If you’re a photographer or any type of small business owner, you probably have a workflow. Therefore, Workflows are an essential part of running a business and producing quality work. As a wedding photographer running a one woman show, my workflows have to be tight and concise. If it’s taking me 7+ full days of editing to get a wedding done, then I’m going to quickly get behind and drown in photos. I have to create coherent, well organized systems, just like any other business.
First, I will explain my workflow and the programs I use and then I’ll give you a few tips that have helped me.
So, before I start listing out all of these steps, I want to share that my post wedding workflow can take less than a week to get through from start to finish. “WHAT?!” I can hear you now. There are several reasons for this.
Because we live in the age of digital, this makes it totally possible to have a rapid turnaround time.
I want the end of my client’s experience to be just as awesome as the beginning. Also, I want to WOW them with how fast I get their images back to them!
If you are shooting weddings every weekend, you can fall behind FAST. For example, If I shoot a wedding on Saturday and then I don’t have it edited by the time the next wedding rolls around, I then have TWO weddings to edit. That OVERWHELMS me.
I have heard of wedding photographers who take over 3 months to get their clients their images! Certainly, I understand life gets in the way, but your workflow and post processing time should be as much of a priority as the wedding day.
So, here are some ways I make this happen:
1.First, I schedule a WEDDING BACKUP DAY, a WEDDING CULLING DAY and a WEDDING EDITING DAY on my calendar the week following the wedding.
This isn’t just implied dates, in fact, I literally schedule these in my Google calendar. It forces me to have TIME to work. Before, I was just editing whenever I found time to and other appointments were the priority! Now, if Tuesday is my WEDDING EDITING DAY… nothing else goes on the calendar! Because I am diagnosed with adult ADHD, I NEED to have a system and a routine to stay on task. It allows me to stay in control and prevents my ADHD brain to take over. But it’s just as useful for people who don’t have ADHD. It’s a tough schedule to get used to, but it’s absolutely necessary for keeping you on task.
2. Be consistent! Have a consistent schedule and stick with it. No excuses! I break up the editing process in 5 simple steps and dedicate one day of the work week to each step. This sets a deadline for each one and I love knowing that I have multiple smaller deadlines I can stick to! It keeps me organized! The great thing about this schedule is that it allows me to be DONE with my editing by the end of the week, so I can then refocus my mind on to the next wedding.
3. Never stop innovating your workflow. It’s easy to get comfortable and stop thinking of new ways your can improve what you are doing. Well, I’m so thankful I embraced the technological help of AI culling and editing because I have increased the speed of my workflow 10-fold. Don’t get stuck in a rut and don’t stop looking for new ways to do old things. If you think there might be a program out there that would help speed up your post processing, give it a try. It doesn’t hurt to try.
So here are the programs that make my workflow (and life) run smoother:
1. Ingest cards via a card reader by using Photo Mechanic to automatically label and index files. These RAW files go into a folder on computer and a backup hard drive that stays in a fireproof safe.
2. After downloading images, I cull them (pick the best of the best!). I do this through Aftershoot. When you’re trying to sort through tons of images when you took multiples of the same setup, you can easily get overwhelmed and waste time picking the sharpest image in a set of 10. Aftershoot does that for me, which allows me to cull through only the best photos from a wedding. I normally have 5,000-8,000 images from a wedding. Aftershoot is able to take that number down to 1500-2000 just by eliminating doubles, blurry shots, photos with accidental closed eyes, and my lighting test shots. This takes my culling time from hours to an hour or less.
3. I then pull the images I’m keeping into a new folder and import that to Lightroom. Once in Lightroom, I allow Imagen AI to do a base edit on all the keepers. The Imagen AI talent profile I use is “ Love & Light”, which gives me a nice base to build my own editing process on top of. Imagen AI corrects white balance and exposure, which allows me to go behind and apply my personal touch in Lightroom. This means I spend less time fixing technical mistakes and more time using my creative tools to elevate the image. Then EDIT AWAY! I edit everything in Lightroom and then sort into categories/sub folders (Prep, Ceremony, Couple, Reception, ect).
4. Upload to Sprout Studio, which is where my clients can access their gallery. Also, I need to export edited images to a new folder, make it a zip file and back it up in the Google cloud. Using a cloud service as a 3rd backup is amazing and it puts my mind to ease!
5. Share my client’s gallery with them and the wedding vendors, then post my favorites on social media.
BAM! Done! In 5 easy steps spaced out over 5 days, I can knock out a wedding efficiently and effortlessly.
Now I will admit that there is a totally separate pre-wedding workflow but I don’t have time to explain it all today! I hope this was helpful. Now take control of your workflow and take back your life!
Interested in hiring me to photograph you wedding? Reach out and let's chat!
