What's your sports workflow look like???

So what is everybodys workflow like for sports pics? I just got back from opening day softball for my daughter and my sons 4th little league game. I got 650 pics to go through and I'm not looking forward to it. I shoot with the 1dmkII which is a pic hog at 8.5 FPS. Shoot all JPGs.

First let me let you know what I have been doing. Download with DIM beacues I like it. Then to Lightroom and import pics into the correct folders, then I rate the pics 1-4, 1=trash, 2=keepers, 3=web use, and 4=other team. I edit only the web pics and this is where I spent most of the time, for now I have been just cropping. Once edited I export into a folder and the I go to Breezebrowser for proofing. I resize to 800x600, 72dpi, watermarking, Auto levels, and HQ sharping at %65. I use Breezebrowser for the batching as I'm not fulling editing 600+ images by hand. I need something to get me in the ballpark of the correct image. I then upload to my website for purchasing.

I would love to use LR for all of it but you can't use a custom watermark and the HQ sharpening seems to look better.

I do have Bibble just haven't really spent enough time with.

I also shoot my sports pics in jpeg. I also use Lightroom and the rating system to distinguish shots between keeper or not. I generally try to get everything right in camera, so I don't have to do anything but crop in Lightroom. You can go through them fairly quickly, but 600 is still a bunch. Makes me glad for 5 fps! Maybe you should time your shots more instead of just holding the shutter and praying?

I did a short notice shoot last sunday of a Cutting horse club show. (I use to belong to the club> went to visit saturday's show> they needed someone to shoot sat & sun.. I could only shoot sunday's show). .. anyway, 96 riders/works (@ 2.5 mins ea w/cattle changes every 10 riders). .. the show was from 7:30am - 4:40pm.. every lighting condition you can imagine.. from dark overcast to bright afternoon sunshine. lots of lessons learned about when I should use AWB. (I usually set it.. but it really created havoc with changing weather!). .. I would review and dump the 'ho-hum' shots between riders (when possible).. as well as during some of the cattle changes. .. but brought home 1000 images. (jpegs).. First I review & dump from the camera (it's faster) .. then I look at them in my Canon ZoomBrowser.. and dump more. .. I'm looking for one or two shots of each rider, unless they've had an exceptionally good work and I get some great shots. I only crop and edit the ones going onto the site. .. because it was short notice - and I'd teamed up with a friend (who shot a few on saturday), she let me dump all the pix on her site: http://www.camerahorse​.com/albums.php?albumI​d=38866 .. that's the link to sunday's shots. .. She put some of hers in the saturday album. .. OH.. There were 12 different classes. .. so as each new class started, I shot a 'card' with the class name on it. That way, all of the photos didn't run together. .. I easily knew which shots to put into which albums. Oh.. and the watermark on her site is automatic... I just added my signature to the shots before I loaded them via ftp.

Because I also work a day job, all of the class/albums got finished on wednesday. .. for some variation, I showed them some sepias/borders/misc effects. They seem to really like them...(already sold quite a few) and we're also already getting requests for horse/owner portraits, etc.

.. I've been trying to figure out a better way to focus on the rider & horse... especially when the cow's butt is so much closer in so many of the shots. (AF). No time to manual focus.... if you want to see how fast this sport is, my friend made a bit of a video on saturday. ... should give you an idea of what it would be like trying to shoot stills : http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=9CR0ixcdKmc . I usually shoot on manual everything.. but ended up shooting on AF. (I hope this isn't too long)

I had a track invitational tomorrow (around two 4 gig cards), a dance tournament tomorrow (Maybe 4 gigs worth if I shoot it up), baseball games on Monday and Tuesday, we also have around 5 games getting rescheduled do the the rain. I usually have two to three days a week to myself.

Track is my absolute favorite sport, I shoot as many pictures as possible.

After I crop and possibly do some photoshop work, I upload to Zenfolio. Once that is done, it auto watermarks and people buy the.

When I read what you're doing, and how much you already know, I don't think I could help you without a more specific question.

I haven't shot much sports, but first I would say to stop using the 8.5fps. Also, if possible, try to delete a bad image that you know is bad right after you take it (on the camera). That will reduce the amount of photos you have to work with in PP.

Also, if you can get the framing good in camera you won't have to crop...

slappy sam wrote in post #5272552
Also, if possible, try to delete a bad image that you know is bad right after you take it (on the camera). That will reduce the amount of photos you have to work with in PP.

Especially if you accidentally delete all the images and not just the one you mean to delete. I've never done that, but have heard of people doing it. Dangerous recommendation.

^^ Takes too long in the field.

I'm doing > 500 keepers from a few K this weekend.

Batches running now.............

swampler wrote in post #5272747
Especially if you accidentally delete all the images and not just the one you mean to delete. I've never done that, but have heard of people doing it. Dangerous recommendation.

I dunno about other cameras, but on my XT I would have to accidentally go over two steps instead of one to erase all, as well as going through another confirmation screen (and the default confirmation selection is not "continue") to do so. Could happen, but I think it is pretty unlikely.

Of course it does take extra time, sometimes you don't have enough time. But other times (maybe a timeout/in between quarters/periods/halfs​) you could go through some.

Sam, My 30D is the same as your XTi on the deletion thing, and I do occasionally delete some. Just have to be careful is all.

I shoot a lot of indoor basketball, seems it's a year 'round sport these days. I'll typically shoot 800 images/game. I NEVER delete images in the camera, too great a chance I'll delete the wrong thing. I typically import the cards into my computer using PhotoMechanic. It allows me to rename the photos to my preferences (typically the camera and the shutter actuations e.g. Dm3_21863) while embedding IPTC data for the shoot, my copyright, my contact information, etc.

Once done I move to Aperture and import by reference. I then mark the image I want to keep and delete the rest. I use Aperture to create web gallery pages and then post them to my website.

I can typically edit to proofs in about 30 minutes/game

That's pretty fast.

When you say proofs, do you mean uncropped?

Buy beer and chips.
Turn on TV.
Eat chips, drink beer. Yell at TV occasionally.
Turn off TV, go to bed.

I guess I'm on the low end, In a typical game I shoot about 250 + shots. The only time I filled a 4GB card was when I shot a cheerleading competition and took 2600 shots. When I go through them, the most that go on line has been 125 and I try to keep it under that. I feel that people will not want to look through hundreds of shots. My work flow is to import into Lightroom and assign a file name at this point.. I then go through them and will correct any shot which seems to be not level. This is done as I'm rating the ones I plan on keeping. After that I apply very basic editing to all of them. This may be as simple as a WB adjustment to warm them up a bit. Then I go through the ones I rated to keep and may remove some from this group.
I then export what is left and upload them to my web site (Exposure Manager) where they are automatically downsized and my © is put across them. When a shot is ordered, I go back to the RAW version to crop it to size and do more editing before uploading the file for printing.

slappy sam wrote in post #5272552
I haven't shot much sports, but first I would say to stop using the 8.5fps. Also, if possible, try to delete a bad image that you know is bad right after you take it (on the camera). That will reduce the amount of photos you have to work with in PP.

Also, if you can get the framing good in camera you won't have to crop...

Funny you should say that. I do delete images in the filed. As a batter is swinging I time, well try to time the impact of the ball. Problem is you don't know if the kid swings or not until after you press the shutter at 8.5 fps. So before the next pitch I try to delete the last 4-5 frames where the kid didn't swing. Problem is the MKII isn't to friendly on deleting pics compared to the 40D. Not shooting at 8.5 fps on a baseball swing, well you just lower your odds on catching that one good frame where the ball is making impact and the expression on the face, and even some times the tongue hanging out.