Photo Editing Process
Making Artwork from Photography
You may have heard the term "edited images." Today's professional photography standards involve some form of photo enhancement beyond "raw" or unedited images that come directly from the camera. As technology advances, so does the art of editing imagery, with endless possibilities. These creative tools allow us to transform raw photos into a more pleasing aesthetic. This page was created for you if you're curious about how we process your images from the moment they come out of our camera until they appear in your gallery or on your USB drive.
Step 1: Upload & Backup your images.
Your photos are captured in RAW format.CR2 or.ARW files directly from our cameras. It's recommended for professionals to shoot in RAW most of the time. The RAW format allows your camera to capture all the data it receives from the camera's sensor, ensuring that no details from the image are discarded, which often happens with JPEGs. However, RAW images cannot be displayed as they are and must be converted to JPEG format after editing to make them client-ready. The RAW format takes up significantly more space due to the data collected per image. A complete wedding photographed in RAW can take up anywhere between 200-300 gigabytes of information, and this is before the RAW images are added to the editing process.
After your wedding or photography session, we immediately download your images onto multiple hard drives for backup and protection. Once the download is complete, we begin sorting through your images.
The time spent on this process is at least 1 hour.
Step 2: “Culling” through your images.
We create a master folder for your image files and use specialized programs to organize them. This makes reviewing your RAW image files easier and selecting the best ones. We go through a culling process to remove blurry images, eye blinks, unflattering expressions, and duplicates. This helps us best to tell the story of your wedding or photography session. Once we've narrowed down the images, we tag them with phrases like "detail shots", "formal family pictures", or "reception" to organize them better. This makes navigating through the images easier for us and you. After that, we move on to the editing process and mark the creative edits we will process. These selected images are designed to tell your wedding story or photography session in the form of an album.
The time spent on this process is typically 3-6 hours.
Step 3: Color & Tone Correction
RAW or “Non Edited”
Color Corrected
Color and tone correction are essential for optimizing an image. This involves adjusting exposure levels, color, contrast, white balance, black-and-white points, highlights, shadow details, and clarity for each picture using specialized software and calibrated monitors.
Photographing weddings and other scenarios often involves mixed lighting, resulting in inaccurate colors. We work to adjust the color in each image to achieve the most neutral color possible. Preserving highlight and shadow detail in high-contrast environments, such as outdoor photos taken at noon, can be challenging, but modern software helps handle these situations well.
Color adjustments, particularly to the hue and saturation in red and orange, are made to enhance skin tones. Additionally, sharpening and noise reduction are applied to images taken in low-light conditions to ensure high-quality digital files for printing.
The final step involves treating skin tones in each image using the orange channel to separate texture from color, resulting in smoother skin tones and better color grading.
Total time required for this process: 8-12 hours.
Step 4: RAW File Conversion
After completing color correction and organizing the images, we need to convert them from the RAW format to the JPEG format for printing and online display. We use specialized software to convert the images to full resolution and web size.
Total Time: 30 minutes + computer time (we allow this process to occur while away from the computer)
Step 5: Stylized Image Edits
Stylized edits involve specific changes made to selected images in your gallery. These edits include dodging, burning, skin softening, teeth whitening, vignette, color adjustments, and retouching of stray hairs. Before stylized edits, the images had already undergone color correction, and now we apply localized edits to each of them. This means we go through each image by hand and make individual color and tonal adjustments to specific parts.
In step 3, we added global changes, but in step 5, we break down each image into sections and add localized adjustments to make them stand out. This can involve brightening or darkening parts of an image, removing elements like street signs or background distractions, and sometimes opening or closing a person's eyes or swapping heads, especially for young children. For example, in the case of a photo where a child didn't smile in one picture but did in the next, we can swap the smiling face into the previous photo.
This meticulous process begins with selecting images recommended for your album. If requested, we can also apply these edits to the client's photographs chosen for their album or prints in addition to our recommendations.
The total time involved varies for individual images, but there are approximately 4-5 hours of initial time per wedding.
Step 6: Signature Photos
Our Signature Photos are unique and are taken with a signature edit in mind from the beginning. These customized photographs go through a meticulous process, transforming them from excellent to extraordinary. The editing requires significantly more time than our color correction and creative edits.
Signature edits are meticulously hand-edited by graphic design specialists under David's art direction. This is why our images stand out more than many other studios. We firmly believe that the creative process should be managed by specialists, which is the primary reason why we can efficiently and effectively complete them quite quickly.
In filmmaking, the cameramen are not responsible for the editing, and the editing team differs from other specialized teams, such as the special effects team. Our graphic design team is our special effects team, and we specialize in creating the signature photo look.
During the Signature Edit process, our specialists maximize dynamic range and add selective contrast to different parts of an image. After that, they create subject selections, remove distractions, possibly replace the sky, enhance symmetry by adjusting subjects or background elements, and then add color toning to each individual part of an image. Once the initial editing is complete, the images are sent to David for review, approval, or necessary adjustments.
Our Signature Edits are designed for wall art, album covers, or full-page spreads. They are intended to encapsulate the story of your wedding day or photography session in a single image, similar to how a movie poster advertises. These impactful images are intended to be unique and one-of-a-kind.
Total Time Involved: 1-2 Hours Per Image
Step 7: Uploading to Online Gallery
After all of your images are complete, we create an online gallery to store them and also serve as a backup. We will send you the online gallery via a URL link for selection. We need to meet with you to review your images before sending them to ensure your satisfaction and discuss your album options.
Gallery Prep Time: Up to 1 hour
Wedding Post-Production Timeline:
A photography session takes a significant amount of time from beginning to end, and a wedding production can take up to almost 30 hours per wedding to deliver a quality product to every client. Working with a team of specialized individuals and dividing tasks by checks and balances enables us to deliver quality results to our clients while maintaining a 30-day turnaround time for your images.
Post-production begins on the Monday following your wedding. You will receive an email to schedule your image preview. We recommend bringing your friends and family to view your images for the first time and have a champagne toast.