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Working principle

The way Grand Shooting works is always the same, regardless of the type of project: you create productions with predefined workflows, then you load media that advance in the workflow.

Step 1: Shooting and sending for retouching

The 1era Step generally corresponds to capture: it involves uploading the media to the platform, possibly annotating them, then transmitting them to the people in charge of the next stage of the workflow (most often the retouchers or a post-production team).

On the platform, the capture phase is called “Live” (the name comes from the fact that the media are displayed in real time). The default workflow includes 1 editing step called “Phase 1.” It is possible to add a second post-production phase and name them whatever you want.

1 - Le Live et la phase 1
The Live and the phase 1

The operator in charge of the capture installs the Grand Shooting synchronization client on his computer. This application works like a “Dropbox”: it automatically loads the contents of the directory in which the files are saved.

The media therefore automatically go back to the Grand Shooting platform as they are developed on the capture station. They are immediately available on Live and, if you wish, you can open access to others to annotate them (for example to give instructions for editing) or to make a selection before sending for editing.

Those in charge of editing also have access to images in real time, and if necessary, to annotations. They can therefore start working on the most urgent media if there are any.

[[gsGoodToKnow]] If you use a service provider for retouching, Grand Shooting also integrates the tools to transmit them by FTP.

In the event of a problem, the platform sends back alerts on the Live: for example the misnamed visuals. At the end of the shooting session, the capture manager reviews these alerts to deal with errors.

At the end of the day you know that all the visuals have been produced.

Step 2: Retouching

Depending on your needs, you can set up your workflow to have 1 or 2 stages of retouching or post-production. This can be useful, for example, to dissociate a chromy step.

The people in charge of editing deliver the images to the platform in the same way as the capture, by drag and drop on the web application or via the synchronization client.

The platform ensures that everyone shares the same information without having to communicate by email. In particular, retouchers see selected images, comments, and annotations.

2 - Le Live est terminé
There are images in the Live but not yet in Phase 1
On Grand Shooting the steps of the workflow are represented by circles. A green dot on a circle means everything is fine. An orange dot means that the workflow stage has not been completed and the number indicates the number of images to be processed.

Step 3: Exports

By default, images uploaded by retouchers are offered for validation without modification. But depending on your needs, you can set up exports to apply additional treatments, such as:

  • automatically rename images according to your conventions
  • resize or crop images
  • change the resolution
  • transform a PNG into a JPEG by applying a background color
  • add metadata
  • etc.

Depending on your license, from a retouched image, you can set up several exports to generate several images in different formats (for example, named differently).

[[gsGoodToKnow]] It often happens to set up 2 exports, to prepare the images according to the specifications of an e-commerce site and to maintain a high-resolution version that can be used elsewhere.

Exports prepare the visuals to be validated in expected formats. They also carry out a series of checks and alert when the specifications are not respected. For example, it is a good way to detect a bad image size, a bad name, or a missing color profile.

Step 4: Validation and dissemination

Depending on your needs, you validate the exported images or delegate the validation to other users (product manager, artistic direction, etc.). Media can be approved or refused one by one, or en masse.

When you reject a media, it is advisable to add a comment to guide the retouching in making the corrections.

Retouchers are notified of rejections, correct and load the corrected media, to resubmit them for validation. This denial/validation cycle can be repeated as many times as necessary.

3 - 80 images ont été exportées
80 images have been exported and are awaiting validation

In the example above, we can see that the capture is complete, that the editing is in progress (81 images remain to be retouched) and that 80 exported images are waiting for validation.

On the contact sheets, the latest versions are always presented. All previous versions that were rejected are retained, so that you can compare two versions with each other and verify that the requested corrections have been made.

Once validated, the images can be downloaded, but the most interesting thing is that they can be automatically distributed, for example in a PIM, a DAM or an e-commerce site (or all 3).

4- Workflow dune production terminée
Workflow of a completed production

Above, you can see the workflow of a completed production: all the steps have their green dot, 25 images have been validated and are available for download.