You’re an Operator. You’ve got a thousand things to do. You delegate as much as you can to stay focused on the strategic imperatives listed on page one of your Moleskine. But then an issue arises that requires a professional-looking photo of a brochure that partners can use to promote the product and the brochure as a marketing tool. And they need it ASAP.
What to do? Put this on the list of one of your direct reports which will derail the mission-critical items you already have them working on? Delegate this to an assistant or office manager that has no specific photo skills, but who could manage the project, source a photographer, hire them, explain what needs to get done, receive the photo back from the photographer, and submit their invoice to accounting…all which will take about a week. Or say “No,” a perfectly fine option, but not always conducive to moving the company’s efforts forward.
Or, you can employ an “OpsHack” – a less-than five minute investment of your own time to save interruptions to already overtaxed subordinates, and to save the company a 100+ bucks in cash to the photographer and much more in salaries for the project manager and accounting personnel to process an invoice and cut a check — not to mention the disruption cost of delaying someone’s already mission-critical project.
Here’s the photo I took and edited on my iPhone and sent to the partner, all in less than 5 minutes. What do you think? Was the outcome good enough to warrant the disruption of my time and to not disrupt the time of others?
Here’s how I got a pro-looking photo in less than 5 minutes using an iPhone:
Tools and Environment:
• iPhone 6
• “Camera” app by Apple
• PS Express iOS app (Adobe Photoshop Express)
• Coffee cup and water glass
Setup:
All I did was put one brochure open against my cubicle wall and another propped up against a (hidden) coffee cup. I also steadied the phone on a water glass to minimize blur. The more observant of you will notice that the iPhone shown is an iPhone 4. I used this as a prop for this photo of the setup because I wanted to take the photo with my higher resolution iPhone 6.
Here is what the setup looked like through the iPhone “viewfinder.” I captured the photo using Apple’s “Camera” app that comes with every iPhone.
I then…
1) opened the Adobe PS Express app
2) selected the photo from my camera roll
3) reviewed the photo
4) cropped it to size
5) improved the color by boosting the clarity
6) applied a “vignette black” border
(click photos in gallery to enlarge)
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- Open PS Express
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- Choose from roll
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- Review image
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- Crop to size
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- Adjust as desired
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- Apply vignette
Et voilá! I exported this back to my Camera Roll and sent it to the partner, the entire process taking less than five minutes. One caveat, after I took the photo, I noticed there was a scratch on my desk. I could have removed it easily from within the PS Express app, but didn’t notice it until afterwards, so I removed it in my desktop version of Photoshop. I could have just as easily moved the setup to a different part of my desk and taken the photo again, or used the retouch tool within PS Express.
By the way, I have a number of more professional iOS camera apps on my phone, and various editing apps too—in addition to the full Adobe Creative Suite on my Mac and the knowledge of how to use it. But employing all of my design and photography skills wasn’t the goal of this OpsHack. It was getting a photo, that was good enough, in under five minutes, in order to put the project behind me and move on to the next. Easy-peasy lemon squeezy.
What do you think? Is this something you already do, or will try in the future?
Silicon Valley Operator 