4 Pro Tips for Lightning Fast Image Turnaround

This morning we are finding ourselves snuggling in after our incredible weekend of celebrations!! This past weekend we celebrated Brandie turning 28 and went to one of our favorite annual holiday parties!  My birthday was SO special and my heart is SO full on this Monday morning!  This year, I found myself being oh so thankful for Bret and the fabulous team that we make all while getting to do what we love!! Being a husband and wife photography team is a dream come true and comes with so many wonderful attributes! One of those attributes that I am most thankful for is our crazy, fast turn-around time on editing images! Teamwork makes the dream work, right?!!

We whole-heartedly believe in quick turn-around times. This aspect of our business gives us so much life!! This part of our package serves clients in the absolute best way we know how, which ultimately makes us so very happy. It gives our couples the most exciting experience!! We typically have all of our sessions and full wedding galleries returned in two weeks. Two weeks is the perfect benchmark for keeping the magic real and within that timeframe, we feel that the moments are still tangible. Two weeks is such a magical time because the couples are still feeling mushy gushy feels and their newlywed magic is still alive! This gives such an enhanced experience for our sweet clients. To be able to experience the magic of their big day so close to their actual wedding day truly makes their connection to their images SO much deeper. On the other side, we spend all day pouring our hearts and souls into capturing their wedding day or capturing their afternoon engagement session. We get just as excited to get their images into their hands!

With full schedules, we truly believe in living intentionally. We stay very intentional with our time and enjoy staying on a tight schedule. By doing this, it ensures that we don’t get backed up with work or overwhelmed. A stress-free, happy photographer makes for a happy client! lol 🙂 We want our business to always be a blessing, and we do that by turning our images out quickly! Check out these four huge ways that help us with our quick turn-around time!

#1: Shoot Intentionally

Our first tip comes into play before we even start taking pictures. We make sure to pause and slow down…we always shoot intentionally. We take a few seconds to find great, flattering lighting. We also make sure that our locations are as magical as possible. By slowing down in the moment, we do not spend nearly as much time correcting our images. We also make sure that we are always looking at the details. There should be no distracting elements in the background. Hair should be in place, the bride’s dress should be fluffed perfectly and so on! Bret and I always make sure that we are slow and intentional in the moment to make sure we nail the perfect image in camera! In the end, we spend almost zero time with time-consuming Photoshop edits!

#2: Eliminate Distractions 

The next tip comes in when we are ready to import and edit these images. At this time, we must eliminate all distractions. When we dive into editing and culling, we allow ourselves to have no distractions. This means that there is no phone or tv playing in the room. We completely shut ourselves off and work intentionally to get our work done. If we edit with our phones in the room, we take the risk of scrolling through social media every few minutes (you know EXACTLY what I’m talking about, haha). Little distractions and time-stealers can add up very quickly. We may have some light music playing to set the mood with a cup of coffee, but other than that, ZERO distractions! When it is time to edit, we make sure to stay very focused. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again…being intentional in these moments is what speeds our process up and it allows for us to serve our clients in the absolute best way!

3: Use Lightroom

One of biggest catalysts in the editing process is the software that we choose to use. We use Adobe Lightroom and would highly recommend this software. I would actually scream it from the rooftops, in all honesty! In our opinion, Lightroom is the one and only editing option. This software allows us to quickly return images to our clients. In Lightroom, we cull our images, quickly and easily apply edits, and manipulate images in batches. We can sync our edits between similar photos and do one quick edit — total game-changer!! This is probably our biggest and most time-saving step for us. With Lightroom’s sorting features, batch editing, and the side-by-side compare feature, we are able to constantly keep our galleries consistent. It is so easy to edit an entire gallery when using all of the program’s capabilities. I 110% believe that we could not live without Lightroom! 

4: Cull All the Images then Edit

When first opening a new catalog, I’ll do the culling which means that I rate the photos and find the ‘keepers’. I flag the good images and sort them for Bret. That way when it comes time to edit, he is only focused on the final images. Bret will then pop in and take over from there. He will edit and apply the changes on all the culled images in the gallery. By culling the images first, you’ll only have the final images to work on in the editing phase! This is such a timesaver AND makes creating a consistent gallery sooo much easier!

So, now you know how and why we get our images returned to our clients so quickly. Not only is it for the clients, but ultimately, it is for Bret and I. Being able to see our clients giddy with excitement over their images genuinely makes us so happy! That is one of the reasons we are so zoned in and focused on returning images lightning-fast! Our day-to-day editing operations are focused and intentional so that we can give our couples the absolute best experience possible. I know that I would not want to wait months to receive my images back, so why would I do that to our couples?! This is just one way that we can love and serve our clients and it is one of our attributes that I am so incredibly proud of!!