OUR WORKFLOW AFTER THE WEDDING DAY!!

We are photographing a wedding in Naples, Florida this weekend. I started thinking about what I would need to do after the wedding day. 


After the wedding, it usually takes me about four days to digitally edit the images we made, usually 1200 to 1600 images. Two days after the wedding, I download all the images from our compact flash cards to an external drive. We shoot raw (large files) and if I put them on my Mac, it would not take long to fill up the drive. I never format the cards until I have finished working on the images. By the way, you might ask, why two days? Well, I need at least one day to decompress and then start up again. 


Next, I sort the images and choose which ones we will present to the couple. There are usually about a thousand.  I then work on each image individually. Some are simple edits; white balance adjustments, noise reduction and sharpening. Others require a little more work as I artistically design each image. Some will be black and white or have a tone shade added: think sepia or other tones. Some, will have a retro look while others, might be cropped to add that artistic touch. 


I might also need to digitally remove a hand or other body part that is intruding into a image (usually during the dancing) at the reception. I stay away from selective coloring for the most part, maybe average one image, every other wedding. This is based on whether I feel the image works best that way. I think if there are too many images with selective coloring, your album looks dated. (If your not sure of what I mean, think of black and white images where one item, usually a flower, is in color). If the bride and groom request more, then I will add more. After all, these are their wedding images and wedding album. They should have it the way they want!  


After I finish my post production, we upload all the images to a password protected website for guests from the wedding to view. (That is, if they wrote their email address on the forms we placed at each table during the reception).  If they do and we can read them, they will receive an email inviting them to the site to view the images.


The next phase for us is to wait for the couple to choose about 20 - 25 images that they want included in their wedding album. Once we know the images they have selected, I design the wedding album. Each album I design is different, no two are alike. Each album averages 20 pages, although there is an option to add more pages at a reasonable cost. I use the images they have selected and add others I feel are appropriate to keep the story flowing. 


Here is an example of an album starting with the first page.

We also offer large mounted and/or framed images from the wedding day. This image (16x24) will be hanging in our office/studio.

We also offer a video of some of their images which can be put on YouTube and played on their computer or on a DVD to played in any compatible DVD player.

So if you thought that the photographer's work was over after
the wedding day, it is not !! It is a long day, usually 11-12 hours with two photographers shooting all day from bridal prep to the last dance. But we love it! We would not want to do any other work !!!