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Contest Winners and My Own “Save The Day” Story

CATEGORIES: Living In Layers | RC | August 31, 2009

Hey everyone.. Happy Monday! Before I get into the “Save The Day” stuff, I wanted to give you guys a quick update on some of our past winners on the blog and on Layers TV:

Layers TV Episodes:
EP 99 Winner: Troy Date
EP 100 winner – Samantha Kenney (Woo Hoo, Printer AND Photoshop World Ticket)
EP101 Winner: Ed Nishimura

Blog Winners:
Blog wk of 8/10 winner – Lindsay Harris
Blog wk of 8/17 winner – Matt Radcliff
Blog wk of 8/24 winner – Robert Jeans

My “Saved The Day” Moment
We are several weeks into the How Photoshop CS4 Saved the Day\ contest that we are running on the blog, and I noticed that the winner for last week was a person who used Droplets and Actions in his Save The Day scenario. I always tell people “Im usually the guy that doesnt do too much sexy.. i’m a production guy. My skill comes in what -works-” So to me, droplets saving the day is completely understandable. It also reminded me of a job that I did before becoming a Photoshop Guy.

I used to manage an IT company that was built for online e-commerce – specifically dealing with a LOT of product shots – like 12,000 products per client – multiple images per product. In addition to all of the things that an IT Manager needed to take care of, we decided very early on that we were going to own our own images and not buy from a major image company out there (purposely trying not to be specific here). This meant that I had to hire several photographers and train them on the specific job, setup studios on location and off site, get lights, setup lights, and manage the categorization, naming, and structure of several thousand images per day. At the most basic level, these images needed to be on a white background.

Cut a couple of months in, and i’m being told that there would be a problem in X city. I fly there and find out that some of the products arent on a white background. Theres a problem. But how much of a problem is beyond me? Are 300 images affected? 3000? 30,000? The images are sitting maybe 7-8 directories deep.. so how do I figure this one out?

Click on the link below to see how it turned out!

We get to a point where desperation kicks in and says “Just hire temps, and just elbow grease the project.” I sat down and remembered that there HAD to be a way to sort this out. Enter Scripting.

I went back in my head to a Photoshop World many moons ago where I talked to some people about Scripting and how this leverages a simple concept in programming, Conditions. I said “What if I make a script that analyzed a fixed region of the image, and compared that to RGB values of 255, 255, 255 (white). If it found it, it would move it into X place. If it didnt, it would move it into Y place. Cobbling it together with resources over at Jeff Tranberry’s spot, I think I put together something that would kinda do the job. I proudly stood up in front of management and said “Watch this.. ”

I created an Batch that did a series of Steps: File>Open, File>Scripts>Script I Made, then a File>Close.

In a few hours all of the images were sorted with over a 90% accuracy and something I thought would take weeks to fix took minutes. It’s wasn’t sexy.. It wasn’t cool. It was as nerdy as nerdy can be..

.. and it totally saved my tail.

Now, aside from it being a cool Save The Day Story, it also gives you a couple of valuable lessons here:

• 1. Photoshop World Is About The Contacts As Much as The Classes
  This wasn’t a class that I went to (It didnt even become a class until much later, I think). This was an idea that I was talking over with ANOTHER attendee at the conference, who HAPPENED to mention Jeff Tranberry and scripts. I made it a point when I went to Photoshop World to meet as many people as I could, because the Networking potential would be huge, and you never know when that business card will save you.
• 2. If you pick up ONE thing that you can turn into Money, It’s Worth It
  There are a LOT of classes at Photoshop World If you jump into it thinking you will do ALL of them, prepare to be completely fried on a daily basis. We anticipate that, and reason that it is why we give people the big phonebook. I’d say this – pace yourself. Take a couple of classes that you like. Then, when you get back to your home- take the concept and APPLY it to what you do. Cool as making fire is, Fire by itself doesnt turn a profit. If you can make fire from scratch AND use it in a print ad, photo shoot, mockup, presentation – THEN you are monetizing what you’ve learned!
• 3. Dont Do What You Know
  NEVER go to a conference class on something you already know! Why waste your time? I’ve heard tons of people that say “Oh, I knew That!” I tell them “Guess what.. i’m totally cool with you getting up and leaving.. and going to a class that’s going to TEACH you something new!” This is YOUR conference if you choose to come. Be Agressive on what you want to learn.
• 4. Stop Instructors
  We are as excited about bringing you all of this iinformation as you are in being there. There’s nothing wrong with you stopping us to say hi, say thank you, say we rock, say we suck, or ask us a question. Believe me, if I dont know it.. i’m going to make it a point to find out for you. And any instructor there will feel the same way. If you guys are happy, we’re happy.. Its a give and take

OK.. enough on the soapbox there.. Can you tell September?!?! You should be too..

See you guys tomorrow!

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