Post-Production

Why Your Photoshop Export Settings Are Quietly Wrecking Your Client Deliverables
Workflow & Automation

Why Your Photoshop Export Settings Are Quietly Wrecking Your Client Deliverables

There’s a specific kind of dread that hits when a client emails back asking why the jpegs you delivered look different on their end than they do on your monitor. I’ve been there more times than I’d like to admit, and almost every single case traced back to the same root cause: sloppy export settings baked into a Photoshop action that nobody had audited in months. After 15 years working in commercial photography studios and now running my own post-production consultancy, I’ve built, broken, inherited, and rebuilt more export workflows than I can count.

The Plugin Tax: How to Audit What's Actually Earning Its Place in Your Photoshop Stack
Plugin Reviews

The Plugin Tax: How to Audit What's Actually Earning Its Place in Your Photoshop Stack

The $600 Lesson Sitting Unused in My Plugins Folder Last year I did an audit of every plugin and extension installed in my Photoshop setup. Not because something broke, but because I noticed my startup times had crept up and I couldn’t account for why. What I found was 14 active plugins. I could justify maybe 8 of them. The rest were things I’d bought during a sale, installed with full enthusiasm, used for a week, and completely forgotten.

Photoshop's New AI Actions Panel Is the Biggest Workflow Shift in a Decade - Here's What It Actually Does
Video Tutorials

Photoshop's New AI Actions Panel Is the Biggest Workflow Shift in a Decade - Here's What It Actually Does

I’ve been tracking time saved by Photoshop actions in a spreadsheet since 2014. Over 2,400 hours recovered. That number only stays meaningful if I keep paying attention when something genuinely changes the game - not just tweaks, but structural shifts in how the tool works. The redesigned Actions panel in Photoshop Beta is one of those shifts. In this Aaron Nace (PHLEARN) tutorial, Watch the full tutorial on YouTube, Aaron walks through a brand new Actions interface that combines AI-driven suggestions with a searchable library of thousands of built-in actions.

How Photoshop Actions Actually Work (And Why Most People Build Them Wrong)
Workflows & Automation

How Photoshop Actions Actually Work (And Why Most People Build Them Wrong)

The Day I Stopped Doing Things Twice I was 26, working in a commercial studio in Chicago, and someone handed me a folder of 200 product images that all needed the same crop, the same canvas size, and the same sharpening pass before they went to the client. No one told me about actions. I just started doing it manually, one file at a time, and by image 47 I wanted to quit photography entirely.

How to Build a Border-and-Rule Action in Photoshop (And Why Your Workflow Needs One)
Video Tutorials

How to Build a Border-and-Rule Action in Photoshop (And Why Your Workflow Needs One)

Every hour I spend clicking through the same sequence of menus is an hour I’m not billing. That’s not philosophy, that’s arithmetic. I’ve been running post-production for ad agencies and e-commerce brands long enough to know that the difference between a profitable shoot day and a painful one often comes down to how much of your repetitive work you’ve already automated before the files land in your lap. That’s exactly why I keep coming back to tutorials on Photoshop Actions, even after all these years.

Studio Backup Workflow: How to Archive Photos and Video So You Never Lose a Job
Video Tutorials

Studio Backup Workflow: How to Archive Photos and Video So You Never Lose a Job

I’ll be honest: I didn’t get serious about my archive system until I almost lost an entire e-commerce shoot. One corrupted transfer, one drive that was “probably fine,” and suddenly I’m on the phone with a client explaining why I need to reschedule a product shoot that involved a rented space and a hired stylist. That was the last time I treated file management as an afterthought. Since then, I’ve spent more time than I’d like to admit refining how media moves from card to archive, and I track the hours that system saves me the same way I track everything else: in a spreadsheet.

The Workflow Tools Actually Worth Installing (And the Ones I Quietly Uninstalled)
Workflow & Productivity

The Workflow Tools Actually Worth Installing (And the Ones I Quietly Uninstalled)

There’s a spreadsheet on my second monitor right now. It has columns for action name, date built, task type, average time saved per use, and total cumulative hours saved. I update it obsessively. The current total sits at just over 2,400 hours. That number is the reason I still evangelize automation to every photographer and retoucher I consult with, even when their eyes glaze over the moment I say the word “scripting.

How to Build and Save Custom Presets in Aperture (So You Stop Reinventing the Same Edit)
Video Tutorials

How to Build and Save Custom Presets in Aperture (So You Stop Reinventing the Same Edit)

There’s a specific kind of frustration that comes from nailing an edit, closing the app, and then spending twenty minutes trying to reconstruct the same adjustments on the next shoot. I’ve done it more times than I’d like to admit, usually on deadline, usually at 11pm. The whole point of a preset workflow is to capture the decision once and stop making it over and over again. That principle is what drives everything I do in post-production, whether I’m working in Photoshop, Lightroom, or Aperture.

Beyond Actions: How Photoshop Automation Scripts Actually Save You Hours (Not Minutes)
Workflow Automation

Beyond Actions: How Photoshop Automation Scripts Actually Save You Hours (Not Minutes)

The task that finally broke me was a crop-and-resize job. Two hundred product images, each one needing a 2000x2000px square crop, a white background fill, and an export at three different sizes for three different platforms. I did the first forty by hand before I stopped, stared at the screen, and did the math. At my current pace, this was going to eat my entire Thursday. That afternoon I learned enough JavaScript to write my first Photoshop automation script.

The Workflow Stack I Actually Use: Honest Notes from 15 Years of Studio Post-Production
Workflow & Productivity

The Workflow Stack I Actually Use: Honest Notes from 15 Years of Studio Post-Production

The first time I spent an entire day cropping and resizing the same image 200 times, I wasn’t frustrated. I was embarrassed. I had been working in commercial photography studios for years at that point, surrounded by people who talked about efficiency constantly, and there I was, manually typing pixel dimensions into the Image Size dialog like it was 1997. That afternoon I went home and learned just enough Photoshop scripting to make sure it never happened again.

The Workflow Stack I Actually Use After 15 Years in Commercial Post-Production
Workflow & Productivity

The Workflow Stack I Actually Use After 15 Years in Commercial Post-Production

There’s a specific kind of misery that comes from doing the same Photoshop task 200 times in a row. I know this because I lived it, about nine years ago, when a client handed me a folder of 200 product images that all needed the same crop, resize, and export sequence. I did the first thirty by hand before something in my brain snapped. I spent the rest of that day learning how to script the whole thing.

6 Premiere Pro Plugins That Actually Change How Fast You Edit
Video Tutorials

6 Premiere Pro Plugins That Actually Change How Fast You Edit

I track time the way some people track calories. Right now my spreadsheet shows 2,400-plus hours saved through automated workflows across Photoshop alone. So when I watch a tutorial from someone who’s clearly put in the same obsessive thinking about shaving minutes off repetitive tasks, I pay close attention. Watch the full tutorial on YouTube – it’s from Mango Street, and the creator brings 12 years of Premiere Pro experience to a tight rundown of six plugins that genuinely move the needle.