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Evernote for Photography: Tips and Downloadable Presentation

Tips and Stories | By
 
  • Name: Daniel Hedrick
  • Profession: Digital Content Manager
  • Hobby: Photography
  • Website: www.danielhedrick.com
  • Location: Portland, Oregon

Bio

Daniel Hedrick works as a digital content manager by day, and spends his nights and weekends growing his photography business. He uses Evernote for everything from location scouting to business management.

I use Evernote, Everywhere:

  • Mac
  • Windows
  • iPhone
  • iPad
  • Web

I use Evernote for managing my photography business

I was looking for a way to take notes at work and be able to access them from my home. I found Evernote and realized it was the perfect solution. Since then, my Evernote use has expanded into everything that I do, including my photography. I’ve become so passionate about Evernote that I preach about it to anybody that will listen. I’ve used my website as a place to teach people through articles and PowerPoint presentations because I believe that it’s an invaluable tool for any photographer — amateur or professional.

Download Daniel’s presentation on how to use Evernote for Photography >>>

Here are just a few of the ways that I use Evernote for photography:

  • I save inspiration from the Web. I use the Evernote Web Clipper to capture ideas for photography. I’m always looking for inspiration for lighting setups, scenes, etc.
  • I organize my client work. I have notebooks for every client that include my notes, release forms, and other pieces of relevant information for work I’ve done or will be doing.
  • I teach myself. I use Evernote as a repository for tutorials related to Photoshop and Illustrator, so I can easily reference them in the studio or on location.
  • I organize business documents. I keep important business documents like business plans, logos and price lists in Evernote.
  • I location scout. On weekends, I take off and drive around Portland in search of great spots to photograph. When I see something that looks like it would be good for a photoshoot, I make a note of it using my phone and it automatically gets geo-tagged, so I can always find that place by pulling up my Map View.
  • I use Evernote for resources. Whenever I’m working on a project that I’m new to (for example: a maternity shoot or senior photos), I do a bunch of research in advance, clipping articles and examples from the Web. That way, when I’m on the shoot, I can just pull out my iPad and reference examples, as well as ask for a client’s input into what they like or don’t like.
  • I keep contact information. I often use models in my shoots, so I keep their headshots, contact info, and notes about each one in my Evernote account.
  • I have a catch-all notebook. I have a general photography notebook that serves as a catch-all for anything related to photography, but may not fit into a specific project notebook.

Evernote for keeping work and photography organized

I use Evernote for work, my photography business, my website and everything else. In order to keep things organized, I create Notebook Stacks and individual notebooks for various projects. For example, for my job, I’ve created a notebook for requests I receive from colleagues for various updates to our company’s site and digital signageBefore I started using Evernote for these requests, they would get buried in my email inbox. I have an entire Notebook Stack devoted to photography, and a separate notebook for my website which includes frequently referenced information like color schemes and CSS code.

Other Evernote products I love

I’ve really gotten into Evernote Food. Whenever I go out to eat, or fix something at home, I grab a picture of it with Evernote Food. I try a lot of new restaurants around Portland, and often use my Evernote Food notes as a jumping off point for writing reviews on Yelp.

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  • http://www.cathrynfarleyphotography.com/ Cathryn Farley Photography

    Very useful and interesting tips! I’ll be sure to utilize this list in the near future. Thank you for posting and I look forward to more!

  • http://www.jackkurtzphotography.com/ Jack Kurtz

    Daniel,

    Very handy tips. I’m also a photographer. I use Evernote to help me keep track of travel documents. I buy an airline ticket or make a hotel reservation, when the ticket or receipt is emailed to me, I hit Command P (to print) and instead of printing, use the pdf command and send it to Evernote. I also keep a photocopy of my passport, my up to date emergency contacts (I travel in Asia and occasionally find myself in a bad place) and medical allergies in Evernote. I used Google translate to translate my emergency contacts into Thai, Malay (Bahasa) and Vietnamese. Since I have my iPhone with me wherever I go, I always have that information with me.

    Thanks

  • Scott

    I have been using Evernote on my PC and Android since the beginning and have recently added an iPad to my list of electronic gadgets. I’m hoping that I am doing something wrong as I really love the idea of Notebooks on the PC and Android, and I was hoping that would have continued over to the iPad. Unfortunately my iPad sorts everything by Tag, not notebook. What a surprise for me as I have thousands of notes in Evernote that now need to be Tagged. Perhaps its a user error on my part for not tagging. Are there any cross-platform users that have experienced this issue? Is there an easy fix?

    I love the article, keep more coming.

    • http://ahoefer.me Al Hoefer

      Scott,

      I was going to ask Daniel the same thing – there is a discussion area in the Evernote website.

      Here’s the link (I’m hoping for more visibility on this issue so that it will become big enough for someone to care about fixing): http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/26192-requeststacklist-view-on-ipad/#entry152114

      For Daniel – how to you solve the stacks in the Mac and iPhone views and no stacks in the iPad – my solution is to use a prefix to sort notebooks together that I have in stacks so that they appear together on the iPad.

      • http://www.danielhedrick.com Daniel

        Apologies for the delayed response!

        Scott, There is a “Notebooks” view in the iPad version of Evernote, and it sorts your notebooks alphabetically.

        Al, I use prefixes, as well. Any notebooks that have to appear at the top of the page start with an underscore. I am looking forward to seeing stacks appear in the iPad version, but for now, I think prefixes are the best work-around.

    • http://ahoefer.me Al Hoefer

      Scott,

      I was going to ask Daniel the same thing – there is a discussion area in the Evernote website about this problem.

      Here’s the link (I’m hoping for more visibility on this issue so that it will become big enough for someone to care about fixing): http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/26192-requeststacklist-view-on-ipad/#entry152114

      For Daniel – how to you solve the stacks in the Mac and iPhone views and no stacks in the iPad – my solution is to use a prefix to sort notebooks together that I have in stacks so that they appear together on the iPad.

  • Si

    this Evernote is so awesome!!!

  • Bubba Jones

    Wow folks, I missed the memo that reads: we will now utilize the word utilize rather than utilize the correct word “use’.

  • Jason

    Hi

    I looked at this article because I want to organize photos in my evernote , every time I create a note and tag and attach a photo from my docs or iphone it attaches a big , very big photo that I have to scroll around to see , anyone know how to save in a note as a attachment or a small photo ??

    I think I will like evernote if i get to know better!!

    OH and any one have a good tutorial link?

    Cheers

    Jason

  • John Mellor

    Great stuff. Thanks for sharing. Question for you. I am a manual note taker (it’s just easier for me since I doodle and draw arrows along with my notes) but since using Evernote I’ve starting taking pictures of my notes and creating a diff note for each day. I love it because I always have my notes with me and don’t have to keep a bookshelf full of paper.

    BUT, on a busy day when I have 10+ pages of notes, the files can get pretty big if I take the pics with my iPhone – this becomes a problem when I’m not on wifi and trying to access notes. I don’t need a 3mb size file of a black & white notes page. I used to take the notes with my iPad which was lower res, but with the new iPad I’m back to the same problem.

    Is there a way to easily reduce these file sizes when I put the images into Evernote?

    • http://www.heiby.name/rht1gx56/ Ron Heiby

      I ended up getting a document scanner and turning nearly all of the paper in my house (still working through years of backlog, but have everything within the past couple years) scanned into PDF files. They load nicely into Evernote, and everything has readers for them. By running OCR on everything, I can find things pretty easily using Spotlight, and can organize most of the repeating stuff by setting up rules in Hazel. (I should probably mention that my main system is a Mac.)

      Using a Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500M. It works like a dream. It can scan to files, scan to Evernote, and several other choices.

      For handwritten notes that won’t likely be successfully OCR processed, I might go ahead and scan to a JPEG, maybe even using a lower resolution setting to keep the size down. I haven’t yet played much with that, but I’d think that unless you write really small, 200-300 dpi would probably be fine. Unless you use multiple colors in the notes, scanning in monochrome might also help reduce file size.

    • Alexis Meaders

      I use GeniusScan on the iPhone. It allows me to crop images, select jpg or PDF, select how large I want the file and allows me to send to Evernote.

    • http://www.danielhedrick.com Daniel

      Hey John,
      I’ve been using an app called JotNot Pro to scan my hand-written notes, drawings, and receipts. It allows you to specify quality, color depth, etc. At the end of the day, the app will let you collect all those images, combine them to a single PDF, and send them to Evernote.

      Also, the latest version of Evernote for iOS has a “document” mode in the camera screen that will adjust contrast to make OCR more effective.

  • Dan Fuoco

    Great ideas and tips. Will reference for future notes. Evernote is so amazing!

  • Lisa

    Photography is a hobby for me but you wouldn’t know it from all the photography related notes I have saved with Evernote. I follow quite a few sites and blogs via a RSS reader and am always finding some little nugget of information I want to hang on to. I have notebooks for ideas, locations, how-to, events…

    So besides just repeating what has already been said, I guess I’m commenting because I want to remind everyone not to use Evernote for a single purpose. It takes a while to start thinking of Evernote for new purposes; it kind of reminds me of when I first got an iPhone. To begin with, I went for all the obvious apps but after a while I would think, “I wonder if there is an app for that?” for something new I needed to do, and usually there was! The bulk of my Evernotes is on photography but I also have many non-photography related folders. Like one called Household Information with notes on things like the size of our A/C return vent filters, printer cartridge numbers, battery sizes for various clocks and remotes throughout the house, instructions on changing the programmable locks, how to get rid of skunk odor on dogs (you want this information where it can be found fast!), and on and on. Since Evernote is always with me, I always have access to this information.

    And warranties! All those warranties we get for all the things we buy; what are the odds of being able to find one when we need it. Scan it and put it in a note.

    I recently upgraded the OS on my computer and what a pain it was to reload all the software. Some was on disks, some had to be downloaded, all needed security keys. As I did this, I captured all this information in a notebook called Computer for the next time!

    I have a notebook with medical information on my family. One to track series of books I like to read so I can keep up with all the titles and the order they are to be read. One for recipes I grab off the internet. One with instructions for crafts I would like to try… Well you get the idea. Evernote is just one of the best ideas to come along in a very long time.

    • http://www.danielhedrick.com Daniel

      These are awesome ideas!

      I have a household notebook, as well. It’s funny that you mention the AC filter–that one image note has saved me more than once when I’m in the store and suddenly remember that it needs to be replaced.

      Recipes, books, movies, software installation keys, owners manuals–the uses are pretty much endless.

  • http://www.hoopergraphics.co.uk Jane Hooper

    I can see I am not using Evernote to its fullest extent! Following your advice I have now downloaded Web Clipper and will follow a few more tips for my project management. Thanks

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