We’ve had your consultation and we just finished all the fun of photographing your session! What happens next? I think it’s pretty common to think that the hard work is over and that after the session there isn’t much to do. But the truth is – a lot happens between the time we finish taking your portraits and the time you get to come in and see them. So I thought it might be fun to get a little behind the scenes peek into what happens after we finish taking your pictures!

Once your session is over, the first thing I do is unload my gear and begin pulling the images off my camera and onto my computer. I always create an individual folder for each client and pull all the images into a folder entitled “originals.” Once all the images are ing the folder, I open my culling software. Culling is another word for sorting and narrowing down images to the best. Depending on the session and how many images I start with, this process can be fairly quick (10-15 minutes) or much longer. Sometimes I have to go through this process twice to get my favorite images down to a number that is “acceptable.” I want to make sure I have a nice variety of images that are exceptional choices and also quite diverse. With smaller images, I may be narrowing it down to 25-30 images and larger sessions it could be between 75 and 90.

Once the images are narrowed down to my favorites – I save those favorites to a separate folder to help speed up the editing process. Once all images are in their new “choices” folder, I begin editing each image. I have created my own set of actions that help me stay productive and keep this process moving. My base action is something I run on every image I process and it’s usually all I need to do on my portrait work. I try to get everything right in camera so that I have less to do after. I do have a few images that I play with a little more to create a unique style. But I do limit this to a very select few.

Once all images are edited, I begin pulling the edited images into my video creation software. The first thing I want my clients to see is their images set to music. I find this to a be a lovely way to get to see your images for the first time. This does take a little time to do , but I feel my clients are well worth the effort. The last step would be to pull the images into our ordering software and prepping everything for your ordering appointment.

So there you have it! That’s everything we do between the time we finish your session and the time you get to see them. For my clients – this tends to take a week or two to get everything where I want it for you. But I feel the extra time is well worth the end result! You deserve the best and I try to do my best to deliver that to you!