Dylan

LIVE NOW: iPhone Preset Pack 9 professional presets for Lightroom Mobile and Desktop • 3 Color presets • 3 Monochrome presets • 3 Bonus styles

How I keep skin tones right under any look: 1. Fix exposure and white balance first 2. Check skin sits on the skin line in the vectorscope 3. Add the look after, around 70% 4. Pull skin back with a qualifier if it drifts The look serves the face.

Simulon now drops CG characters into phone footage and they react to the room. Impressive. It still needs a good plate: clean light, a steady frame, a background worth keeping. The real shoot is becoming the thing AI builds on.

Clients don't pay for the day. They pay to not worry about it. Show up early. Bring a backup for everything. Send first selects the same night. That's what a day rate actually buys.

Sunday night desk reset: Everything off except the laptop, one drive and a notebook open on Monday's shot list. Start the week with a clean desk and nothing to decide.

Hamilton put the Ferrari on pole in Mexico. Shooting red cars? Red clips before anything else. Expose for the paint, not the sky, then pull red saturation down before you push anything. A red that looks real beats one that glows.

Saturday is for the unglamorous part of running a one-person agency: - Back up the week's cards twice - Send every open invoice - Swap one old portfolio image for a new one Nobody sees it. Everything depends on it.

Where I use AI at DŌC: - Shot lists and call sheets - First drafts of client emails - Sorting and tagging selects Where I don't: the frame and the grade. AI saves me hours. Taste is still the job.

Halloween night on iPhone: 1. Brace it on a wall and let Night mode run the full time 2. Pull exposure down a touch so blacks stay black 3. Tap to focus on the light, not the dark 4. Shoot ProRAW if you have it Dark is the mood. Don't brighten it away.

Everything I bring to a one-day hotel shoot fits in one bag. Fewer cases means faster setups, less staff waiting on me, and more time chasing the light.

How I make black and white that doesn't look grey: 1. Convert, then rebuild contrast with the colour sliders 2. Find one true black and one true white 3. Dodge the subject, burn the edges 4. Grain last Before and after below.

iPhone Presets – Part II is almost here. I'm finishing the last touches right now. Website and emails go live Tuesday 3/11 at 6PM CET. Substack subscribers get a discount 👀 Not subscribed yet? Link below.

Still in doubt if I should switch my complete workflow to @captureone and try it for a year. Lightroom has been lagging a lot lately and workflow wise it’s not the best. Any thoughts?

Laika built 200 puppets and 130 sets by hand for Wildwood. Same week, an AI short fooled half of X into thinking it was hand-drawn. Both can work. Only one comes with a behind-the-scenes story, and clients are buying that story too.

Mexico GP weekend. Shooting motorsport? The best frames are rarely on track. Marigolds at the paddock gate, mechanics between sessions, fans in the stands. Shoot the culture around the car and the car shots get better too.

The shot of the Brewers' World Series win came from a remote camera nobody was holding. Prep beats reflexes. Pick the spot, pre-focus, lock exposure, then wait. Same on a hotel or car shoot: half the work is done before I press anything.

One habit that gets me rebooked: Deliver one small thing nobody asked for. A vertical cut, a few stills pulled from the video, a clean version without music. Costs me an hour. Clients remember it for a year.

Same file, before and after. 1. White balance off something neutral 2. Highlights down, shadows up a touch 3. Pull skin away from the background 4. Grain last, never first That's the whole edit.

Japan, part II 🇯🇵