Sharing Your Shoot Live
Yes, You Can Share Your Shoot Live with Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime
SHUTTER SPEED: 1/100 sec | F-STOP: f/9 | ISO: 100 | FOCAL LENGTH: 90mm | MODEL: Aisslynn
So, why is it so important to us that others, including strangers we don’t even know, share our every thought, our every meal, and our every experience through social media? I’ll tell you why (and I may be the first person to accurately describe this psychological state in which seemingly random people are invited into your life on a daily basis to see what you’re having for breakfast). Of course, this isn’t reality because now what you’re having for breakfast has been altered by the fact that via Twitter and Facebook Live streaming, and Periscope, people from all over the world, who have so little to do that they’re going to tune in to watch what you’re having for breakfast, will now cast judgement on said breakfast. So, you can’t really have what you actually want for breakfast, which is Kellogg’s Honey Smacks, which gets a staggering 60% of its calories from sugar and has something like 128 carbs per spoonful. And, worse yet, you want some Pop-Tarts, too. And, a stack of bacon that is only eclipsed by a stack of pancakes that are approximately the size of a car battery. Yes, that’s the real breakfast you want, but nooooo, you’re sharing your breakfast on social media. So, instead, you eat steel-cut oats and Greek yogurt, and before I run out of space, here is the real reason why people share their every waking experience all day long on their social media channels, and it’s all simply because....
Shoot Tethered
When I’m shooting in the studio (or even on location, if possible), I shoot tethered directly into Lightroom on my laptop, so my images go directly from my camera straight into Lightroom. Here’s a behind-the-scenes shot from a studio shoot. As I shoot the images, they go straight into Lightroom on my laptop, as seen here.
Set Up Your Tethered Shoot
To get started, go to Lightroom on your desktop, go under the File menu, under Tethered Capture, and choose Start Tethered Capture. This brings up the dialog you see here, where you enter pretty much the same info as you would in Lightroom’s Import window (you type in the name of your shoot at the top in the Session Name field, and you choose whether you want the images to have a custom name or not. You also choose where on your hard drive you want these images saved to, and if you want any metadata or keywords added).
Create a New Collection
When you shoot tethered into Lightroom, the images come into a folder in Lightroom (which we just created on the previous page), but of course Lightroom on your mobile device only syncs collections, right? Of course, you could drag that entire folder into the Collections panel and sync that, but then my client would see every shot—ones where the model’s eyes are closed, ones where the light didn’t fire, ones where my composition was off, and well...they’d just see lots of lame shots. I only want my client seeing good solid shots, not those that should be deleted. So, here’s what I do: First, create a new collection in Lightroom on your computer by clicking on the + (plus sign) button on the right side of the Collections panel’s header and choosing Create Collection from the pop-up menu. When the Create Collection dialog appears, give it a name (I named mine “Hair Shoot”), then turn on the Set as Target Collection checkbox (a very important checkbox for this workflow to work).
Sync Your New Collection
Go to the little gray Sync checkbox to the left of this new collection and click on it to turn on syncing for this collection. You’ll see a message appear onscreen for a second or two letting you know that this collection will be synced with Lightroom on your mobile device, as seen here. (Note: You can also turn on the Sync with Lightroom Mobile checkbox in the Create Collection dialog [see previous page], if you know for sure you’re going to sync the collection when you create it.) Now that everything’s set up and ready to go, I launch Lightroom on my iPad, open the new Hair Shoot collection, and hand the iPad to my client, or Art Director (a friend, an assistant, a guest on the set, etc.), who is there on the set well behind where I’m shooting from (most photographers don’t like someone looking over their shoulder when they’re trying to shoot).
Send Images to Your Target Collection
So, here are the shots coming in to Lightroom on my laptop from the shoot. Check out that fourth shot where her hair is in her face—why would I want my client to see that? Or the fifth frame where the model is mid-pose. But, when I see an image come in that I like, I just press the letter B on my keyboard and that image is sent to my iPad, and the client sees that image a few seconds later. The reason this works is because when I press B, that image is sent to the Hair Shoot collection (remember, I made that my target collection when I created it? Making it a target collection means that any time I hit the letter B for a selected image, that image goes to that collection I’ve targeted), and that collection is synced to Lightroom on my iPad, so my client sees only the images I hit the letter B on. How cool is that? So, that’s my process: hit B on good shots, and the client sees just those keepers. But, we’re just getting started (this gets even better).
What Your Client Sees
Here’s a look at the iPad my client is holding, and instead of there being 100 or 200 images flowing in there, it’s just the images I hit the letter B on. Just the images that I want my client to see.
Have Your Client Add Flags or Star Ratings
Now, when I hand the client the iPad, I show them how to swipe up to flag an image as a Pick and how to swipe down if they change their mind. I also let them know that they can just tap the Pick flag at the bottom of the screen (when I give them the iPad, I tap on the three dots, on the left side of the Action options, and drag to the right so the Flag and Rate options appear there, instead of the adjustment tiles), or they can tap on a Star icon—once for each star they want the image to have (I tell them to only add a star rating to one that really stands out to them—one of their very favorites—and the rest that they like just mark them as a Pick). Since we’re synced, when they choose a photo to get a Pick flag or star rating, those get sent back to my collection (as seen in the overlay above), so I can instantly see which ones they like (and which to try to do more of). So, your client is seeing your images appear on the iPad they’re holding. What if you could also share this same collection with someone else who’s not even there? Maybe they’re back at the office, or out of town, or even out of the country? Well, not only can they follow along with your shoot, they can be a part of it.
Make Your Collection Public
In Lightroom on your computer, at the top of the Preview area in Grid view, on the right, you’ll see the Make Public button. If you click on that button, it generates a URL (web address) that, at this point, only you have access to (even though the button says “Make Public”), and that you can now email or text to someone anywhere in the world, so they can follow along—and see the same images your client is seeing on your iPad—and they can do this all right from any web browser. They don’t need an Adobe ID. They don’t need special software—just Internet access and a web browser. It’ll list a URL just to the left of the Make Public button (which, after you click, changes to Make Private, if you want to turn off access to the person you sent it to, as seen in the overlay) that you can Right-click on to copy-and-paste to your client. By the way, you can send that URL to more than just one person, so multiple people in different locations can see.
Note: Only people you send the web link to will be able to see your shoot images in their web browser, even though the button says “Make Public.” A better name for that button might be “Invite.” Just sayin’.
What Your Offsite Client Sees
When the offsite person goes to that URL you sent them, they see what you see here: the same images the client right beside you there in the studio is seeing. If they hit the Play icon, to the left of Slideshow, in the upper-right corner, they’ll get a slide show of the images in your Hair Shoot collection. If they want to change the sort order, they can click on the Sort Order icon to the right of Slideshow (if they hover their mouse over any of the icons, a little pop-up explains what they do, so you don’t have to give them a demo). So, at this point, yes, they can see the images, but they’re not really “part of the shoot,” right? Well, it’s about to get even better (though, they will need to sign in with an Adobe ID in order to use some of the features we’ll look at next).
Favorites Made Offsite
If the offsite person viewing through their web browser clicks on one of those thumbnails, it zooms in to the larger size you see here. Here, they can tag a photo they like as a Favorite by clicking on the little heart icon in the lower-left corner of the window (seen circled here; they need to use something different than a Pick flag, because your client there with you on the iPad is using Pick flags) after they sign in with their Adobe ID. Any image they tag in their web browser as a favorite is sent back to you, as well, to Lightroom on your laptop. But, they actually have a feature here in the web browser that the client with you doesn’t even have in the iPad in their hands: the ability to send written comments directly to you.
Comments Made Offsite
To send a comment on a photo, they just click on the Comment icon in the bottom-left corner of the window (or the Show Activity & Info icon in the bottom right), and an Activity sidebar slides out from the right side. They type in their comment (as seen here, where they wrote “I really like this one, but can we get more with her arms down?”). Once they hit the Post Comment button, that comment is sent directly to Lightroom on your computer (on my laptop, in this case) where not only can you see their comment, but you can even respond.
What You’ll See in Lightroom
When you look in Lightroom on your computer, you’ll know if the offsite person commented or “Liked” a photo because you’ll see a little yellow comment icon on your synced collection in the Collections panel. You’ll also see yellow comment/favorite badges in the bottom-right corners of the thumbnails for images that were marked as favorites or commented on. Your client with the iPad will also know because they’ll see a little comment icon appear at the top right of the collection’s screen. If they tap on it, they’ll see a pop-up menu with all the images marked as favorites and commented on. If you click directly on that yellow icon on your collection, you can choose to Review Comments now (as shown in the overlay here), or to ignore them by choosing Mark All Comments as Read. To read them, look in the Comments panel at the bottom of the right side Panels area in the Library module. Now, once you’ve looked at all the images with a comment/favorite badge, the yellow comment icon goes away on your collection, and the badges on the thumbnails turn gray. So, what I do is select all of those images with comments and create a new collection, and either put it in the same collection set as this collection (if I made one for it), or I just give this new collection a very similar name (like “Hair Shoot Comments”), so it appears right next to it alphabetically in the Collections panel. That’s it!