When I started my business in 2007, I spent hours pouring over online articles. I wanted to know how it all worked. How do you book a session, how long should it take, how do you decide which photos to edit, what software do you use to edit them? SO. MANY QUESTIONS.
In 2007, I knew how to use a DSLR in manual. But, that’s just about all I knew!
So, here’s my workflow in a nutshell…
From Booking to Finished Product
- Booking the session- I won’t go into too much detail on this. But, basically we’ll start when the client is on your calendar.
- I always send out a reminder. It lets the client know I’m excited and reminds them about their appointment.
- My sessions range from 20 minutes to 90 minutes. A quick ‘mini-session’ with a toddler would be on the shorter side and of course a full newborn session would be on the longer side. Just be clear with your client how long the photo session will be.
- Once I’m home, I download the images and back them up.
- I use Adobe Bridge to ‘cull’ the images. This means I give them a rating of yes or no (I use 5 stars for the images I want to edit.) I move the images into 2 folders (keepers and ones I won’t be using).
- I use Adobe Lightroom to batch process the images. This means I’ll edit a photo and crop if needed. Then I can apply these settings to every other image from this similar setting. It makes editing go a lot faster! Then, I export the jpegs to a separate folder.
- I use Adobe Photoshop to re-touch the jpeg images. This is for photoshopping people out of the background or getting rid of under eye circles.
- Lastly, I upload the jpeg images to PixieSet for proofing the client. I don’t sell prints, so this is the last step of the process. I invoice the client for the balance and send them their gallery of images with instructions for downloading.