The basic operation of Grand Shooting is always the same, whatever the type of shoot you want to create: you create shooting sessions, then define the workflow parameters, from shooting to delivery.
To know :
In our documentation, we sometimes confuse a shooting session with a production. Usually, a shooting session corresponds to a single shot, whereas a production includes all stages of the workflow from shooting to delivery of the images.
Step 1: Capture and send images for retouching
The 1st step is the capture phase: photos are uploaded to the platform, annotated if necessary, and then sent to the people in charge of the next step in the workflow (usually the retouchers).
On the platform, the capture phase is called "Live" (the name comes from the fact that images are displayed in real time). The default workflow includes 1 retouching step, called "Phase 1". It is possible to add a second retouching phase and name them as you wish.
Image 1 - Live and phase 1
The person in charge of capture installs the Grand Shooting synchronization client on his or her computer. This application works like a dropbox: it automatically loads the contents of the directory in which the images are developed.
Images are therefore automatically uploaded to the Grand Shooting platform as they are developed on the capture workstation. They are immediately available on Live and, if you wish, you can open up access to other people to annotate them (for example, to give retouching instructions) or to make a selection.
Those in charge of retouching can also access images in real time, and annotations if necessary. They can therefore start retouching the most urgent images, if any.
Step 2: Retouching
Depending on your needs, you can set your workflow to have 1 or 2 retouching steps. This can be useful, for example, to dissociate a chroma step.
The people in charge of retouching deliver images to the platform in the same way as capture, via the same 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.
Image 2 - Live is finished, no images need to be edited
Good to know:
On Grand Shooting, workflow steps are represented by circles. A green dot on a circle means that all is well. An orange dot means that the workflow step is not complete, and the number indicates the number of images to be processed.
In the example above, no retouched images have been delivered in Phase 1.
Step 3: Exports
By default, images delivered by retouchers are exported as they are on the validation contact sheets.
But depending on your customers' needs, you can set up exports to apply different treatments, for example :
- Automatic image renaming according to predefined conventions
- Resize or crop images
- Change resolution
- Transform PNG into JPEG by applying a background color
- Add IPTC metadata
- From a retouched image, you can set up multiple exports to generate several images in different formats, each with a different name.
Good to know:
Exports are most often used to generate low-resolution images (e.g. for e-commerce sites or marketplaces) from retouched high-resolution images.
It's also at the export generation stage that the platform checks the exported images for compliance with specifications. You'll be automatically alerted if an image is the wrong size, resolution or format, etc.
Step 4: Approval and distribution of approved images
Depending on your needs, you approve the exported images or give your customer access to the contact sheet, so that they can approve or reject them. Images can be approved individually or en masse.
When an image is rejected, you can add a comment to tell the retoucher why.
The retouchers are then invited to correct the rejected images. Once corrected, these images are exported again for appoval.
Image 3 - 15 Images have been exported and are awaiting approval
In the example above, we can see that capture is complete, retouching is in progress (14 images remain to be retouched) and 15 exported images are awaiting approval.
Approved images can be delivered immediately by email (with a download link). They can also be pushed into your customer's information system by FTP at a predefined time of day.
Image 4 - Workflow of a completed production
Above, you can see the workflow of a completed production: all stages have a green dot, 15 images have been validated and are available for download.