After a wedding job

[Dene]

My wife and I just completed our first paid job yesterday for a couple's wedding. We offered our services for Friday and Saturday and produced 1600 shots which are now in RAW form on our computers. Our agreement with the bride and groom was that they were to get all the pictures we take of them on discs. My question is, what to do with them to minimize post processing? Do you normally just run the basic "convert to jpeg" script and hand them over to the people and also, what resolution should I size them to, keep them the same or downsize? I am sure they will pick several to print large.
Thanks for your continuing help.
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[Curtis Clegg]

Taking the photos is just the beginning of the process... every image deserves at least a minute of your time to optimize in Lightroom, Aperture or ACR before you convert to JPG. Otherwise, you're missing out on all the advantages that RAW has to offer.

Every image should be as good as you can possibly make it before you burn a disc.

My wife and I just completed our first paid job yesterday for a couple's wedding. We offered our services for Friday and Saturday and produced 1600 shots which are now in RAW form on our computers. Our agreement with the bride and groom was that they were to get all the pictures we take of them on discs. My question is, what to do with them to minimize post processing? Do you normally just run the basic "convert to jpeg" script and hand them over to the people and also, what resolution should I size them to, keep them the same or downsize? I am sure they will pick several to print large.
Thanks for your continuing help.
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Equipment in profile.

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Curtis Clegg

 

[Andrew64673]

there is a whole range of ways even a S&B wedding could be given to the couple.
depends what is in the contract and what they are paying you for.

The best would be to do an edit, remove all duplicates, eye blinks, muffed exposures, boring useless shots, even pick the best few from a series. I found 350 proofs was a good number to hand over. 1600 will drown them. (if you were contracted to supply all, well of course but do a photographers edit also, noone will want to look through them all more than once, and you dont them want to bore their friends to tears with your work)

next is supply colour corrected files, unless you are very good at getting exposure and wb spot on each photo, you will need to do this. (if you have contracted to do it, this takes time, you need to be paid for it) Maybe you had not thought much about this, being your first paid gig, but maybe do it anyway so you know what to charge for it next time. I would do some enhanced versions onn a few too, and if I were doing S&B which I never did, I would throw in a few quality prints so they know how they should look at least.

Giving them a full set of unedited and uncorrected files at full res is not doing them any favours unless they are keen amateur photogs themselves (even then....)

sizing is important, in reality they will unlikely print above 8x12 themselves, so anything over 2000x3000pixels is just going to ping them off. I would do a few size batches, proof size : eg600x900 so they can flip through them fast, 6x4"size about 1000x1500 (close to hd tv?), high res if you have to at 2000x3000 or full res

Wedding photography as a business comes as low up front, sell at the back end, which is not so popular now; Fully inclusive package all your money up front nothing left to sell; or somewhere in between like: reasonable minimum package so you have an acheivable entry price with room left to sell lots more if they are blown away by how great your work is. The last one I think is best for most togs and couples, it allows reasonable value at the basic end and room for good profit if you acheive your aim of exceeding their expectations with the photos so much that they have to have more.

a few things to remember as you decide what to do with this one and the next one:

Beautiful images and presenation are a vital part of establishing a decent marketplace position and good word of mouth (a crappily presented bunch of files or prints will keep your prices low)

Your time is valuable, charge for it. Also each image is YOURS and has its own intrinsic value, charge for that as well. As you go on you will see the importance of this if you are running a business.

Have an agreed and limited amount of product included in your price. A low entry price is good to have usually, but you cant give everything away for it, leave something to sell. A good example is 6 hours, 100 5x7s and a basic album for $1500 to start with (not sure on the price, your market and where you sit in it will largely determine what you can charge). Files available at $xxx for low/medium res and $XXX for high res (number limited) and offer quality printing as well, at least for larger sizes.

as for giving them non corrected files, if you are really bad and need to be super cheap, yeah, but you wont last long at any price, otherwise if you are really good at nailing WB and exposure, you could probaby do it at a worthwhile price.

 

[Jeff Behm]

Well, you're about to find out where a (perhaps "the") major percentage of your time will be spent in wedding work if you pursue it as many of us do. You didn't mention the software you'll be using to sort and convert your files, but perhaps a word of caution: when you said "give them everything", I hope you plan to cull the failed images at the minimum. Even better, select the best single of any duplicated or multiple frames, as well as remove anything that didn't work well enough to reflect well on you and your wife's work. Good images of jobs past are your samples for sales future.

Now, first, no matter what any of us say, for this event, honor your agreement. I'm not encouraging you to reneg on anything you've promised, but if this is truly your first paid gig, you may have promised too much and might wish to reconsider the promise for the future. For example, I have tiers in which I say we'll deliver "up to xxx images". I also don't (part of the learning curve) tell the couple how many images we've taken during the event, because I know they won't get all of them and they need not be comparing their memory of how many I said were shot to how many they received.

Back to your question "How much post work?", that's the point. Don't waste time on images that aren't A) going to reflect well on you and B) tell the story of the event.

Next, after much comparison of Lightroom and Aperture (Aperture=Macs only), I went with Lightroom. I just understood it better. I'm not going to argue a case for a choice here, but that's the software I use. Use what works for you.

Whatever you use, make sure it's fast and flexible enough to cull from 1600 RAW images to 3-500 for initial release in a few hours (once they're imported). Then you can group images with similar exposure and white balance characteristics and sync your changes to them all at once, or individually. Whatever you prefer. After that, convert them and send the prime stuff to Photoshop for the details. Best thing: both LR and AP do not alter your RAW file, applying any changes only to the exported TIFF, JPEG, PSD, what have you.

As mentioned by an earlier post, every shot you deliver should be looked at first, and probably tweaked. It's your future referral, after all. By cutting down on the total number, you are more efficient, more capable of concentrating, improve what's on display and you cut back the time overall, because you aren't doing post on 1200 images. The average bride cannot appreciate or accurately differentiate quality when faced with 1200 images, and you're just creating excess non-revenue producing work for yourself.

I only deliver printable files as an additional sale, and usually deliver 300ppix4x6, which will allow them to print up to a perfectly acceptable 240ppix5x7.5. Be sure to include a document giving permission for whatever printing uses you allow.

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jrbehm
http://www.jeffbehm.com

 

[pallone]

Usually, at least for me, it takes 1 day for the shooting and 4 days for the postproduction of the pictures. Some picture just require levels adjustment and conversion, some others needs up to 5 minutes to get what I want, and what my clients ask and paid for.

Don't just convert 1600+ pictures and give to them, choose, I'd say, 3-400 photos and do the best you can with processing.

If you asked not enough money for this amount of work you'll know for the next time

 

[lone_dingo]

Dene wrote:

Our agreement with the bride and groom was that they were to get all the pictures we take of them on discs. My question is, what to do with them to minimize post processing? Do you normally just run the basic "convert to jpeg" script and hand them over to the people and also, what resolution should I size them to, keep them the same or downsize? I am sure they will pick several to print large.

Thanks for your continuing help.

'
Lone Dingo replies...

Lessons are always learnt from mistakes:

Mistake 1; To offer ALL the images.

Mistake 2; To shoot that many. 50 or 60 for a 20 page album, 100 to 150 for a digital album and maybe another couple of hundred to avoid blinks and stuff is about all you need to deliver.

Mistake 3; To not know how to handle the results of what you took in advance.

Converting RAW files to photo images is one thing but unless you can make wedding photographs out of them, you might have been better off shooting in JPEG mode.

What separates the Pros from the wannabes is the knowledge of how to make a wedding photograph from a photo.

At least half of your delivered photos - including all in the album, need to be wedding portraits that tell a story of the day.

Good luck. Sounds like you'll need it.

--

I never did buy the Porche I dreamed about. I know now that when you want one most, you can afford it least... Like the camera I long for!

 

[97C5L]

The hard way!
--

• When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. Edmund Burke

 

[BAK]

I'm sure many of us here feel sorry for you, but the good news is that other amateurs with no cluie about how hard photography is will learn a lesson.

There's about 40 photos that matter at a wedding, plus soem snapshots -- preferably well done -- of assorted guests.

So go through the 1600 shots and get rid of the one thousand that don't matter.

And the only reson not to get rid of 1300 is that the happy couple may have heard the shutter going off over and over, and wonder why they did not get "all"" your shots.

Can we assume from your orginal message that you nver bothered settingyour camera correctly and shooting good JPEG files?

Well, RAW files are no good to anyoneexcept a Photoshop processor, so you need JPEGs of everything.

The big challenge is how big can your batches be, considering that you've probably shot under varying conditions.

Your shots are probably in chronoligica,l order (from two cameras shooting concurrently?) so you need to decide whether to convert in batches by chronological order -- i.e. convert the nine shots inside the limo on the way to the church, and then convert the getting out of the limo shots, and then the going into the church shots, and much later, convert the 14 much-later-in-the-day back in the limo shots.

The alternative is to put the first nine limo shots, and the much later 14 limo shots, into the same batch. This means fewer, bigger batches, but involves more sorting, and will be a pain for the happy couple trying to sort digital files in order to make prints.

All in all, you've got a week of work ahead of you. $450 spread over 45 hours -- still better than behind the counter in a convenience store.

BAK

 

[28to70]

1600 shots! I won't even take a 1000. I'll take maybe 500 to 700 and make them good. I don't look forward to editing more than that. Call me lazy, but so far all the bride's have been happy with what they get!

 

[Dene]

I'm sure many of us here feel sorry for you, but the good news is that other amateurs with no cluie about how hard photography is will learn a lesson.

I don't seem to feel that anybody feels "sorry" for me sir. WHY would they? What ae these forums for anyway, we have to learn!

There's about 40 photos that matter at a wedding, plus soem snapshots -- preferably well done -- of assorted guests.
Agreed
So go through the 1600 shots and get rid of the one thousand that don't matter.
Virtually done in a few hours.

And the only reson not to get rid of 1300 is that the happy couple may have heard the shutter going off over and over, and wonder why they did not get "all"" your shots.

I don't think they noticed the shutter going off, so what? I asked the Padre and the wedding party if it was alright to move around and I was given the go ahead, and it was at an outside venue.

Can we assume from your orginal message that you nver bothered settingyour camera correctly and shooting good JPEG files?

With RAW you have the possibility working with an original file that is larger than a compressed jpg, study up on that, plus, with a "one button click", in Photoshop you can batch convert, now, why would I shoot a compressed jpg and have them come up to me in a week and ask me to get a large photo printed off and I'd have to say, sorry, I just have a 4 mb jpg?

Well, RAW files are no good to anyoneexcept a Photoshop processor, so you need JPEGs of everything.

So why is there a RAW option, guess I'm the only one out there that shoots RAW, hmmm?

The big challenge is how big can your batches be, considering that you've probably shot under varying conditions.

Your shots are probably in chronoligica,l order (from two cameras shooting concurrently?) so you need to decide whether to convert in batches by chronological order -- i.e. convert the nine shots inside the limo on the way to the church, and then convert the getting out of the limo shots, and then the going into the church shots, and much later, convert the 14 much-later-in-the-day back in the limo shots.

The alternative is to put the first nine limo shots, and the much later 14 limo shots, into the same batch. This means fewer, bigger batches, but involves more sorting, and will be a pain for the happy couple trying to sort digital files in order to make prints.

All in all, you've got a week of work ahead of you. $450 spread over 45 hours -- still better than behind the counter in a convenience store.

You'd be better off spending time with your family and dog rather than giving snide comments to myself, (yes, and you've done it before), plus stay away from these forums, look what the others have posted, now that is helpful information, from non-egotistical respondents.
BAK

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Equipment in profile.

 

[gnjphoto]

This is why I state 200 photos is what they get for $1000. To process 200 photos will take the better part of two days, especially if you do extensive processing, which most expect and want. To give all 1600 photos would just be devastating to any future buisness for yourself, and for the Newlywedd couple to go through. I would NEVER give someone that many photos. For a Bride prep, ceremony and reception package it is 200 photos. If we throw in Bridal portraits and engagement photos 250. There just isn't any reason for more. You will find this out as you go through your photos, and God, I hope you have lightroom to help process through all these.
12hrs shooting = 24hrs processing

Hope all goes well and this is a lesson well learned.

 

[ee50ok]

Dene,

Firstly sort through and ditch the ones that are truely awful. No one needs to see them.... No honestly.

Then process a few from each location / agreed pose / combination of relations and friends.

Ideally these processed images would be all you would release. However if you have contracted to deliver them all, then I would burn the CD/DVD with the best images in the root directory and the rest in a sub directory (preferably a sub sub sub sub directory).

Good Luck
--
One shot at a time.

 

[JPP801]

I dont!

You should charge what the quality of the work is worth...or rather, I should say, what the quality of the work commands.

I don't know anyone (who I would take seriously) that would not need to colour correct (WB) and density correct the vast majority of the the files they had shot at a wedding whether they had shot RAW or jpg, if they wanted the client to see the true quality of the work, shot.

You should have realised this and taken it into account before you took on the job. If the quality of what you have produced is not such that it cannot command a fee worth doing all the work for in the first place, perhaps you have chosen the wrong job.

I repeat, the fee the work can command (and get bookings) will be based on how good it is, not how many there are.

Typically, I shoot around 700-800 shots on a wedding and cull them down to 300-400. My culling process is, If I think that the shot is good, it stays, if there are more than one good shot of a similar thing only the best one stays, unless there is a point to having a sequence, (walking up the isle, confetti, etc).

Occasionally, on long jobs (like 10 hours) I will shoot more than I said above, here is one where I shot just under 1400 images and once culled, using the procedure above, I still presented the client with over 750 images.

They were thrilled with the work (and apparently, so where the magazines that want to use some of the shots) and there was never a hint of the fact that they felt there were too many images or or there was any dross in what was previewed to them.

Here is the wedding, (it could take ages to download though)

http://www.johnprendergastphotography.co.uk/cam_adobe/index.htm

If you were the client, would you feel that there was a significant percentage of the shots in that set of previews that shouldn't of made it through to being left in?

That is a rhetorical question bye the way. I have alot of experience in knowing what to keep with a view to what to have the client choose from.

I suppose, the point of my reply is...the OP is now finding out what Wedding Photography really is and he and others are finding out the hard way, if they are really cut out for it or capable of it in the first place.

P.S. That wedding I have shown took about 4 hours tops to edit and process from shooting RAW to the quality that is hinted at in the above link and that is including producing full res jpgs, DVD playable slide shows with audio soundtracks, etc, etc, etc. so I don't know how it is taking anyone 3 or four days to do it.

What are you doing that takes that long??

 

[Alex Leach]

P.S. That wedding I have shown took about 4 hours tops to edit and process from shooting RAW to the quality that is hinted at in the above link and that is including producing full res jpgs, DVD playable slide shows with audio soundtracks, etc, etc, etc. so I don't know how it is taking anyone 3 or four days to do it.

What are you doing that takes that long??

I can see that batch converting RAW files to jpgs could save a lot of time, though I don't do it as I don't know how you would do any specifics, e.g. highlight recovery - but are you looking at each file to do any individual cropping and sharpening?

--
Alex

 

[gnjphoto]

Settings indoors are basically the same, so you can batch process those, reception batch, outdoors is trickier with changing light, but gives starting point. Batch in Lightroom, work further in PS.

 

[Dene]

Thanks for the help, I see the general consensus here is to cull out the bad ones. I forgot to mention that I do have Lightroom 2.0, but haven't really played with it that much and I'm comfortable with breezing through groups of pictures using ACR, then other small adjustments in CS3.

What we have to realize here, is that several times I've asked questions before I've gone out and done a wedding shoot, is that there is a lot of hostility that pops up on the forums, (not you, please, not you), by others that "feel sorry for me", and that is their sole income, and when good photographers like myself, (I have a career other than my hobby), put myself out there people like my services, they are a niche market that isn't going to pay for others here in my small town who want upwards of $5000 Canadian. I figure $450 is good money to spend 20 hours with great people before post processing.

So please, to those out there that offered constructive criticism, thanks, and to those who think I should go back to working in a convenience store, shame shame.
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Equipment in profile.

 

[Dene]

Well, you're about to find out where a (perhaps "the") major percentage of your time will be spent in wedding work if you pursue it as many of us do. You didn't mention the software you'll be using to sort and convert your files, but perhaps a word of caution: when you said "give them everything", I hope you plan to cull the failed images at the minimum. Even better, select the best single of any duplicated or multiple frames, as well as remove anything that didn't work well enough to reflect well on you and your wife's work. Good images of jobs past are your samples for sales future.

Now, first, no matter what any of us say, for this event, honor your agreement. I'm not encouraging you to reneg on anything you've promised, but if this is truly your first paid gig, you may have promised too much and might wish to reconsider the promise for the future. For example, I have tiers in which I say we'll deliver "up to xxx images". I also don't (part of the learning curve) tell the couple how many images we've taken during the event, because I know they won't get all of them and they need not be comparing their memory of how many I said were shot to how many they received.

Back to your question "How much post work?", that's the point. Don't waste time on images that aren't A) going to reflect well on you and B) tell the story of the event.

Good point.

Next, after much comparison of Lightroom and Aperture (Aperture=Macs only), I went with Lightroom. I just understood it better. I'm not going to argue a case for a choice here, but that's the software I use. Use what works for you.

That would be CS3, Lightroom seems to be the hot kid on the block these days, but I've always used CS3 and with ACR you can breeze through groups of similar shot files quite rapidly.

Whatever you use, make sure it's fast and flexible enough to cull from 1600 RAW images to 3-500 for initial release in a few hours (once they're imported). Then you can group images with similar exposure and white balance characteristics and sync your changes to them all at once, or individually. Whatever you prefer. After that, convert them and send the prime stuff to Photoshop for the details. Best thing: both LR and AP do not alter your RAW file, applying any changes only to the exported TIFF, JPEG, PSD, what have you.

As mentioned by an earlier post, every shot you deliver should be looked at first, and probably tweaked. It's your future referral, after all. By cutting down on the total number, you are more efficient, more capable of concentrating, improve what's on display and you cut back the time overall, because you aren't doing post on 1200 images. The average bride cannot appreciate or accurately differentiate quality when faced with 1200 images, and you're just creating excess non-revenue producing work for yourself.

I have thought about it, and yes, that would be a lost of shots to inundate them with, I'm down to about 1300 now with a few more cards to go through.

I only deliver printable files as an additional sale, and usually deliver 300ppix4x6, which will allow them to print up to a perfectly acceptable 240ppix5x7.5. Be sure to include a document giving permission for whatever printing uses you allow.

Thanks Jeff, this is what I'm looking for, what size files should I give them on a disc, beautiful.

--
jrbehm
http://www.jeffbehm.com

--
Equipment in profile.

 

[JPP801]

P.S. That wedding I have shown took about 4 hours tops to edit and process from shooting RAW to the quality that is hinted at in the above link and that is including producing full res jpgs, DVD playable slide shows with audio soundtracks, etc, etc, etc. so I don't know how it is taking anyone 3 or four days to do it.

What are you doing that takes that long??

I can see that batch converting RAW files to jpgs could save a lot of time, though I don't do it as I don't know how you would do any specifics, e.g. highlight recovery - but are you looking at each file to do any individual cropping and sharpening?

--
Alex

I view and edit every (RAW) file individually even before I cull them because I want to see how they look properly before I decide if they should stay or go, it takes about a second or two each, so in the case of the wedding shown above, I viewed and edited 1386 files, and then went through the cull procedure. It still only took 4 hours tops to do all that and more.

I dont crop images at least not to get to what you see in that link, I get it right in the camera.

I dont sharpen images, (beyond what sharpening my RAW processing software does by default), my lenses are sharp enough, (too sharp, sometimes).

Ref: highlight recovery....... It is the responsibility of the "professional" phographer to be able to expose correctly or light accordingly so the highlights are not lost in the first place, let alone needing recovery.

Again, this should be taken care of at the shooting stage, not left to try to "rescue" later.

 

[Dene]

The hard way!

Not so far, they were a great bunch of people, it might have been a different story if the party was a little tense during the weekend, but not so, nothing was hard about it. I sent them 32 quicky shots but haven't heard back.

• When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. Edmund Burke

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Equipment in profile.

 

[JPP801]

The hard way!

Not so far, they were a great bunch of people, it might have been a different story if the party was a little tense during the weekend, but not so, nothing was hard about it. I sent them 32 quicky shots but haven't heard back.

• When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. Edmund Burke

--
Equipment in profile.

Two people working 20 hours each = 40 man hours for $450 = $11.25 an hour

That is before you even cost in the editing time etc. Once you cost in the editing time (which in your case, sounds like it is going to be considerable), the rates you are working for would be illegally low, here in the UK, to the point of, if you paid anyone that, you would get prosecuted.

You both can work for me anytime for those rates if you were any good.

32 shots out of 1600??????

Your kidding right?

Even at one quick glance at them you must have been able to see at least two or three hundred good ones, surely?