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Why Use Presets?

Lesson 2 from: How to Build and Use Lightroom Presets

Pye Jirsa

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Lesson Info

2. Why Use Presets?

Lesson Info

Why Use Presets?

Let's say you wanna take home $60,000 a year. What does your revenue need to be? So let's talk about this for just a second. What is the value of your time? And I love business guys. We're all about the business of photography, and I hope you guys are as passionate about it as I am because the process of creating presets and updating your entire system and doing all this is directly related to this. So let's say that you get 2500 bucks of revenue for a shoot. You have 100 delivered images. Total time is two hours for the consultation, three hours for the shoot itself, and two hours for post-production. Well, I did a little math right here. Hopefully it's not incorrect 'cause I am a former certified public accountant. That'd be really embarrassing. I think I have actually made that mistake before. (audience laughs) Hence, I'm not a CPA anymore. Okay, so 2500 bucks divided by seven is 350 bucks an hour. Now you take, just in your head, how much time are you taking to post-produce a shoot...

? Let's not even talk about the consult, let's not talk about the actual shoot itself, but just the post-production side of it. Let's say for an engagement shoot. I'm gonna actually call you guys out. Hands, who does it in less than two hours? Who does it in less than six hours? Who does it in less than 10 hours? Who does it in more than 10 hours? Okay, good. At least nobody hit the 10 mark. Look at the difference in your per-hour rate just adjusting that post-production time. 350 to 227 to 166. Now this still sounds like a whole heck of a ton of money and that's great and everything, but a lot of us aren't doing $2,500 engagement shoots. A lot of us are doing $500 engagement shoots, so take that number and put in 500 there. And this little equation will give you guys an idea of how much money you're actually making per hour. What it doesn't tell you is how much money you're making per hour after your costs, right? Your camera gear. Your lenses. I hope you guys are factoring all that stuff in because at the end of the day, if you want to take home 50 or 60 thousand dollars, you should be making somewhere around 120 to 150 thousand dollars. That's subtracting out costs of gear and equipment, your second shooters, everything that you possibly need to run a business, your marketing, everything. So it's important. Now let's talk about that additional eight hours, between two and ten hours, what would you do with that? Family time? Personal time? What's that? No, I love my family time. I don't take enough personal time probably, but that's a whole other story. And by the way, I totally told Kenna, I don't have Chevani here. Chevani is my compass. Those of you that watch our videos, you guys know. She's my compass, she's like, "Hey, you're derailing, get back on point." So I told Kenna if I do that she can just straight up interrupt me and get me back on track. What would you do with that eight hours? Another shoot? I mean, if you're doing a consult and a shoot and then turning it around in two hours or less, that's literally seven total hours, right? So if you're spending eight hours in post-production, you could literally do another shoot and make another 500 to 2500 dollars, however much you make per shoot.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with RSVP

Preset Installation Guide

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Keynote Slides
Lightroom Presets

Ratings and Reviews

April S.
 

When I first saw this course being offered I thought, I know how to save my own Presets, and I didn't think there could be much in this course for me. I like to listen in to courses while working sometimes though so I tuned in to this one just for "noise" in the background. Well, I was quite wrong about the content. This short course is a jewel in my opinion. Pye does show how to name, save, store Presets, but there is so much more. He delves into some pretty great detail about why and how you would save some adjustments and not others (In Camera vs Universal settings), and he explains in a precise, clear way (with demonstration) of how each setting affects an image. I have watched and also own several Lightroom and Photoshop courses. All are great, but none of them covered this topic in such a way as to make me think I don't need this course. I'm going to buy this course now so that I can watch at my own pace and really glean every little gem from it and put this info to immediate use. Thanks Pye!

Suzy Petrucci
 

I was literally wishing for a class like this a few weeks ago because I spend way too much time meandering though LR wondering if there's a more methodical and efficient and consistent way to get through lighroom editing. This class nails it. The what, where and why about each of the sliders and a foundational order in which to use them. Great system Pye. Thank you.

Nicolet Groen
 

I was a bit hesitant to buy because I am an interior and still life photographer and Pye is working in a completely different niche. But boy, I am so glad I got it. I finally created a set of presets that adjust my images in the way I want. The content is very structured and jam-packed with info. Next thing to figure out is how to create and use adjustment brushes, and yes, that is also explained it this course. Love it.​ Thank you Pye!

Student Work

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