Recently I surveyed some of our clients and found that prior to outsourcing with us, they were spending an average of 14 hours per wedding editing. That adds up to a lot of time, especially when most photographers shoot 15 or more weddings per year! In today’s post I want to give you 3 editor-approved ways to speed up your post-process editing workflow. Your time as a business owner is valuable and I want to help give some of it back!  

Before we dive in, I want to mention that all of the tips we are about to go over will not only help you save time, but will also help you achieve consistency in your style. There are many ways to speed up your process but if you aren’t paying attention to consistency, it’s all for nothing. Consistency is always key. 

Tip #1 is to use a programmable editing tool.

My personal favorite is the Loupedeck, but the ShuttlePro is also a fan favorite of photographers! These bluetooth devices allow you to program certain buttons to make specific setting changes in Lightroom. Once you get used to using them and memorize where certain settings are adjusted, they can make you lightning fast at editing through each of your catalogs. I recommend investing in one of these tools when you have some down time between events. They do have a bit of a learning curve, so you may not want to attempt adding them to your workflow mid-busy season. 

Tip #2 for speeding up your editing workflow is to utilize keyboard shortcuts.

Lightroom has built shortcuts right into their program that make accessing your most used adjustments ultra quick. These keyboard shortcuts are an alternative to using a tool like the Loupedeck (heck yes to saving money). For a few of our editor’s favorite shortcuts, you can grab our free Lightroom Keyboard Shortcut cheat sheet. Print it out. Tape it to your desk. Thank me later.

Tip #3 is to create your own custom presets.

Custom presets can speed up your editing in a major way and are different from purchased presets. You’ve probably seen photographers you look up to talking about presets that they’ve created and sell to their audience. While these can be great for photographers just starting out, most people find that they end up spending a lot of money trying to find the right preset, only to be disappointed and frustrated. The truth is that you likely won’t find one preset that will work for every image. The  better option (for your sanity and your wallet) is to create your own custom preset, which I promise is easier than you think.

Once you’ve defined your style and can replicate it consistently, go into Lightroom and create your own custom preset with the changes you typically make to all photos. Maybe you like your work to be a little more magenta than green. Go ahead and make this tint change and build it into your preset. Maybe you like your greens on the cooler side – go down and change that HSL slider and save it into your preset. Making these adjustments once and then saving them, will allow you to get a headstart with just one click when you sit down to edit. 

Now I know I said I was bringing you our top 3 tips, but we have a bonus tip for you!

To truly save time and cut those 14 hours way, WAY down, you can outsource your editing to a private photo editor. Time truly is valuable and if you would rather spend those 14 editing hours playing with your kids, cooking dinner, or working on something you enjoy more in your business, it’s worth it to outsource your editing! We offer private photo editing that matches you with a personal editor, grants you access to our online community, and gives you our signature client experience.If you want to learn more about our private photo editing service, fill out our contact form and let’s get the conversation started!