The tutorial below is for all of you who’ve grown tire of hearing “purists” proclaim that, “Unless you turn your mode dial to M you’re not a real photographer.” As we’ve said before, that’s a lot of bunk, as numerous pros regularly shoot in Aperture or Shutter Priority depending upon the assignment.
Another misconception is that Manual Mode photography requires sophisticated skills and is only suitable for advanced shooters, and that’s a silly claim too. After watching this 12-minute video, you’ll be out shooting in Manual Mode in no time.
Hyun Ralph Jeong modestly says, I’m just a guy who loves taking pictures.” But as you’ll see in this episode he’s quite accomplished and a very adept instructor. Whether you just bought your first camera, want to take your photography to the next level, or are simply curious about what Manual Mode involves, this episode will demystify the technique.
As Jeong explains, “There’s a big difference between not shooting in manual because you don’t know how and why, and not using this mode because it won’t affect your style of photography.” So watch this demonstration and then decide what mode is best for you.
Shooting in Manual requires constantly adjusting aperture, shutter speed and ISO, as well as understanding how these three variables interact to achieve proper exposure. It’s also important knowing where to begin; i.e. do you start by first adjusting aperture, and let that choice dictate the appropriate ISO and shutter speed settings, or should another variable be preeminent?
The answer to the above question is simple: “It depends.” In other words, the approach you take depends upon the subject matter and the effect you desire. The hierarchy you use is reliant upon a number of factors, including whether your subject is static or in motion, do you want to blur the background of a scene or maximize depth of field, the light levels you confront, are you shooting handheld or with a tripod, and a few other considerations.
As you’ll see, Jeong provides a clear explanation to these questions so you can make the proper choice under various conditions. And after giving Manual mode a try, you can always go back to your familiar approach
All of us want to do a thorough job of processing photos, but we also want to do so as quickly and efficiently as possible. That way we can get back out in the field with a camera and do what we love most.
With that in mind we think you’ll appreciate the tutorial below for speeding up editing from a post-processing expert who goes by the handle AdamDNN on his instructional YouTube channel. As he notes, there are plenty of things you can do to improve your workflow, but “these five methods really stand out for me.”
Adam also discusses a few new features in the latest Lightroom update that really accelerate your editing, including the new AI Masks that can save a lot of time. Fast and precise edits are really important when you return from a daylong excursion with hundreds of images. Same thing for wedding photographers who may shoot thousands of photos at an event.
Tip number one is new to us, and it involves White Balance. Instead of using Auto White Balance to capture images, he recommends choosing a setting that’s most appropriate to the scene, and sticking with it unless there are dramatic changes to the light. That substantially speeds the editing process because you don’t have to make White balance adjustments for each individual shot
Adam’s second tip has to with the tedious chore of going through all your images to select those that are worth editing. Here he reveals the two methods he uses for rapidly culling photos to choose the heroes, maybes, and rejects. By following this process you can make a second pass to refine your choices.
The other tips you’ll see include a trick for using an iPad and Lightroom mobile to facilitate the process, how to shoot in “sets” of similar images so you can edit in bulk, and the most efficient way to use masks. He also reveals several keyboard shortcuts that he credits for “speeding up my work flow immensely.”
What if you could access every image in your photo library while traveling – and rely on a simple solution to protect the photos you capture on the road?
Mylio Photos makes both these goals possible. The app works differently than other photo software. It’s a digital photo hub that turns your computers, phones, tablets, and storage devices into an intelligent system for managing and backing up a lifetime of photos, videos, and important documents.
Here are the biggest benefits of the way the app works. It serves as a universal library for all major platforms (Windows, iOS, Android, macOS). With Mylio Photos, you can consolidate all your media – from unlimited sources – so it’s cataloged together in one beautiful library you can access from all your devices, anytime, anywhere. No cloud service is required.
Keep reading to learn how Mylio Photos allows you to manage your entire library while traveling (even without the internet) — and helps protect the new images you’re shooting. (Try Mylio Photos for free here.)
Fit your entire library on your phone or tablet with Mylio Photos
With Mylio Photos, you can fit even a massive photo library on a limited-capacity tablet or smartphone.
How does it work?
Mylio Photos syncs optimized versions of your photos to devices with limited storage space, such as a laptop or smartphone. It protects your originals on larger-capacity devices you control such as external drives, a desktop computer, NAS, or cloud service.
Mylio Photos’ optimized smart previews take up about 5% of the space compared to originals. To put this in perspective, one million smart preview files will take up about 1 TB of storage.
Before your trip
As you get ready to leave, you’ll want to set up Mylio Photos so it works seamlessly to help you access and protect all your photos while you’re on the road. Here are four steps to take before departure.
Sync the mobile devices you plan to take with optimized versions of all your photos. The Mylio Photos Sync Panel lets you check the sync status of all your connected devices at a glance. This helps you ensure that your entire media collection is backed up before you take off, and that you can browse and organize your entire library while you’re on the road.
Free up space on your phone’s camera roll. Mylio Photos can import and back up media from your iOS or Android phone automatically. It can even free up space on your phone’s camera roll once your photos are safely backed up. The app does this by scanning your library, then letting you know how many files can be safely deleted and how much storage the deletions will free up.
Taking these steps ensures you’ll be able to access all your photos during your trip. Plus, you’ll have more room for pictures you’ll be taking.
Leave a system at home (like your computer) powered on and running Mylio Photos in the background. If you have internet connectivity while traveling, this will let you access your full-quality media on demand. The app will automatically begin syncing any new photos you add to your storage and backup devices at home.
While you’re traveling
Travel days can be busy. But there’s also often some downtime in hotels and airports. Try these two travel-photo hacks to ease your post-processing workflow once you’re back in the daily routine at home.
Take photos with your smartphone at key locations even if you’re shooting mostly with a mirrorless or DSLR camera. Why? These photos can provide additional metadata. For instance, if your camera doesn’t add geotags, you can easily grab the GPS coordinates from a smartphone photo then batch-apply those coordinates to other photos you shot at that location in Mylio Photos.
Start reviewing and organizing your photos with QuickReview mode. Mylio Photos offers some unique benefits that can help you maximize time in your hotel room, a coffee shop, and even WiFi-free flights. Getting ahead on your workflow while travel photos are fresh in your mind is never wrong.
QuickReview mode lets you review hundreds of photos quickly on a smartphone in Mylio Photos. With a nod to one-handed gestures made popular by apps like Tinder, just swipe right to keep a photo, swipe left to reflect and flag it for deletion. The tool works on tablets and laptops too, with keyboard shortcuts.
You can also manage photos on the flight home. You don’t need an internet connection to organize and manage your photos in Mylio Photos; they’re all stored on your mobile device. The offline changes you make will sync across your devices when you’re back online.
Once you’re back home
Now it’s time to continue refining your travel photo collection and to share your best shots.
Add or correct metadata if necessary. Did you forget to change your camera settings to the correct time zone? Use Mylio Photos to shift the date or time. If you took a photo with your phone while shooting, you can copy and batch-apply the timestamp information to camera photos taken at the same time.
Edit photos in Mylio Photos, or your favorite external editor. The editing tools in Mylio Photos are quite good for basic edits. But if you like to use external editors like Lightroom, Photoshop, Luminar Neo, or Radiant Photo, it’s quick and easy to hand off a photo or group of photos. After making edits externally, you just save the edited versions back to your Mylio Photos library.
Play with PhotoExplorer. Tap any of your images in Mylio Photos to automatically launch a web search based on the GPS info in the photo. It’s a neat trick that lets you rediscover the name of that great restaurant you found, or search for more information related to a site you visited.
Share your best photos. It’s convenient to share photos and videos from Mylio Photos: Just Copy and Paste to most external apps, email, text, and other platforms. You can also use their SafeShare option to strip all personal info from images before sharing to other applications or posting to social media.
Certified interior designers can use different billing methods for the services they provide. When meeting a potential client for the first time, the designer is expected to explain every option they can offer for the project. This will be important as the client decides on the mode of payment they prefer. Of course, both parties will have to come to an agreement before the project begins.
Payment Options For Interior Design Services
Flat Rate
If the client would like to pay a flat rate for interior design services, the designer must discuss all details as clearly as possible, especially in terms of the coverage of the agreed fee. In most cases, this price will cover everything that must be done to satisfy the client, including contingencies, and a portion of this amount is paid before the work begins.
Typically, interior design clients pay from 10% to 40% of the total amount quoted by the designer, but this is separate from the retainer, which is paid in exchange for the designer’s commitment to work on the project.
Whatever amount is agreed upon by the two parties must be included in the written contract or agreement. Payments are usually made at certain phases of the project, and both sides should agree on a schedule of payments to be made by the client.
There is only one disadvantage to this mode of payment, and that is when the scope of the project turns out to be bigger than the actual work that is done. In that case, the designer will find themselves at a loss in terms of the unpaid extra time and energy spent.
Per-Hour Rate
This mode of payment is one of the most – if not the most – common mode of payment used by service professionals like engineers, architects, lawyers, and the rest. Interior designers are known to use it too and mostly for the same reasons.
When charging a client per hour, the interior designer will have to keep a tab on the number of hours they have spent each working day. By the end of the month, the designer will be paid according to the number of hours rendered and the agreed hourly rate.
Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash
With this payment structure, the client is paying the designer for the time they spend on the project and not necessarily for their talent and skills.
The problem is, there are simply too many gray areas with this type of arrangement. Say, Designer Ann goes to the hardware store for Client Jessica. She spends five hours in the process and finds something that Client Ed would need, but can’t find anything for Client Jessica. Who will receive Designer Ann’s bill for that time? Scenarios like this often make the client feel cheated.
Percentage of Total Project Cost
This payment method is usually good for residential projects, although it also works well for commercial clients. Here, the designer will be paid a certain percentage of the total cost of the job.
What exactly this percentage will be depends on the designer and the client, based on the type of work to be done. For minor residential projects, this can range from 1% to 40%; the bigger the project, the bigger the designer’s commission.
One drawback is that the client may suspect the designer of purposely buying expensive materials so they can get fat commissions. On the other hand, even if the designer intentionally buys expensive materials, which are usually high-quality too, the client may be impressed with the outcome and no longer fuss about the cost.
A lot of people are actually comfortable with this arrangement because it makes things easier – any material purchased by the client will be marked up by a specific percentage to pay for overhead and profit.
At the same time, the designer will be happy to work with the knowledge that they will be compensated for each item they have initially paid for.
Per Square Footage Rate
Another method an interior designer may use to bill a client is to charge them a specific rate for the total area that will be covered by the project. When this option is used, it becomes crucial to plan the area of the work-site because the designer will base their fee on this value.
However, this payment model is often mixed with other modes in cases where the client asks for extra services. After all, space is always the starting point of interior design en route to the final plan.
As soon as it is confirmed that more services will be needed, the designer can introduce another method of billing in line with the additional services required.
Photo by KOBU Agency on Unsplash
Retail Price
The retail price method of billing an interior design client has been used for many decades and is still a common choice nowadays. This goes all the way back when interior design was still not officially recognized as a profession. That was around the middle of the 20th century when the job did not include any complex technical aspects such as lighting, electrical systems and the like.
Using this model, the designer will not charge the client directly. Instead, they will make bulk purchases from suppliers at discount rates, and the client will be billed the actual retail prices of those purchased materials. The difference will be considered as payment.
How much the discounts will be is private between the designer and the suppliers. Clients are also not supposed to ask, let alone force neither the designer nor the supplier to reveal the details of their agreement.
However, this payment method only works for furniture and furnishing provisions. Let’s say the client needs an electrician to fix a broken outlet that will be needed for newly purchased electronics that are part of the design.
Of course, it is the designer’s job to look for an electrician, but take note that they will probably not get a discount for the needed electrical repair services. Hence, they will have to come up with another way to charge the client for the tradesman’s services. This is one of the many scenarios where the retail price payment method won’t work.
Department Store Retail Price
A lot of department stores selling home furniture and furnishings have partnerships with interior designers. Such services often come at no cost, provided an agreed minimum number of items are purchased.
Sometimes, a fee may be collected, but in case the purchase goes beyond a particular amount, then the fee that had been paid will be reimbursed. It’s not difficult to see that while this mode of payment may work for residential projects, it may not be compatible with the unique scenarios involving commercial projects.
Aside from department stores, dealers specialising in home furniture, furnishings, and other equipment may also have such partnerships with designers.
Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash
Combination Billing
As one may understand from the term itself, combination billing is a mix of any two or more payment methods mentioned above for certain projects, usually large and complex ones. For example, space planning may be initially charged per square foot or meter at a set hourly rate. When it comes to ordering furniture and other deliveries, billing may be done as a percentage above cost.
If the designer wants to purchase rare expensive antiques, the retail mode of payment may be used, where the client pays the price tag (client will not get a discount) but the designer can make a profit in the form of a commission from the retailer.
Evidently, for complicated projects that require several factors for consideration, the combination billing method is best to use.
Drawing Up Agreements for Interior Design Services
Once everything has been explained and cleared up, and spoken agreements have been made, it is now time to sign a formal written contract where all the details of the project are explicitly stated. Like other project contracts, this document will serve as a guide to be followed from the beginning to the end of the project.
In most cases, it is the designer who draws up the agreement since they are more knowledgeable about the intricacies of the trade. The client will simply review the proposed contract and, if desired, seek a lawyer’s advice before deciding to proceed or not.
