Andrew Franciosa’s sweet Mac setup

September 29, 2014

Every week we post a new interview with someone about what software they use on their Mac, iPhone, or iPad. We do these interviews because not only are they fun, but a glimpse into what tools someone uses and how they use those tools can spark our imagination and give us an idea or insight into how we can do things better.

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Who are you and what do you do?

I’m Andrew Franciosa, an Upstate New York based photographer. I recently left a large studio in the area where I was the production manager and went independent to start my own studio. I mainly do wedding photography and commerical work.

With Andrew Franciosa Studio, I now have control over every piece of the process, which is important for me. I was initially introduced to the idea of considering the entire customer experience from working for Apple retail for four years, and I have been obsessed with it since. Items like contracts and payments are handled via the web. This makes things easier (Marco brand voice: eliminates onboarding friction), which is an important thing for clients who are already stressed about planning their wedding. And for commercial clients, it’s great because I can get paid faster and online contracts are easy to review, read and archive.

The studio is currently in the north-facing side of my apartment, a converted upholstry warehouse and factory from the early 1900s.

What is your current setup?

Editor’s note: You can find Andrew’s wallpaper here.

Currently, I’m using a Late 2012 Retina 13-inch i5 2.5GHz MacBook Pro with 8GB memory and a teeny 128GB SSD. That’s the main computer I edit on as it’s faster than the iMac, which is a Late 2009 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo with 6GB of memory.

A couple indespensible tools I use:

BitTorrent Sync: This keeps both my computers in Sync with one another, and makes sure everything is backed up onto the iMac’s TimeMachine drive.
Canon P-215 Scanner: A little document scanner recommended by the Wirecutter. All paper passes through this thing and it’s dumped into Evernote and archived.
Nikon D800 and Fujifilm X100S: The main tools of the trade. I think I have less of an opinion about the actual cameras than any other part of the process. The little mirrorless Fujis are getting really good and I’m excited to leave DSLRs once the Fujis are good enough. Previously, I was using a Canon 5D3 and although it’s a lot less neutral than the D800, it works just fine.
Wave: Online invoicing is huge and helps me get paid faster and makes the process easier for clients. Wave also helps with accounting too, which is great.
Synology DS414j: Storage with built-in redundancy. This lets me sleep at night. With a little work, you can have this backup to an online service for even more security and peace of mind.

What software do you use and for what do you use it?

No real surprises here.

Lightroom: It’s the best way to edit any quantity of photos, period. Develop presets can save an insane amount of time while editing and you can have fun using other people’s presets or buying them from somewhere like VSCO. Buying them is almost always worth the time is saves editing and making them, but they’re dead simple to make when needed.
Fantastical: To say I live out of the calendar is an understatement. Fantastical on Mac and iPhone make using the calendar much better and makes it very easy to just pop all sorts of things into the calendar as people are talking about them. If it’s worth remembering, it should be on your calendar.
Mailbox: This turns inbox zero into some sort of twisted prodictivity game. With Mailbox, I respond right then if I can or snooze it until I’ll be back at my desk.

How would your ideal setup look and function?

I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on things. I just wish there was a real-life equivalent of “reset workspace to default” since my desk gets crazy messy the longer I’m at it.

I’m quite happy with the systems I’ve got in place.

There are more Sweet Setup interviews right here.