My Instagram workflow (reactions?)

kbevphotokbevphoto Registered Users Posts: 110 Major grins
edited March 11, 2016 in Finishing School
Hey all -
It took me a while, but I finally settled into a clean workflow for Instagram and wanted to get some reactions and ideas on how to improve it. I think a long time ago, i posted my overall workflow, which got me some good ideas.

Pre-work - My current workflow gets me to a place where each folder in Lightroom contains a subset of FLAGGED photos that are colored GREEN - which means they are ready to be posted to my website. I also have a duplicate set for some shoots that are BLUE, meaning they have my logo manually added where I want it and ready to post.

Step 1 - With the green filter set, I go through and select the photos that are Instagram-worthy. I have a KEYWORD SET that includes "InstagramPic" that scrapes into a SMART FOLDER names InstagramPrep.

Step 2 - In the smart folder, I look confirm each photo and open the whole batch into Photoshop. If I have too many, I'll do them in batches

Step 3 - Within Photoshop, I use the keystroke to crop each photo to a square ratio that pulls added black borders to the pic in a square ratio (top/bottom or sides) This is pretty quick. The downside is that it creates massive TIF files (too lazy to set each one ot JPG). I don't like the new IG photo sizes, and still prefer square pix where I set the crop myself.

Step 4 - Once the square edits are done, I tag all photos InstagramPosted. This allows me to avoid reposting pix I've already posted from my archive. I also color them PURPLE.

Step 4b - For the newly created square pix (huge tifs), I also tag them InstagramPrepDelete. This is a flag that allows me to delete these if I decide they are taking up too much room.

Step 4c - For my each of my 4 dedicated channels), I also tag them "IG-<channel>"

Step 5 - Using an IG preset that created in Lightroom, I export the square photos to a folder (by channel). The preset adds my watermark and sets the dimensions to the Lightroom optimal size

Step 6 - I do some things to catalog the square instagram pix into lightroom, I'll skip those.

Step 7 - I copy all of the new square pix for each channel into my dropbox account. This effectively creates a ton of photos for each channel into an easily accessible place.

Step 8 - When it's time to post, I go to Dropbox on my phone, pick a few, download them to my phone, delete them from dropbox (to avoid double-posting) and post them.

Step 8b - When posting, i use my iPhone text-replacement functionality to pre-set the hashtags and stuff for the different events that I'm posting. often the batches are from specific events and this speeds up the posting a ton


Anyway, that's the flow. It has been workign pretty well. I struggled to figure out what to do do manage the files for my different channels. This seems to be workign well thus far... thoughts?

KBev

Main feed: @KBevPhoto

Dedicated feeds (in case you prefer a single focus):
@BBoyPix_kbevphoto
@PoleDancePix_kbevphoto
@BodyMod_kbevphoto
@Graffiti_kbevphoto

Comments

  • PeanoPeano Registered Users Posts: 268 Major grins
    edited March 3, 2016
    All that really matters is the result. That would be an image, not a bunch of words.
  • kbevphotokbevphoto Registered Users Posts: 110 Major grins
    edited March 3, 2016
    Peano wrote: »
    All that really matters is the result. That would be an image, not a bunch of words.

    Ha! This images are fine. (as in: Never as good as I want. Never as bad as I think...) The path to the image is where I could use some insight form the community.

    Then again, here's what the finished products look like:
    https://instagram.com/p/BCbVRK-ApkO/
    https://instagram.com/p/BAHnaj2ApsX/
    https://instagram.com/p/BBH8UgaApkw
  • NikonsandVstromsNikonsandVstroms Registered Users Posts: 990 Major grins
    edited March 11, 2016
    Just a quick note, you no longer need to use square photos for Instagram, they'll let you go to a 4x5 ratio. There's a button in the corner that looks like this < > though at a 45 degree angle. Click that and it'll expand to the 4x5 ratio.

    Also if you really don't like how something looks square just use white letterboxing and it looks fine on there since the app uses a nearly white background.

    Your's is a lot more thorough than mine. Here's my process I simply tag them in a color specific for Instagram shots and then edit them fully this way I don't have to do that twice. Though my editing can include removing backgrounds which in some cases can be time consuming especially for aerials. I do this with my NES controller which I use to short images, I can't remember off hand but that color is binned to either start or select....I've found that gamepads are the best way to cull images but that's another thread.

    I only export them one by one or at most in small batches then give anyone that has been exported 5 stars to make sure it's in my final gallery.

    I put in my watermark manually each time so I can change color/opacity/placement to be the least intrusive possible.

    I use smugmug that lets me share directly to instagram.

    And for the text I just FB message myself, it's simple and it works. Plus since this is all I use it for I have all the previous ones in case I need to reuse them or copy hashtags.
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