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

1.  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.
2.  I always send out a reminder.  It lets the client know I’m excited and reminds them about their appointment.
3.  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.
4.  Once I’m home, I download the images and back them up.
5.  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).
6.  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.
7.  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.
8.  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.