplish, and they make a separate correction to it alone. After talking with the family, they open the gallery with a password and put the children's frames in a section open only to the family. The gallery reaches the family two days before the deadline; the buffer days were never touched.

Common mistakes

Summary

Delivering two thousand frames in two weeks is possible with a delivery schedule written before the wedding: the cards are backed up immediately, culling in rounds brings them down to a few hundred frames, a sneak peek within a few days eases the family's wait, and the gallery is divided into sections following the flow of the day and edited section by section. In each section, faces of different skin tones are checked, and who can see and download the gallery, especially for children's photos, is decided together with the family.

Mini assignment

This assignment is also the track's project: you will prepare a twenty-five-photo delivery gallery from an event.

1. For an event, family gathering or celebration you shot, write a five-day delivery schedule and bring the frames down to twenty-five by culling in rounds.
2. Divide the frames into sections following the flow of the day, edit each section together, and enlarge and check a few faces of different skin tones.
3. Prepare the gallery as a password-protected online gallery or a shared folder, decide together with the event's host who can see and download it, and write a short delivery note.

Check yourself

• Did each day of your schedule have a job, and were you able to stick to the schedule?
• Can someone looking for a frame in the gallery find it easily thanks to the sections?
• After batch editing, is every skin in its own tone?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. When is the delivery schedule written?

• A) After the gallery is uploaded
• B) After the family complains
• C) Before the wedding
• D) Never, the work is done whenever there's time

2. What is the aim of a sneak peek?

• A) To ease the family's wait and increase trust
• B) To replace the gallery
• C) To skip culling
• D) To show unedited frames

3. What is the benefit of dividing the gallery into gallery sections?

• A) It makes the files smaller
• B) The family sees the frames in the order of the day and easily finds what they are looking for
• C) It makes the frames sharper
• D) It lengthens the delivery period

4. After batch editing, what is checked in each section?

• A) The file names
• B) The gallery password
• C) The number of cards
• D) Whether faces of different skin tones have stayed in their own tone

Answers

1. C — If the schedule is written in advance, the days after the wedding don't fill up with other jobs.
2. A — A few strong frames ease the two-week wait.
3. B — Sections bring order both to the family and to the editing.
4. D — A batch setting built for one face can change other skin tones.

Summary card

• Delivery schedule before the wedding: backup, culling, editing, checking, uploading, buffer.
• Culling in rounds: from two thousand down to a few hundred.
• A sneak peek within a few days.
• Gallery section by section: preparation, ceremony, family, couple, celebration.
• In each section, enlarge and check faces of different skin tones.
• Privacy with the family: password, downloads, duration, children.

Bridge to the next lesson

The gallery has reached the family; and the wedding and events track closes here: from preparation to delivery, the responsibility of days that never repeat. After sending the gallery, your friend goes out into the street early in the morning. This time there is no contract, no list and no family. A simit seller is setting up their stall, a cat is dozing in front of a shop window, a woman is lowering a basket from a balcony. No one is posing, nothing is planned. The next lesson opens the Street and Documentary track: it asks how unstaged, instant and real moments turn into a photograph.