The SmugMug Blog

Want to sell more? Who doesn’t! Uploading your photos is a great first step, but there’s way more to business than that.

Today we’ll be sharing a few very simple ways to hook clients and get them buying prints, gifts, downloads and more. Best of all, these features are already built in to every SmugMug Pro account.

1. Custom domain.

You don’t need your own domain to share and sell, but it sure makes you look like a million bucks. But that price is deceiving: Most custom domains cost under $20 per year, which is way less than you make in an hour of shooting. And if that isn’t enough, you can usually get a custom email address wrapped up into the deal. A unified brand says you’re cool, polished and professional.

Get it now: Snag your own URL on SmugMugDomains.com and get set up in 15 minutes. Questions? Talk to our heroes!

2. Keywords.

If a photographer builds a website and there’s no keywords around, does it get found? We’re sure you’ll be sharing your shiny new website on Facebook and forums, but go the extra mile to make sure search engines know you’re there, too. Adding photo-, gallery- and site-wide keywords will boost your Search Engine Optimization and help put you in touch with Google-savvy clients.

Get it now: Start tweaking your keywords using your gallery Tools menu. And check out our full list of SEO tips for maximum marketability.

3. MOO Cards.

Put your name on the map with beautiful custom business cards by MOO.com. These guys love to print and it shows in their approach to getting you fun and friendly cards that are durable enough to hold up to your business. You can print a different image on each one and use them to share pre-gallery URLs or coupon codes at your event. And they even come in two handy sizes: Regular or attention-getting MiniCards.

Get it now: Find great deals on MOO on our ClubSmug page and get your beautiful pocket portfolio ready to go. Get started in your gallery’s Buy button, under “Business Cards.”

4. Print Samples.

Set the hook the first time you sit down with your client. Ordering your favorite images printed across different papers and formats doesn’t just get you up close and personal with our pro labs – it gets your customers excited about printing their own memories on something they can touch, feel and hang on the wall.

Get it now: Check out our catalog and go nuts. It’s worth it. And if you’re not happy with them, tell us! We stand by our guarantee.

5. Thank You Print.

Your customer’s experience doesn’t end after clicking “Buy.” Stay in touch and keep them thinking of you by adding a 4×6 Thank You Print in the delivery box. You can customize it with any image or message you wish (like a coupon code towards their next purchase, *hint hint*) and we’ll pack it up and send it along.

Get it now: Design your image file and upload it to the Pros section of your Control Panel. Read all about Order Branding.

Are you ready to bust out and start making more sales? Even if you’re already a seasoned SmugMug Pro, we hope these tips help you think up more creative ways to share your work and spread the word.

Now go get ‘em!

Links you’ll love:

• How to set up your SmugMug site for wicked good SEO
• Our marketing tips, in a nutshell
• How we help you sell
• Exclusive discounts on stuff we love

Today’s terrifically informative guest blog post is written by pro photographer and SmugMugger Tony Corbell. If you’re a part of the PPA or the wedding industry you’ve probably heard of him. But even if you haven’t, a guy who’s had the grace and honor to immortalize three US presidents, 185 world leaders and tons of international bigwigs with his camera is definitely not small potatoes. This guy knows – and loves – what he’s doing and we’re thrilled to have him share his know-how with you. Best of all, since he’s VP of Nik Software, you’ll find a SmugMug-exclusive deal on Color Efex filters at the end of this post. Keep reading!

Do’s and Don’ts for Portrait Photography

by Tony Corbell

For more than thirty years I have photographed people of all types in all kinds of situation. There have been brides and grooms, fashion models, commercial products for a catalog, and political figures. In addition to my clients, I have taught workshops and spoken at seminars literally all over the world. And often I have photographed people in these situations as well as the average people on the street.

One thing is certain: you cannot spend that much time with people and not learn a few things. So I thought it might be helpful to put together a Top Ten list of things to know in order to succeed and thrive in professional photography. If nothing else, these things will at least get you on the right track and hopefully will prove to be helpful.

1. In the studio, NEVER leave your lights set-up overnight. The problem is that if you do, the last session of the day will look a lot like the first session tomorrow. Is that what you want? If so, fine. But if you advertise creativity, don’t give everyone the same session. Having learned the foundation of your craft moving your lights and setting them up differently the next day will soon be second nature. You’ll be amazed at how much more creative you can be.

2. Don’t look through your camera too long. Here is the situation: You are looking at your subject, maybe focusing, maybe looking at your digital LCD, numbers for aperture, shutter speed or the settings in the viewfinder, etc. Any time you are operating mechanically, you are not operating creatively. Remember that once you connect with your client, do not disconnect until the end of the shoot. This includes talking to them, interacting and generally enjoying the session. You’ll find your average sale will be considerably higher.

3. Don’t be distracted by other family members or a studio assistant. Again, the client is number one and more important than anything, so it is important to stay connected with them at all times. Make them feel like they are the most important thing going on, not you. By focusing on them you are telegraphing that you are worth every cent they are paying you and will have no problem in recommending you and your services to others in the community.

4. Don’t be unsure of your exposures or color balance. Complete all of your testing before your client is on the set and project professionalism and a sense that you are very clearly in control of the shoot. Remember, “if you project a sense of confidence, they will project a sense of trust.” This is a terrific saying to try remember and as you gain more and more skills at our technique, you’ll naturally move throughout the shoot with more fluidity and ease.

Visit my SmugMug site to read the other tips on my list, and browse around to see my other photography articles. To say I am a SmugMug fan would truly be an understatement! Come back soon and often to see the things I’ll be adding, including a fine art print store.

Save Time With the Right Post-Processing Tools

Enhancing your images is another area of expertise that you can master quickly and easily if you simply make it a priority. In the example before/after images you can see the result of my using Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro 4 professional plug-in filters for Photoshop, Lightroom & Aperture.

For the portrait example, I used the Darken/Lighten Center filter in Color Efex Pro 4. The building was enhanced with the Brilliance and Warmth filter, also found in Color Efex Pro 4. Both are part of the special software edition that Nik Software has assembled for SmugMug. You can log in and download them from ClubSmug right here. (Good through June 17, 2012)

The free sample filters are all very important in my workflow and learning to use them is ultra-easy. If you’re just getting started, visit our learning page to watch videos, attend live training webinars and read Nik’s blog for workflow tips.

We’re sponsoring renowned pro photographer Clay Blackmore’s educational tour, How to Photograph Everyone. If you haven’t yet met Clay, you’re in for a treat. As a Canon Explorer of light who mixes classic portraiture with the spontaneity of photojournalism, he’s got extensive experience shooting events for a diverse variety of clients. He’s here to teach it to you.

The tour is on right now through June 2012, teaching some of the most helpful pro topics to 30 cities across North America.

Here are just a few things you’ll learn:

• Weddings: Catering to the Modern Bride – Learn how to take photos that sell, and get your client to fall in love with the pictures before they even leave the wedding.

• Clay’s Flow Posing – Learn how to create 10 portraits in five minutes.

• The Perfect Portfolio – See what makes an awe-inspiring portfolio that entices potential clients.

• Big Portraits with Small Lights – Focus on scrims, reflectors and windows to create portraits that rival studio shots.

• Don’t Just Survive – Learn How to Thrive – See how you can control the sale and increase your profits.

Pre-Register and Save $10

Check their site for info, DVDs and tickets for Clay’s classes. Here’s the complete list of tour dates:

April 3 – San Francisco, CA
April 4 – San Jose, CA
April 10 – Philadelphia, PA
April 11 – Rutherford, NJ
April 15 – Dallas, TX
April 16 – Arlington, TX
April 18 – Austin, TX
April 19 – Houston, TX
April 22 – Tempe, AZ
April 25 – Columbus, OH
April 29 – Milwaukee, WI
April 30 – Chicago, IL
May 2 – St. Louis, MO
May 6 – Atlanta, GA
May 8 – Tampa, FL
May 9 – Ft. Lauderdale, FL
May 14 – Rockville, MD
May 16 – Boston, MA
May 22 – Montreal, QC
May 23 – Toronto, ON
May 24 – Toronto, ON
May 28 – Edmonton, AB
May 29 – Calgary, AB
May 30 – Vancouver, BC
June 3 – New York, NY
June 4 – Troy, MI

Ready to join in? Grab your seminar tickets HERE and use the code SMUG to get them for just $59.

Update March 27, 2012:

——————————————————————–

Picture this:

You spent all weekend at the local soccer match shooting thousands of photos. When you got home you made sure to download, edit and upload them all right away. Parents are expecting photos! So you immediately shared the link, anticipating a slew of gushing order emails. Finally you drift asleep, thinking about the hundreds of successful dollars you’ll see in the morning.

But you get nothing.

If this sounds familiar, today’s your lucky day. We’ll talk about four painful symptoms that may indicate that something’s seriously wrong with your business.

1) No Sales. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Did you forget to enable buying in your gallery? If you’re hearing crickets from the peanut gallery, this could be the case. When it’s off, your viewers have no way to add items to the shopping cart, even though they’re still able to browse photos. They probably think that you don’t intend to sell your photos at all.

HOW TO FIX IT: Visit your Gallery Settings and be sure that you’ve got Printing enabled. (It’s towards the bottom.) To be extra sure you did it right, take a minute to log out of SmugMug and browse your site like a customer.

2) No Download Sales: You Can’t Sell What You Give Away

Are clients emailing you every 5 minutes for their photos, but once you share them you don’t hear a peep? This could mean you’ve enabled your Originals. Don’t do this if you’re trying to make money! With Originals on, any visitor can easily download a full-res version of the image for free. It’s fab for friends and family. Bad for business.

HOW TO FIX IT: Open up your Gallery Settings and scroll down to “Security & Privacy.” Make sure any size other than Originals are selected there. You can go as small as Medium if you’re feeling saucy, but remember people won’t be able to enjoy screen-filling photo goodness that way – but our data shows going too small will harm your sales.  X3Large + Watermarking (see #4) is probably your best bet.

3) No Profits on Print Sales

You’ve received an order, yay! But there’s no profit. Uh oh. This means you haven’t properly set up your pricing and clients are buying your photos at-cost. If you’re reading this post, chances are that’s not exactly what you had in mind.

HOW TO FIX IT: Hit up this tutorial that guides you on setting up your pricing using Pricelists. You can set the amount of profit you earn (recommended) or set your final price that’s shown in the cart. Not sure how much to charge? Just don’t go too low. Here’s why.

4) Surprise! Your Pics Pop Up on Facebook

You’re browsing social sites and to your dismay, you find your photos in your stream being shared by your clients without your credit… or your permission. How did they get there?

HOW TO FIX IT: Make your (water)mark! Look here to see how to turn your logo or name into a transparent image and slap it on your display copies. Any legally-purchased downloads or prints will be clean and clear unless you set a Printmark, too. While you’re at it, enable Right-Click Protection and use the Easy Customizer to type easy buying instructions into the custom pop-up message.

Now we hope that you’re better-prepared  to take on the next few gigs and start setting your sales on fire. Stay tuned for even more tips, tricks and best practices to help you have your best year in the biz.

To continue SmugMug’s dedication to make you all photo stars, we’ve got an incredible opportunity you won’t want to miss.

We all know that Sandy Puc’ is an amazing woman. She’s a talented photographer, a driven businesswoman, a passionate heart, a generous soul, and patient instructor to boot. You’ve seen us post about her whirlwind tours, traveling around the country showing photographers just like you how to shoot babies, brides, bombshells and more. And how to market the heck out of your business and rock the industry.

Don’t chase the bus. This spring, Sandy is coming to you.

Tune In… and Win

In partnership with our SmugMug User Groups, Sandy is holding three 1-hour webinars about how to turn your passion for photography into a rewarding business. If you’re already part of a SMUG, talk to your leader to find out if you can tune in as a group to watch each class.

To make things even more exciting:

• The busiest SMUG wins. We’ll keep track of the SMUG that grows the most over the next three months. The winning city will get a visit from Sandy herself and an exclusive night dedicated to growing your business to success.

• The most passionate Pro wins. The SMUG member that brings the most guests to their local meetings will win a trip to Sandy’s studio in Denver, CO, for an all expenses paid, completely one-on-one marketing makeover from the lady herself. An opportunity that could change your life (and your business) forever.

Stay in touch for details

So keep your eyes peeled for an email from SmugMug with more info about this opportunity and what to expect. If you have’t yet joined a SMUG, see what you’ve been missing on their blog. You’ll find a bonus podcast from Sandy there, too, in the menu bar on the right!

Photography. Friends. Fun. What’s not to SMUG?

Find your SMUG right now.

No sales? Hard time hooking clients? Your deep-discount pricing could be choking your reputation.

It’s not uncommon to offer your services at cut-rate discount with the hope that you’ll snap up eager bargain-hunters. But is this really the right approach?

Successful Pros agree that raising your pricing may not necessarily scare away potential clients – in fact, it’ll do a body good. Here’s why.

That sounds backwards…

“Cheap” sets bad expectations for your clients. If you’re a cheap photographer, clients wonder how you’re cutting costs so much, and if it’s worth it for them to take the risk. They question your ability to manage expectations and communicate with them. Will you effectively guide them through an important experience, or will you simply fire a few snaps, hand over a CD and call it a day?

“Cheap” makes you look as though you don’t think you’re any good. Any business owner who doesn’t think their brand’s the best is probably in the wrong business.

How to Not Be Expensive

Right about now you’re probably worried about scaring away clients by being too expensive. How do your clients really know what “expensive” really is? It’s all about pricing and a concept called anchoring – meaning that they have to compare the value of something new with something familiar.

In English: Clients will be able to better grasp the value of your work by judging their interaction with you.

Here are some tips to help you prove that your work is worth every penny:

• Create a unified brand.  A clean website. Clearly placed information. A custom domain and email address goes a long way, too.

• Be professional. Be prompt, cordial, and friendly. You provide a quality service, which is worth paying for.

• Look and act the part. No one is going to pay $5k to a schlup wearing ketchup-stained t-shirts, particularly if they show up late and forget to bring the paperwork!

How to do the “Free” Thing (the right way)

Just because you should be paid fairly for your work doesn’t mean you can’t cut clients a break, or even do the “free” thing once in a while. Samples are a great way to give clients a nibble of what you do do without giving away the whole farm. Some quick ideas of how to work this into your model:

Model 1 - Waive your session fee, but be sure to charge for prints and digital downloads.

Model 2 - Apply the sitting fee towards the purchase of digital downloads, making the first (X number) free.

On SmugMug, it’s so easy to offer a few deep discounts by creating a custom Coupon to hand out. There are five different types, making sure that you can keep changing it up and keeping it interesting. How to use Coupons.

Get it? Got it? Good.

Calculate Your Costs to Avoid Going Broke

The reason most photography businesses don’t survive is because their owners didn’t properly calculate their costs. And as the old adage goes, time is money. Don’t forget that your time and expertise are more precious than replaceable objects like paper and gear; you can hire assistants but they aren’t you. (Yes, it’s our mission to make you feel like a million bucks!)

Here are our suggested guidelines for calculating your costs:

• For prints: Your pricing should be not less than 4x your hard costs, including packaging and shipping. Seem like a lot? It’s not – about half of your balance goes towards taxes, 1/5th of goes towards the base cost of the item and the rest goes towards (ta-daa!) your profit.

• Albums and multi-photo goods: Your pricing should be no less than 3x your hard costs, which may include design work as well as the physical cost of the product.

• For Downloads: Price your larger-than-web-sized digital downloads at no less than the cost of ten prints. Giving away images at any printable size means you have to make it worth your while: They will use that file to print lots of prints, and you also run the risk of having your brand diluted if your client opens Photoshop and makes their own digital adjustments. Check out our resolution chart to find out how big they can print.

The Bottom Line

Don’t be afraid to charge a fair price for your work. By understanding your costs and charging more, you’re sending a stronger message to your clients and ensuring that they value you, too.

If you’re already in business and think your prices needs a kick, remember that it’s simple to adjust your pricing using Pricelists. Look here to see how they work, and don’t forget to ping our Support Heroes if you get stuck.

Wanna keep talking about pricing? Never forget that our photo forum, Digital Grin, has a whole section dedicated to the art of turning your photos into money. Check out our Mind Your Own Business section here and post away. Or just voice your thoughts in a comment below.

Good luck and stay tuned! We’ll be sharing more tips and “best practices” for you, soon.

—-

Links you’ll love:

• Get them buying with custom coupons
• Our different download sizes
• How big can I print?
• How to start selling your photos
• Money matters on Dgrin

At SmugMug, we have a 100% guarantee that covers ALL orders, no strings attached. If there’s a problem with your order for any reason whatsoever, we’ll fix it, replace it or refund it. We don’t care if it’s because you ordered the wrong size, printed a typo or if your dog ate the mailman.

But we know that shopping online gets scary when you can’t feel or touch the products that you (or your clients) are buying. To help you better visualize our goodies, we sprinkled some short, easy-to-digest product videos around our catalog, like this one:

See Before You Spree

You can poke around the different pages or take a look at specific examples like:

• Box Framed Prints
• Lustre Prints
• Giclée prints
• Mounted Canvas Prints

They’re great for showing your clients what to expect. So don’t be afraid to tell them about it, too.

Tip: View Everything We Sell

You can see everything we sell and the prices you pay as a pro, here:

Full catalog, with pricing: http://www.smugmug.com/prints/catalog/ABP

When your customers or visitors need to see the catalog, the links in our footer will show them only the products, not the prices. Here they are:

Our full catalog with both labs: http://www.smugmug.com/prints/catalog/AB
Catalog with just EZ Prints: http://www.smugmug.com/prints/catalog/A
Catalog with just Bay Photo: http://www.smugmug.com/prints/catalog/B

Happy shopping (and selling) this holiday season!

Let the holidays ring with more cha-CHING! Halloween’s flown by, which means it’s time to dig out the lights, bake some cookies and be the brightest house on the block.

It’s also the perfect time to offer a cornucopia of beautiful gifts to your clients so they can be smiling through the New Year. Here’s how.

Keep the Money Rolling In

• Spike Your Sales With Coupons. Sweeten the deal with Percent Off, Amount Off, Free Shipping, At-Cost and Print Credit discounts. Coupons make buying more fun, and nothin’ says lovin’ like 25% off.

• Package Up Holiday Cheer. Santa-size your sales and save time by bundling your best items into Packages. Make buying so easy, they can shop with one hand.

• Cash in on Holiday Cards. Clients can build their own 4×8 and 5×7 photo cards, then buy them at the price you set. Show them our pre-made templates or create your own using their favorite photos.

• Turn Downloads into Dough. Set your own price for digital photos and videos under the Downloads tab and deliver their memories instantly. Sell videos up to 20 minutes and 3 GB each. 32 different photo sizes are just waiting to be bought.

Get bonus points: Surprise your clients and add a custom Thank You Print to the delivery box. It’s even nicer when you include a coupon code good for their next order. *hint hint*

12 Friends a-Sharing

Looking for gift ideas, or just a treat for yourself? Visit ClubSmug for exclusive nepotism discounts on albums, software and more. No secret handshake required. Just be sure you’re logged in.

Here are some of our favorites:

• Blurb’s Notebooks and Weekly Planners are a beautiful way to merge your photos with function. Get 20% off your entire order when you buy before December 15th.

• MOO’s business cards are just the tip of the fruitcake. Try their stickers, labels and name tags to make guests smile. Check out the goodies here.

Get it by Christmas!

Don’t be a Grinch and show up empty-handed. Our print elves need 1-3 business days to process your orders during the holiday season, so be sure that you (and your clients) check out by these dates:

* 6-10 Business Day shipping – December 9th
* 3-5 Business Day shipping – December 13th
* 2nd Business Day shipping – December 16th
* Next Business Day shipping – December 19th

Happy holiday prep from SmugMug! Don’t burn the cookies and make sure you have enough eggnog to go around.

We made Proof Delay a heck of a lot smarter.

In the old days, your clients would sometimes order prints cropped a certain way, and when you replaced it with an edited photo of a different shape it wouldn’t always work out so well. Heroes to the rescue and everything, but, yanno.

And if you replaced the image with something that was shaped the same, there wasn’t a way to remember exactly how they’d had it cropped in the first place.

We’ve fixed all that.

How it works.

Pros, the very next time you get a cropped order held for Proof Delay, don’t fret. We’ll now do the following:

1) Show you the exact same crop your client used if you replace the photo with an edited version of the same shape and size.

2) Show you a thumbnail of the original image with the crop when you replace the photo with one that’s a different shape and size.

3) Display the thumbnail with the original image and crop when you go in and try to adjust the crop on a replaced image of a different size.

We hope this makes your life a whole lot easier and that your customers don’t notice a thing. Except, of course, how much they love their prints and what a great photographer you are.

The Magic of Proof Delay

Remember that using this simple feature in all of your for-sale galleries can help you upload your proofs to your gallery ASAP, and let you only edit the photos that get bought. Plus, if there are any problems with the order, our Support Heroes have a gazillion times’ higher chance of being able to cancel, fix, or correct the problem before your customer even notices.

We can’t stress enough just how cool the Proof Delay feature really is. It saves you time AND helps you give your clients a better product. And it comes baked right in to each and every SmugMug Pro account.

Questions? Suggestions? Epic tales of how Proof Delay saved your bumme? We’d love to hear it all, so talk to us!

Bonus Pro tips for you:

• Use Two Bright Lights to get published fast
• How to make hands-free wedding albums in two weeks or less
• Customizing help with our in-house customization expert
• Know what your customers see before you make the sale

Today’s guest post is by sports shooter and Smugger David Evertsen of Phabulous Photos. Any event shooter understands how tricky it is to manage and organize large volumes of files, particularly when parents, friends and fans are beating down the door to see photos and buy prints. Since the fall sports season is ramping up, we thought this post would help you manage your workflow and feed happier customers. Here’s how he used a program called Photo Mechanic and SmugMug’s Smart Galleries to give his fans the pictures they want to see.

by David Evertsen

For the past 3 or 4 years that I have been shooting high school sports there’s been one hurdle: Parents only want to see their own child when looking through sports pictures on my site. While they enjoy looking through the galleries, it’s a completely different story when it comes to choosing prints to buy. Sports galleries are quite large and it becomes a chore for parents to look through everything to find shots just of their child.

Then think about how one photographer shoots many games per sport, several sports at a time and the problems start to multiply.

I’ve used Smart Galleries from time to time on my site combined with simple keywords assigned in Lightroom, but I needed something more powerful that could help simplify the keywording process without writing a sentence for every image. Here’s a solution that worked for me.

Step 1.  Build your Code Replacement file in Photo Mechanic

I started working with some other photographers that are required to caption and upload images to a newspaper or press site and noticed they used a product called Photo Mechanic from Camera Bits. Photo Mechanic uses something called Code Replacement. This feature is perfect for photojournalists and sports photographers: they create a simple code replacement file that acts as a library, so that they type a few keystrokes and the info (like name, position, team and number) is automatically entered into the captions. This means fast, consistently accurate information with minimal work.

First I need to show you what code replacement is and how it saves me time. Code Replacement is a form of short hand that allows you to enter in anything you want by only pressing a few keys.

Here is an example of five of keywords I put on an image:

1; bk1 ;Kevin Kyle; Boone Varsity Baseball; 2010-2011

And here’s what that means, so you can do something similar for yourself:

• 1 – Players Jersey Number (used for reference in file)
• bk1 – A SmugMug keyword I use to build my Smart Gallery
• Kevin Kyle – The player’s name.
• 2011 – Year, also used to build my Smart Gallery.

Now what keys did I press to get the bold line above added as a keyword in Photo Mechanic for the picture?

“1” and “\“

How this works: You build a master list of shorthand codes you want to use and define which keyword terms you want entered when you type each code. This is just a simple text file that Photo Mechanic will use to automatically plug in keywords when you type the right codes.

Tip: Remember that SmugMug keywords have to be an minimum of 3 letters to work unless you enclose them in quotes.

Step 2. Choose Your Keywords

Let me show you what I had to think out before I built my code replacement file. You’ll want to write up keywords and macro codes that make it simple for you to remember but are specific to each event you shoot. I had to create a master list of sports that I use all year round so I don’t mix up the schools and sports. That would cause disaster!

Here are a few additional example sports in the same format as the above example:

bl Boone Boys Varsity LAX
bjl Boone Boys JV Lax
bgl Boone Girls Varsity Lax
bt Boone Track
bs Boone Varsity Softball
bjs Boone JV Softball

Make the codes easy to remember – after all, the point of this is to make your job easier.

What does the Code Replacement file look like? My file is really long and includes all the sports I shoot. As the seasons start the numbers and names of the players per sport are added. The final file can contain many schools and many different sports. Here are just a few other examples:

bk1 1; bk1 ;KEVIN KYLE; Boone Varsity Baseball; 2010-2011;
bk2 2; bk2 ;FRANK  THOMAS; Boone Varsity Baseball; 2010-2011;
bk3 3; bk3 ;TRIPP CABLE; Boone Varsity Baseball; 2010-2011;
bk4 4; bk4 ;MITCHELL BOMBER; Boone Varsity Baseball; 2010-2011;

Tip: Use semicolons between the terms to ensure that they get entered as complete keywords in the SmugMug gallery when I upload.

Step 3. Create your Smart Galleries

Smart Galleries are an easy way to automatically group together your photos by keyword. At the beginning of each year I go in to the season and set up a team subcategory (Under a custom school year category) and then individual Smart Galleries (one for each player).  In this case, I’ll use one Smart Gallery to pull in the photos with the “bk1″ and “2010-2011″ keywords in one place.

I make one gallery for each player on the team. Then I go into settings for each gallery and add Rules to pull in the keywords:

Rule #1: Include > My Photos > Keyword > 2011
Rule #2: Include > My Photos > Keyword > bk1

Then I’m done. Setting up the Smart Galleries takes a little time at first but you only have to do it once.

Step 4. Apply your codes in Photo Mechanic

Next I finish my post processing. I do my adjustments and use Lightroom’s bulk keywording feature to automatically enter the first portion of the Code Replacement macro, bk\ , to all of my files. This saves me time later.

I then open Photo Mechanic, click on the folder I created when I exported and double click on the file information. Up pops the info window where I can save and change the keywords. Then I press “1\”. The opening “\” (added by Lightroom to all my files) and the closing “\” (that I just typed into Photo Mechanic manually) means, “look up in your designated code file and insert the following line.” The string of keywords gets entered:

1; bk1 ;Kevin Kyle; Boone Varsity Baseball; 2010-2011

SmugMug indexes only 30 keywords per photo so take it easy on the number of keywords, lest you run out. I use about five, as shown here.

When I am done with the keywords on each individual image I click the Save button in the info pane and it brings the next one up. I do not keyword every player if I can’t tell who they are or if they are on the opposing team; they are not the primary focus of the shot.

It takes only about 10-15 minutes at the end of my processing to add the keywords.

Step 4. Upload Your Photos

I then use Photo Mechanic to upload to the team gallery and my work is done. When all the images are uploaded I make a lot of customers really happy because the Smart Galleries automatically pull in the specific photos I’ve set for them. I did the initial leg work but SmugMug does all the heavy lifting for me. I realized how important this was for sales when I set the Gallery Download price for my galleries and sold a bunch of player-only photos.

Each sport is different and the complexity varies by how many players are on each team. But even if a player plays only a few times in the season, you can easily find them by keyword. Then you can keep looking to shoot more shots of them later in the season.

I hope this helped you learn how to do something that will make your customers able to find the pictures they want to see and purchase them easily. I have talked to people on the Digital Grin forums that are using this workflow for all types of sports where the participants have numbers. Quick Code Replacement combined with Smart Galleries saves you time and helps drive up your sales.

Good luck!

Other links you’d like:

• File management with Lightroom and Photo Mechanic
• Tip and tricks on shooting sports
• Perfecting Your Prints via Calibration
• Sports forum on Digital Grin
• Finishing School’s Software and Workflow discussions on Digital Grin