What Goes Into Editing Wedding Photos?
What goes into editing wedding photos?
Sometimes our couples are curious about how we edit our photos and how the whole process works. How much work really goes into it? How much is real, how much is just stylistic touches? And whether it's said as a joke or not, “Lynn & Justin can just Photoshop that!" gets a good run at most weddings.
So here's a (very) quick rundown of our editing process to give you an idea of what goes into every single one of your wedding photos.
Quality Over Quantity
The first major part of the process is culling your photos.
This is where we go through every single photo that we take, and choose which photos will make the final cut.
Depending on the type of wedding, we’ll take anywhere between 5,000 and 8,000 photos (sometimes more). And contrary to what you might think, most of these photos are simply never meant to see the light of day.
Aside from the obvious things like testing our settings, out of focus photos or duplicates, most of what gets culled is simply a product of the way we shoot.
If you’ve ever seen us at a wedding, even though we’re celebrating with you and having a great time, you’ll know that we’re still always ‘on’ and generally our cameras are always up and ready.
We’ll wait patiently for moments to unfold and shoot through the entire sequence, always searching for more interesting perspectives, more interesting lighting and even ways for us to get a bit creative while it’s all happening.
That one perfect photo that you love may have been the end product of 50 lead up photos.
If, on the other hand, we just casually stood around, reacted to what was happening and then tried to frame up one perfect shot and be done with it, we can assure you that there would be much, much less gold in your photo gallery.
In wedding photography, great photos (and a little bit of ‘luck’) come to those who are proactive, not reactive.
Foundation Editing IN Lightroom…
Every single one of your photos will go through this process and, for 95% of them, this will be all that they need. While in reality it's much more detailed than what we'll cover here, this is basically how things work without getting too technical.
First, we'll crop the photo to our liking. Cropping is a hugely underrated tool that is highly underutilised. Sometimes choosing not to include certain things in the frame can hugely enhance what actually is in the frame.
Then, we'll bring in our foundation. We'll adjust things like exposure, tone, contrast and sharpening, as well as correcting colours. Everything is finely tuned to give your photos the look we're known for… punchy, colourful and true to life.
After that, we'll start brushing! Just like using a paintbrush, we'll go over the photo in detail to add more depth and pop. Maybe even brighten some shadowy faces or bring that sunset back to the colour and intensity that we remembered it. This is the most in-depth step of the entire process and it’s ultimately what gives your photos that really polished look.
And finally, a quick tidy up. Maybe there's a fly on your nose? Let's get rid of that.
Then, on to the next 700 or 800+ photos!
Here's a few examples of how things look before and after a typical edit…
When A little Extra Attention is needed in Photoshop…
So this is the big one that every couple wants to know about when it comes to editing wedding photos.
With advancements in AI and quick guides to photography hacks now available everywhere, it can be super easy to get carried away in Photoshop and turn a perfectly authentic wedding photo into something completely fake and soulless, just for the sake of creating some eye candy.
Good news if you're the type of people who love our photos… we're not into that.
But sometimes, there are a few small techniques that can help to slightly enhance and a photo and remove distractions while preserving its realness at the same time. There’s also some photos that just need a little extra help in cleaning up pesky distractions.
Here's a few examples of before and after Photoshop…
Timeless Over Trendy
Our approach to editing is about enhancing those original, flat digital negatives on our memory cards (called RAW files) to show vivid reality in 4K. No trendy filters, no blurry photos (is that still a thing?) and nothing that makes your wedding photos about us instead of you. So basically… timeless.
