Ever wonder what happens after your photo session and why it takes so long to get your photos back (anywhere from days to 2 weeks for my clients)? Well, keep scrolling. I’m about to share my entire post-photoshoot workflow!
First, I apologize for the photo dump. I just realized I haven’t blogged since late-February, so I have lots of sessions to share!
1. Backup your photos.
First thing’s first. I need to protect your images. The last thing I want to do is call you up and tell you we need to reshoot because I lost both memory cards or accidentally recorded over them (neither have ever happened, and I won’t let it). As soon as I walk in the door, I eject one of the memory cards, slide it into my card reader, and import the images into Lightroom. Before clicking import, I keyword all the images with your names so I don’t forget them… because I’m old. LOL.
2. Change clothes.
While the photos are downloading to my laptop, I head upstairs and change out of my photo clothes, taking time to search head to toe for ticks. You should do this step, too!
3. Cull your photos.
Back downstairs in my pjs, I open your session in Lightroom, switch to grid view, and scroll all the way to the end. In my post-photoshoot workflow, I cull sessions backwards and use Lightroom’s “spray can” feature to flag the best images.
Why backwards? I stop shooting when I feel like I’ve gotten the shot I wanted, so the best images are usually at the end of a series. If I see the best images first, I won’t need to flag the whole series. Saves me time and my sanity.
After my first pass, I usually end up with around 150 images, with 3-4 per “pose.” Here, I change to Lightroom’s Develop module and begin clicking back and forth between each photo until I’ve narrowed down your gallery to the typical 40. Often, I’ll flag two images to do a head swap to ensure I’ve captured the best smiles of everyone in that pose.
Then I go through and correct color and exposure for each image until they look consistent. All in all, this step usually takes 2-3 hours.
4. Send the selected photos to my retoucher.
Depending on how much writing I’m doing, here’s where my post-photoshoot workflow varies. I can sometimes skip this step and edit the photos myself. My retoucher follows the same painstaking editing process I do, which is a time suck and therefore expensive. When I use the retoucher, I save 6-8 hours per session, but I lose about 25-30% of my income. Sometimes I need the time more than the money and other times, it’s the other way around.
If I choose to send your images to the retoucher, I upload them to Google Drive and send her a detailed email of what “extras” I’d like done to each image. Extras are typically things like removing flyaway hairs, distractions in the background (like sticks, dead leaves, and gnats), and whose head to use from which photo for swaps.
My retoucher pretty consistently takes 12 days to get the images back to me.
5. Edit your images.
If I don’t do #4, I “schedule” time to edit your images myself. This can also take a couple weeks depending on my photography, family obligations, and writing projects. Usually, though, I can turn around your images in about 5-10 days. If I worry it’ll take longer than that, I go with the retoucher to be safe.
What’s editing like? I import one image at a time into Photoshop to work on them. First, I do any head swaps then clean up the background. I run the Portraiture plugin for skin smoothing and spot touch-up acne, scratches, and bruises. I dodge irises. Remove redness from ears, fingers, and eyes. Remove extra orange areas around hairlines, nose, and mouth. Use curves to lighten shadows and darken backgrounds. Apply a fake sun flare to outdoor images to brighten up the mood. And do one last look before saving and moving the image back to Lightroom.
6. Make final touches.
When I get the images back from my photo retoucher or finish editing them in Photoshop, I apply one final preset to the images before exporting them to my hard drive. The preset is a series of settings I created myself, not a purchased one, and just adds that last bit of finesse. After all, I couldn’t teach my entire photo editing process to my retoucher or she’d be able to completely recreate my look for other clients. I want my photos to carry a distinctive feel that’s fully my own.
This last round of edits doesn’t take long. Usually 30 minutes-1 hour.
7. Prepare for presentation.
Once your photos are saved as jpgs, I simultaneously upload them to Animoto and a new client gallery in Shootproof. In Animoto, I organize your images into a slideshow, add one of my favorite licensed songs and export it to YouTube.
In Shootproof, I choose a featured image, create a URL and password, and add your slideshow from YouTube.
8. Send the email you’ve been waiting for!
This is my favorite step of my post-photoshoot workflow! Now that everything’s in place, I retrieve the link to your invoice, and paste that plus your gallery URL and password into my email template. Everyone receives the same email except for the first and last lines, which I always personalize. I wait with anticipation to hear what you think.
9. Change your gallery settings.
After you’ve paid your invoice, I turn on the download functionality for your gallery, create your promo code for product purchases, and send over instructions on using both.
10. Meet up to design an album or wall gallery.
Most of my clients don’t take me up on my offer to help you design an album or display of framed photos or canvases, but some do! I have an app on my iPad that can show sizes and arrangements of photos on your actual walls! It’s pretty cool! No matter what you do, don’t download your images and forget about them. Make a plan to print and display your photos.
11. Order your keepsake ornament.
All my clients received a double-sided metal ornament as a keepsake gift from me. They’re shipped to my house, then I repackage them, handwrite a note, and send them off via Priority Mail.
12. Backup and blog.
This is where I am today!
Yesterday, I cleaned up my hard drive and copied all my client images to my external storage drive. Now those images are stored in ShootProof, my external hard drive, and in slideshows on both YouTube and Animoto. I also upload them to a backup server on Zenfolio, where I still have every client image I’ve ever delivered.
I try to update my blog every couple months, but sometimes life just gets in the way. It does take a full day for each new blog post, so I have to carve out time for this as much as I do for photo editing and everything else on my plate. But it’s worth it! Not only do I finally get to share some of my favorite photos, search engines love when my website has fresh content (and punishes me when I don’t. Oof.).
Once this post is live, I’ll save all the images to my Pinterest boards and add titles, captions, and hashtags. Pinterest drives a ton of traffic to my website!
13. Update social media.
This is what I’m hoping to do tomorrow. I’ll go through all your images again, like I did today to create these collages, choose ~3 favorite images from each session, and schedule them to post to Instagram and Facebook.
14. Delete and Clean.
After social media posts are scheduled, I can finally delete the images from my hard drive and run the Clean My Mac app to help it run faster. This is the last step of my post-photoshoot workflow.
Now that you know my post-photoshoot workflow, feel free to ask me any questions!
Would you like to schedule a photoshoot with me? Check my availability and contact me for your preferred date!
If this wasn’t enough photos for you, check out my Pinterest boards for even more!
I still have more photos to share from the spring and summer! Keep scrolling!
Woot! You made it to the end! Thank you!
