Expert insight Editing on the fly

Newspapers and other media outlets want images immediately, so you need to upload images during the course of the game, especially after key moments such as goals, so processing has to be done on the fly. Tom will shoot around 2000 images per game, and must quickly select, caption, edit and upload a varied package of around 50 shots before the final whistle blows, so he only has a few seconds to prepare each image. He makes use of lulls in the game to process shots, but keeps an ear out for the crowd – it they start to get rowdy then he stops editing and starts shooting again…

1 Rate as you go

Tom reviews shots on the back of the camera and hits the rate button for those that have potential. These are prioritized so that when he uploads the images to his computer, they appear on screen first.

2 Use two memory cards

Tom uses two memory cards per camera and hot-swaps them during the course of the game into a fast card reader, so images are uploading from one card while he’s shooting with another.

3 Captioning

Uploaded images open into Photo Mechanic, which enables him to quickly decide which shots make the grade, and enables him to write detailed captions in seconds with just a few keystrokes.

4 Editing

In Photoshop, it takes Tom just a few seconds to straighten and crop his shots, brighten them up, add punch with a Curves adjustment, sharpen them, and upload them to the photo agency’s server.