Post-Production

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.

How I Build Custom Photoshop Brushes That Actually Work Inside Actions
Brushes & Presets

How I Build Custom Photoshop Brushes That Actually Work Inside Actions

Last year I was building a retouching action for a mid-sized e-commerce client who needed consistent skin softening applied across several thousand product shots. The action worked beautifully in testing. Then I handed it off to a junior editor on their team, opened the results two days later, and found that the softening brush strokes were painting at 40 pixels on their machine instead of the 400 pixels I’d set on mine.

Blackmagic's New $175 UltraStudio Express 3G: A Game-Changer for Video Workflows
News

Blackmagic's New $175 UltraStudio Express 3G: A Game-Changer for Video Workflows

I’ve been following Blackmagic Design’s latest hardware releases pretty closely, and their new UltraStudio Express 3G family just caught my attention for all the right reasons. At $175 per unit, these compact USB4 devices are hitting a sweet spot that could genuinely improve how many of us handle video capture and playback. What We’re Dealing With Blackmagic just introduced a pair of portable capture and playback solutions designed to integrate seamlessly into modern creative workflows.

The Workflow Tools Actually Worth Installing (After 15 Years of Testing Bad Ones)
Workflow Tools

The Workflow Tools Actually Worth Installing (After 15 Years of Testing Bad Ones)

The Hidden Cost of “Just Doing It Manually” Last spring I was onboarding a freelancer to help with overflow work from an e-commerce client. She was talented, fast, detail-oriented. And she was doing every single background removal by hand, one at a time, in a 200-image product catalog. Not because she didn’t know better tools existed, but because nobody had ever sat her down and shown her what was actually available.

GoPro's Mission 1 Pro: What Action Camera Innovation Means for Your Post-Production Workflow
News

GoPro's Mission 1 Pro: What Action Camera Innovation Means for Your Post-Production Workflow

GoPro’s Make-or-Break Moment I’ve been watching GoPro’s market position closely, and honestly, they’re at a critical juncture. The action camera space has become incredibly competitive, with serious challengers from DJI and Insta360 eating into their market share. The company needed to deliver something genuinely compelling, and the new Mission 1 Pro at $699 is their best shot at reclaiming momentum. What This Means for Your Editing Suite Here’s where I get genuinely excited: this camera’s internal capabilities directly impact how we approach post-production workflows.

Beyond Actions: How Photoshop Automation Scripts Actually Work (And Why I Use Both)
Workflow & Automation

Beyond Actions: How Photoshop Automation Scripts Actually Work (And Why I Use Both)

I learned to write scripts the hard way. A client sent over 200 product images that all needed the same crop, the same canvas size, the same file naming convention. I spent the entire first day doing it by hand. Somewhere around image 140, I made a crop error and had to go back. That evening I opened a JavaScript reference guide and didn’t go to bed until I had something that worked.

Compact Camera Gimbals Are Changing How We Capture Content for Post-Production
News

Compact Camera Gimbals Are Changing How We Capture Content for Post-Production

I’ve been testing compact gimbal cameras lately, and I’m genuinely impressed by how they’re transforming the way creators approach both shooting and editing. These tools are becoming essential for anyone serious about efficient post-production workflows. Why Gimbal Cameras Matter for Your Workflow For years, I’ve relied on various stabilization methods—gimbals, rigs, even creative handheld techniques. But the latest generation of compact cameras with built-in stabilization is game-changing. When you’re capturing footage that’s already smooth and stabilized at the source, your entire post-production pipeline becomes dramatically simpler.

The Plugin Tax: How to Audit Your Photoshop Stack Before It Audits You
Workflow & Tools

The Plugin Tax: How to Audit Your Photoshop Stack Before It Audits You

Last spring I inherited a plugin folder from a commercial studio that was shutting down. The lead retoucher had accumulated 34 installed plugins over about six years. Some were licensed, some were trial versions that had quietly stopped working, and at least three were duplicates of each other doing the same luminosity masking job. The folder was a archaeological dig through every trend in retouching from 2018 onward. And the studio had been paying for most of it.

Why Your Photoshop Presets Are Probably Fighting Your Workflow (And How to Build Ones That Don't)
Workflow Optimization

Why Your Photoshop Presets Are Probably Fighting Your Workflow (And How to Build Ones That Don't)

The first time I realized my presets were working against me, I was three hours into a 200-image e-commerce job for a Chicago ad agency. I’d built what I thought was a bulletproof export action: sharpen, resize to 2000px on the long edge, convert to sRGB, save as JPEG at quality 10. Clean. Logical. The problem was the client’s web platform wanted 1600px, their email team wanted 800px, and their print vendor wanted TIFFs at 300 DPI.