Editing Photos: What happens after the session

Why does it take a photographer days, weeks, sometimes months to get photos out to you? Are they just lazy and don't want to send them? Likely not. I can't speak for all photographers, but I can speak for myself.

After taking photos, our work is only partway complete. Our next step is to go through those hundreds of photos, and pick out what we believe will be our client's favorites. Once we have painstakingly selected the photos, we go to work editing.

How do photographers edit? There are a number of ways to edit photos, but my personal program of choice is Photoshop. Photoshop allows you to fully edit and enhance each individual photo. Lightroom is a program that can allow you to batch process your photos, editing a number of them at once. Photoshop does one photo at a time, but I believe if allows you to be more precise, allowing you to take time on each photo to make it perfect. Photoshop does allow for batch processing, but I haven't used it yet, as I haven't found a need for it.

What sorts of things do I do to your photo? Most every photo I play with light/contrast, enhance colors, and sharpen. I may add deeper colors or darker light on spots I think need them. For babies, I almost always smooth out faces and take out blemishes. Adults may require a few spot corrections. If I think it will look good in black and white or sepia, I may do that as well. Every photo editing process is unique to each photo!

Edited Photo

Straight Out of Camera (SOOC)

How long does this process take me? It all depends on the look I'm trying to accomplish. I've heard that an average photographer spends 4 hours editing for every 1 hour of shooting. This all completely varies from photographer to photographer, and from session to session, but I can tell you I've spent both more and less time editing photos.

Why do I share this with you? I appreciate when customers are patient in getting photos from me. I can say I usually have a few day turn around for most of my clients regular sessions. For weddings where I'm edited 10x as many photos as a regular session, they may need to wait a few weeks for me to get everything done.

Being on the other side of the lens, I know its tough to wait! I always do my best to post a few "teaser" photos right after a session so you are able to see something from our work together!

Comments

Snapshot of Your Photographer

I love that so many of my clients come back to me time and time again for more photos, and its been so much fun getting to know so many of you. I'd like to share a little more about your photographer! I'm hoping to give you a snapshot into my life on a more regular basis, and use it to tell you more about myself! Here we go! So here is where the photo processing magic happens. My husband is a graphic designer, and with my need for perfected photo editing we share the Mac when it comes to our work projects. So this is our work place. I'll use this photo to tell you a little more about ourselves. 1. We love our cat. We got Lady Grey about a year ago, she was a stray that the Humane Society picked up. We fell in love right when we saw her. It took a few days to name her, but because of our love of Twinning tea...we went with Lady Grey. She has such a strong personality, and so naughty! Our photography business and our etsy page is both named after her!

Photography 101

I love photography, and I love how accessible digital SLR cameras are now. So many families now have good cameras, but don't know how to use them without Auto! Learning to take photos on Manual mode will change your photography dramatically, and you'll be able to tell the difference quickly! I'm now offering one-on-one classes for just $35. If you want to bring a friend, together it will be just $55 for the two of you! If you're a mom or dad and want to bring a couple kids along for your model, go ahead! Its a great opportunity to take a few photos of the kiddos! How does it work? We will meet at a park, home, etc. and discuss a few of the basics and you can get going! I'll walk you through things you may have questions about and give you some great tools to keep learning and practicing! What will you learn? I go over a few of the basics with you. We talk about ISO, Shutter Speed, and Aperture. We will discuss light and the basics to making the most

The J Family

Now this is one good looking family! Rachel has been one of my good friends for quite sometime. When we both lived in Lincoln while we were in school we actually spent one summer sharing a farmers market booth. She is fantastic, a wonderfully artsy individual who I envy for all of her great talents! Her family is just as wonderful! First, I'm always impressed when little boys do well in photo shoots. We had lots of great smiles, and very few bribes from mom to keep them in a good mood :) I was so excited when they asked me to photograph their family for a Christmas card. We had a wonderful day at the park, I wouldn't even call it work!

Lady Grey Photography

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