Sports Photography Post Production Guide

Caption Basics

• The caption information is critical — please make every effort to ensure accuracy.

• Captions can be created using Photoshop’s “file info” command or Photo Mechanic’s IPTC Infobox.

• Names are the most critical area in the caption, get it right.

What goes in a Caption:

• The first sentence of the caption describes what the photo shows, in the present tense, and states where and when the photo was made.

• It must always include the day and date the photo was made.

• Example: Syracuse University hosted a Candlelight Vigil Mass Sunday to honor the victims of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing on Sunday, October 22, 2017. Nearly 29 years ago plane carrying a large group of Syracuse University students went down over Lockerbie, Scotland, 270 people died, including the 35 SU students who were returning home from studying abroad in London.

• The second sentence of the caption gives background on the news event or describes why the photo is significant.

• Whenever possible, try to keep the captions to no more than two concise sentences, while including the relevant information.

• Try to anticipate what information an editor or reader will need to properly convey the story.

It is very important that when shooting sports images that captions contain the proper names and spellings of the player.

Source: Michigan Associated Press Photo Contribution Guidelines

Writing Captions in Photo Mechanic

If you are preparing to photograph Great Britain vs the United States in Hockey. 

Prior to the game, get the team roster from the press box. If they do not have a copy of it on paper for you to take a photo of it with your phone.

The caption template will be as follows:

<<insert caption here>> during <<insert event name>> at the 2023 FISU World University Games on January XX, 2023 in <<insert location>>, New York. (Photo by Firstname Lastname/FISU Games)

Fill in the caption accordingly. Making sure to insert the proper info in the <<variables>>. Your captions should be written in the present tense.

Example: 

John Doe #3 of United States makes a shot on goal against Stephen John #4 of Great Britain during a men’s hockey game between Great Britain and the United States at the 2023 FISU World University Games on January 11, 2023 in Potsdam, New York. (Photo by Isaiah Vazquez/FISU)

The caption is formulaic and easy to remember.

Who What When Where. (Photo by Firstname Lastname/FISU Games)

For hockey + team sports:

Player name, jersey number, full team name, action, present tense. No Jargon, no nicknames.

Photo Mechanic Ingest Template:

Other Metadata Fields

Description Writer: Capitalized Initials, this will assist with file naming [FL]

Headline: Great Britain vs. United States at the 2023 FISU World University Games

Persons Shown: Athletes in images or volunteers/staff if available

City: Potsdam

Location: Cheel Arena

Job ID: MIHO_GBRvUSA_20230112

Category: SPO (sport)

Supp Cat 1: Three letter code, as indicated in the document

Supp Cat 2: Event Code

Supp Cat 3: Gender, Men’s, Women’s, Men’s and Women’s, none for unspecified

File Naming Resources

Read below for definitions + resources

Description Writer: Your initials

Headline: Insert Formal Event Name, example: Great Britain vs United States Men’s Hockey at the 2023 FISU World University Games

Persons Shown: Athlete in image

Creator/Photographer: Your name

Creator’s Job Title: Photographer

Copyright: 2023 Your Name

Credit/Source: FISU World University Games

City Name: City/area event is located in, i.e. Canton, Potsdam

Venue Name: Name of Venue, i.e. Cheel Arena

State: New York

Country: United States

ISO Country Code: USA

Sublocation: [VENUE CODE] 

Job ID: [SPORTCODE][EVENTCODE]_TEAM1vTEAM2 (if necessary)_YYYYMMDD

After first three letters, add final letters for specific event

Additional Categories if none above fit:

FEA – Feature

All supplemental categories are used for renaming files, and for helping FISU find these photos in the future. Please use the codes above for the supplemental categories. Each field is listed below

Supp Cat 1 (Supplement Category): 

Sport Code

Supp Cat 2: 

Event Abbreviation

If no event abbreviation is available, remove the field entirely, be sure to place event name in caption

Supp Cat 3:

Gender – M for Men’s / W  for Women’) / MW for mixed, leave blank for none (such as festival, opening ceremony, closing ceremony, mus

Guide To Quickly Processing Images

WHEN YOU ARE SHOOTING use the tagging button on the camera (C3). This will speed up the process of going through your take after your shoot. A voice tag can also be added to an image by holding the button. 

A workflow has been established to make editing and captioning images from the event that you are covering more efficient. Whenever you ingest files into your laptop, use the provided METADATA TEMPLATE. 

After ingest when the metadata is added to your images, they will all have the same complete template

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Shoot Event → Ingest into PhotoMechanic with FISU Caption Template → Import into LightRoom → Export Using FISU LR Export Preset → Upload to the proper folder on Dropbox LP23 Photo Drop.

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Fill out the Photo Mechanic Template prior to each event. Preparation prior to the event will allow you to process and ingest data more quickly. Following the completion of your assigned event, you will need to insert the caption and athlete’s name. 
<<insert caption here>> and <<insert athlete’s name>> and <<insert your firstname lastname>>

These guidelines are designed to make the daily workflow of a sports photographer faster and easier.

Ingest using Photo Mechanic

After prepping your caption template, ingest your files to your hard drive.

Use the following Filename Variables for all disk ingests. This will set the name accordingly to make it easier for the editors to find your images in Dropbox later on. Also every photographer will have a naming mechanism.

{suppcat3}_{suppcat1}{suppcat2}_{year4}{month0}{day0}_{captionwriter}_{sequence}

Renaming the files upon ingest is necessary to easily find original files in the future if requested by FISU or other entities. The categories are filled out in the templates created earlier in the week, and will auto-populate if these are done properly. 

Be sure to list the sequence number as 0001, with four digits. 

Example:

M_ALPGS_20230113_IV_0001

The filename is a shorter way to write: Men’s_AlpineSkiingSuperG_20230113_IsaiahVazquez_image0001

Editing your images after a shoot.

We’d like everyone to use the same color coding system. This way when images are pulled up in a photo mechanic on another desktop. We know what the colors mean. The PMX preferences file will preset the editing color rating system for you.

In Photo Mechanic, images you mark in camera will appear under “tagged” files. 

There are three levels of an edit that we’d like you to do:

1. First edit your take into a large wide edit tagging everything you sort of like as a “RED”. [WIDE EDIT]
2. Then edit your take into a medium edit tagging “YELLOW” anything you think is pretty good.[ALMOST READY]

3. Then edit your take into a tight edit tagging “GREEN” any image you think is awesome. Any image that is a definite upload to dropbox would be a “GREEN” [READY TO PUBLISH]

You will drop your “Green” images on Dropbox.

You will be required to upload your RED images each day to our shared Google Drive folder for a website that will showcase your imagery on a Newhouse-produced website. These images will be used in the next semester’s picture editing class. You do not need to tone each individual image in your wide edit. That will be done later.

Bring all yellow tags into Lightroom by clicking + drag. Your import screen will show only the images you tagged yellow. Mark the images green when they are complete and ready to publish.

You must limit the amount of post-processing that is done to the images. This should be seen as journalism. At no time is there to be any image manipulation beyond subtle toning. Color toning should be limited to +/- 5 on all sliders. Only in extreme cases should you pass these.

After completing the toning of your images. Export the final images into a final folder and drop them in corresponding folders for the event. 

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Label your folder with the same naming mechanism as the main slug you ingested the shoot as making it easy to find later on.

{suppcat3}_{suppcat1}{suppcat2}_{year4}{month0}{day0}_{captionwriter}_folder

Upload your final images to the LP23 Photo Dropbox folder

Upload Images to Dropbox

All photographers should submit images via Dropbox.

Select the folder for submissions by (a) topic (e.g., 2.0 Sport); (b) sport description (e.g., ALP); (c) event date (e.g., Jan 13); and (d) competition description (e.g., SG Women). Refer to “Photo Imagery” guidelines for additional details.

Pixieset

The Communications and Media Services staff will also be using Pixieset to manage images and multimedia and link it to the Media Zone for access and distribution.. The Media Zone “Multimedia” link will connect media users to the Pixieset gallery where assets can be download assets for use.