Tech Stack
All of the digital tools I use to edit, organize, and deliver personal and professional projects from tour content and music videos to wedding films and corporate projects and my thoughts on why I use them. Will update as things change over time.
Adobe Lightroom CC - 2TB I import and edit all of my photos for every project into here and do most of my editing with various presets that I’ve purchased and built over the years. I’m primarily a tour content creator and most work I do outside of that is other events and is very gallery driven so Lightroom is perfectly capable of handling most of my editing needs. And with their creative cloud plan I think I’m paying a little over $200 once a year to store all of my work and I can create download links to galleries right within the app on my computer or phone to send to clients. They also recently added video support so now all of my video work is delivered through Lightroom as well. I don’t need photoshop so Lightroom is the only adobe product that I pay to use. For more advanced photo editing after Lightroom and for light graphic design I use….
Final Cut Pro All of my video editing happens here whether its a music video or a wedding film and everything in between. I import everything into a local library on my computer and edit it into whatever deliverables I need and then upload them into Lightroom to send download links. Much easier to learn than Preimere IMO and does everything I need it to do in a much faster and more stable program.
Pixelmator Pro One time purchase on the Mac App Store. I believe it was $40. Runs beautifully. Doesn’t do everything photoshop does but it does everything I need it to and does it with a much better UI than photoshop IMO.
Notion I used Apple notes for a long time and honestly only switched to Notion because it’s actually what this website is built on. I keep a current project list of things to work on, a simple journal, and a note filled with random life advice I’ve accumulated over the years called Principles.
iCloud Photos Professional projects live in Lightroom and personal photos and videos live in iCloud photos. I tried mixing the two into one app for a little bit and could never find anything.
iCloud Mail I used a few third party options to run my tyler@tylerbyars.com email address through and didn’t really like any of them till iCloud added the ability to have custom domains. I don’t do much with email since I hate it honestly and just deleting and archiving things is all I need my mail client to do and not any fancy organization.
iCloud Drive I despise dropbox for only having their 2TB if you need more than 2 gig. I don’t keep tons of files since most of my big stuff lives as photo/video files in Lightroom and photos but I need more than 2 gig. And iCloud Drive does the trick for that cheaply.
iCloud Contacts Simple. It works. Pro tip: add birthdays for everyone you meet and send them a happy birthday text. It means more than a Facebook post. I also use the “company” field in to add notes about who the person is/where I met them. Super useful if you meet lots of cool random people on the road like I do.
Apple Music I’ve tried Spotify several times but just keep coming back to Apple Music. I like listening to albums all the way through and the play next and play later options just make more sense to me than Spotify and having lyrics built into the app is nice. Apple finally added continuous play of similar music after you finish what you’re listening to and that was the final straw to switch back.
Discord The only “social media” platform I really like right now. Great place to join servers of like minded people. Stay tuned for one from Diligent Men soon.
Google Maps I’ve tried Apple Maps so, so many times and I hate it. I use google maps on tour to find coffee shops and restaurants to check out and then save the ones that I like to a want to go list and a favorites list if I want to go back.
Quickbooks Self Employed Simple invoicing and expense tracking
Soundstripe My favorite site to find music to use for videos. And they recently added a stock video option as well so it’s the perfect one stop shop for all of my video creation needs.
Super What this site is built on along with Notion. I’ve tried a few other platforms but this is what I keep coming back to. Easiest place to build a beautiful website quickly without having to know what you’re doing with code or mess with a CMS and complex formatting. I go from typing something in my notes app to live on my website in seconds
Amphetamine Not the drug. Free app on the App Store to keep your computer awake indefinitely. I use it for uploading/downloading big files.
#Blockit Blocks social media feeds in safari so you can still use the site to be productive but not to waste time
Limit social media consumption to a few thoughtful times per day on my phone