I have had a few photographers ask for a suggestions on getting their images prepped for Zivity. Is it science or art? Well a little of both. I personally use Adobe Lightroom for all my digital photo processing and management.
Here are my quick tips. First, learn to use these handy Lightroom keyboard shortcuts: D (develop mode), G (library grid mode), P (pick a photo), U (unpick a photo), L (Lightroom mode, hit it a few times to cycle).
Here is a typical session that I would go through: First - Import the photos, then hit “D” to go to develop mode. This is “before” doing color correction, touch up, etc. It makes the most sense to start picking all the best photos with “P”. Basically just blast through your 100’s of digital photos and hit “P” on all your favorites. Then, do a second pass, and hit “U” to unpick all the photos that are redundant, or those that are really are NOT the best after all. If you turn on the “Picks Only” filter, you will see you final set selections (Hint: do this before you start doing the “unpick” step to see your final selects as you filter it down to the best.)
When you turn on the “Picks only” filter (image above), you can now see your final set. Now drag the photos around in an order that is visually appealing. For example, try mixing up the poses a bit or make the sequence tell a story. Now do your touch ups, color correction (or all the time consuming Photoshop stuff). At least now you will only be retouching the photos you feel should be in the final set. I like using the Keyboard shortcuts of Z (zoom), R (crop) and N (spot removal) when in Develop mode. When you are all done, hit ‘G’ to go to grid mode, make sure your “Picks Only” filter is on, and do a select all: Apple + A on a Mac, CTRL + A on a PC. This is to make sure you are about to export all the images (not just 1 image). The beauty of this is that they will be exported in the order you arranged them in Lightroom. If you pick your export settings right, Lightroom does everything you need for the Zivity upload. Specifically, naming all your files with a sequence number, such as: damanda_hall_1.jpg, damanda_hall_2.jpg, etc. If the sequence numbering is turned on, Zivity’s upload process will present you with a pre-arranged photoset according to your numbering.
The other important settings are “Color Space”, “Quality” and “Resize to Fit - Longest Side”. We have seen that the “sRGB” color space translates the best across multiple browsers (so skin tones look the same in Firefox, IE, on Mac, on PC). You would not want to use sRGB when making prints at your local photo place, but it works well for the web. There is a ton of geeky stuff on this topic here, here and here so I won’t go into all the details. Just pick sRGB for the type and quality, choose JPG and a quality of 100 (that way you don’t loose anything in the translation, Zivity will automatically compress and resize your photos for you).
SIDE NOTE: If you don’t use Lightroom, Photoshop can do the color space conversion if you use “File | Save for Web & Devices…” or go to “Edit | Convert to Profile…” then pick sRGB IECxxxx.
Finally, pick 2500 pixels, when you Resize to Fit on the longest side. If you have a slow internet connection, you are welcome to go as low as 1500 pixels (our minimum).
Click to see the Lighroom Export Screen with my suggested settings
Now go to the folder where lightroom exported all your images, and create a single ZIP file of all your images.
For instructions on creating a .ZIP see: How To Create a ZIP
Thats it. Log into your Zivity account (if you are a photographer - models do not upload), and upload the .ZIP file and follow the instructions.
Happy Shooting,
Jeff Steinmetz
Editorial Director
