What is the normal time for post processing ?

<p>I spend 26 days to post processing in Photoshop CS4 (one wedding)<br /> 100 images - for my blog and 100 family portraits (total 200)<br /> Originally i took 6113 RAW files for 14 hours<br /> My question is<br /> What the maximum number (hours,days or weeks ) you can spend for the one wedding?</p>

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MODERATOR Note: Blog link removed.

<p>you need to check out this link discussion going on right now - that work flow process is crazy... <a href="http://www.photo.net/wedding-photography-forum/00ThlG">http://www.photo.net/wedding-photography-forum/00ThlG</a> I outlined my workflow for an 8 hour wedding and it takes me no more than 14 hours to do everything from start to client archive. And I'm not sure but it apprears to me that you are way over shooting... you are averaging 437 photos per hour... I average about 80-100... and I do very little post in CS4 - mostly lightroom - check out the link you'll get lots of good ideas.</p>

<p>Emin, <a href="00ThlG">see the post </a>directly below your question. There have been many such posts previously with many discussions on workflow and processing time. Search the archives of this forum for more.</p>

<p>You are using the wrong tool, shooting a crazy amount of images, and spending way too much time. Most of the shooters here shoot 800 to 1500 images at a typical wedding, we use the right post production tools to finish them, and use batch processing tools to speed the work flow. You will never have a life, or the time you need to build your business if you spend so much time dealing with too many images.</p>

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<p>I can do it in a day but normally split it up a bit. 26 days is rediculous! How can you make any money?</p>

<p>Emin - your work is amazing and if you need to shoot that much to capture what you do - go for it... however, you need to change your work flow... and btw - I really hate the moving photos on your blog - really takes away from your fabulous work.</p>

<p>I split up the wedding into chunks once I have it all uploaded and pared down to keepers. I do the pre-ceremony on night one, the ceremony on night 2, family and bridals night 3, and the reception on night 4. So, 4 nights...normally. Depends on the size of the wedding. They usually get between 700-1000 pictures.</p>

<p>Emin, Love the latest batch of pics on your blog and the final five out-takes. The lighting is superb.....tuxedos and shadows with details. The image with the bride & grandma with eyes closed in the pre-ceremony photos was wonderful. Personally, I like the movement in the photos and suspect it will get you extra attention from potential brides. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!</p>

<p>Oh post-processing............the computer does most of the work with preset actions, I just eye each image for a quick crop or selective touch ups and typically spend less than 60 seconds per image.</p>

<p>Steve, looks to me like Emin has a pretty good grasp of his tools.........</p>

<p>Wow if Emin posts, I'm studying every single word! Your work is amazing!</p>

<p>Emin: You have a keen eye. And I think that may be why you shoot so many more images than some others do. You "see" more than most. But I think being a bit more selective before firing the shutter would help. </p>

<p>However the bigger fix is going to be getting lightroom. I just recently got it and it cut my time spent editing down probably 80% vs PS. It's not that expensive and in your case will pay for itself the first time you use it in time saved. Also, I highly recomend getting a training CD to get going on it right away. I got the Colin Smith one "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 for digital photographers" from B&H. Even if you go through the whole course and do your next wedding it still will only take you a few days to do both.</p>

<p>I didn't say anything about the quality of his shots (which are excellent), just about the quantity and the time spent. I think most would agree that 6000 shots is an excessive amount of images to deal with even with two shooters. Would his work have been any less beautiful if he had simply shot fewer images or selected moments to shoot more carefully? I doubt it.</p>

<p>Amazing. Two questions irrelevant to your post: How come you're never looking through the eyepice? Do you use noise reduction software?</p>

<p>It looks like you don't do a lot of local editing, unless you're really good at it, so LR would be perfect.</p>

<p>Another thing to consider, and the most important thing of all if this is a business, is your effective hourly rate. If you are taking 26days... how many hours per day... how much are you charging....?</p>

<p>Hmm interesting... Emin, you aren't looking through your eyepiece as noticed by Matthew. I've never seen a photog do that. Why?</p>

<p><em>"Emin, you aren't looking through your eyepiece as noticed by Matthew. I've never seen a photog do that. Why?"</em><br>

<em></em><br>

I do it frequently for several reasons, it can give your camera a different angle to catch the subjects, you can look for eye blinks and expression, and you can catch more candid moments because people assume that you're not about to take a photo unless they see you looking through the viewfinder. It's a common pro technique. </p>

<p>Hi Emin,</p>

<p>I shoot about like this , and end up shooting somewhere around 2k - 4k with a second shooter.</p>

<p>I import and process in LR2 and do some individual shot in PS.</p>

<p>If your computer is up to much, it should be able to handle an initial edit of 5-6k images (including upload/storing) pretty fast. I spend about two hours getting them "in" and then another hour or so beyond that doing selections (some are selected during the upload) using the number 5 key and the arrows to skip through them. If I endup with more than a thousand, I will revisit and make sure I am not just "filling in" with some shots. Once complete, I can do most of my adjustments in batches in about 2 hours by selecting groups of images that are similar. That part done, I skip through once more and edit more thoroughly at the individual level and that is about another 2 - 4 hours at present. I like to take several and do something with them in PS. That is another hour or so I would guess. So, overall its about a day or day and a half from the time I begin the import.</p>

<p>Kay, I shoot about 20% of my shots with the camera either overhead or on the floor. No eye to the VF. You can get some perspectives that way which would otherwise not be as easy or fast to get. Its a learned thing like most things photographic, but it is fun to add life to a shoot.<br>

Best, D.</p>

<p>The continuous argument that revolves around how many pictures are taken has been debated in other forums, and its one that allways pops up again and again. We all have differant ways of covering a wedding or any other event, so lets leave his 6000+ shots alone.....(with 2 shooters would not be uncommon for myself btw). I think we can all agree that his workflow of 26+ days for a single edit is WAY above normal. For that many RAWS, I would average say... a 1:1 ratio. So 14 hours of shooting, about the same amount for editing, maybe a few extra. Try out some differant software....possibly lightroom, or using automation in photoshop to speed things up a little. I also take RAW+JPEG so I can easily isolate the pictures that I want to work with, without having to convert them 1 by 1. Another alternative would be to batch process the whole shoot in PS after the wedding, saving them all as small jpegs to edit through......good luck.... </p>

<p>So how do you focus when you shoot from the hip?</p>

<p><em>"So how do you focus when you shoot from the hip?</em><br /><em></em><br />Mostly you get a good sense of where your autofocus point falls, with experience, and you just go for it. Often you can see the red focus light as it falls on your subject. And occasionally, you prefocus, lock it by depressing the shutter halfway and then take the image as I did here at a backdrop shot. At many receptions the guests will see me taking shots on the dance floor with my camera overhead and then they copy the technique with their P&S cameras.....we exchange glances and smiles and it all adds to having a good time.</p>

<p>BTW, assisting a good pro even once will give new shooters access to techniques like this.</p><div></div>

<p>It may sound extreme but I think with the right skills and tools it is possible to go from 6000 images to 200 selected, color balanced and exposure corrected images ready for printing in less than 2 hours of work.</p>

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<p>Thanks everybody for the answers.<br>

I will start to explore a big world of LR.<br>

PS: my problem is not to convert 6000 raw files to Jpeg and adjust color and light.<br>

My problem is to choose , the right 100 images from the whole set.</p>

During my most recent wedding (this past Saturday), I shot 560 images or thereabouts. I worked on a few of them in LR the same night. I finished all the rest on Sunday afternoon (300 final images). Total of maybe 4hrs concentrated effort. Before, when I was using CS2 as my primary PP tool, the same job would take me 3-5days. LR's interface makes it very intuitive and quick, for me at least, even to pick out keepers. I only pull specific ones into CS2 nowadays, when I want a particular effect not easily achievable in LR.

<p>Wow.</p>

<p>I'm wowed by Emin's work.</p>

<p>I'm <em>never</em> wowed by wedding photography. Until now.</p>

<p>My whole concept of wedding photography just got turned on its head. I've experimented before with animated GIFs, looping rapid fire sequences together, but only for live theater and dance performance photography. It never even occurred to me to try it for anything else.</p>

<p>Whatever you're doing, don't change anything except to make the post processing more efficient.</p>

<p>Wow.</p>

<p>I'm glad I found this thread.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>My problem is to choose , the right 100 images from the whole set.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Emin, selection is hard but I found it very helpful to study the masters at this, the people that selects images for a living, the picture editors. These are the guys that selected what to show the world when photographers like HCB came back from an assignment.</p>

<p>Sir Harold Evans (knighted for his contributions to journalism) has in his book "Pictures On A Page" defined three criterias for selection - "animation", "relevant context" and "depth of meaning". Maybe a book like that can help you develop a better understanding of your own image selection process.</p>

<p>I did not read any of the posts above (time limited) but my comment to your question would be: take the time it takes to do the "art" that you do. </p>

<p>Keep it simple.</p>

<p>If that means missing a few weddings per year then you have to make the decision if cutting corners on your Post-processing gives you the style and look your selling. If you start to compromise your look and your style because you're pressured to do more weddings then you're compromising "the art" you are producing.</p>

<p>If you don't see Your Photography as art then just go ahead and Mass Produce weddings and image files. I realize that economics play a part in it ... but, does the passion of "the art" play a part in it for you too? That is a good starting place.</p>

<p>I know your work without needing to go look at it: you're an artist. If you start down the road to post process faster Be Sure that your heart is satisfied with the end product. </p>

<p>My post may not be relevant to the above thread because I couldn't read it, sorry, so just ignore it if it's off topic ... keep up the great work you do and <strong>be careful</strong> of shortcuts that "change" your final product that many have come to enjoy and admire.</p>

<p>Emin, perhaps I don't understand your desire to reduce 6000 images to only 200? I understand you want 100 for your blog (which is more than I would put on a blog for a given event) and 100 for family portraits. Maybe you can explain your desired end result a bit better, or maybe we can help you decide on a new strategy which would involve giving more of your beautiful images?</p>

<p>I give most of my clients 600-1000 images, depending on the length of the day's events. Most of the key moments (I feel) can be boiled down to about that number. Now, some here give more and some here give less. I want to give my clients enough images and choices that they a) aren't wanting for more, and b) aren't overwhelmed.</p>

<p>Here's what I delete: flubs (formals where people were involved in conversation and not looking where needed), oofs (out of focus), dupes (duplicate images in a pose covered by another shot), blinks (a duplicate image with eye blinks that isn't needed), darks (where the flash didn't fire or I just blew an exposure), colors (where WB was inadvertently set wrong), brights (inadvertently overexposed), and misframes (shooting from the hip and got the framing off, or where the subject turned away at the last moment).</p>

<p>6000 to 200 would be: delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, KEEP. Etc.</p>

<p>Now, in your case, would you say it takes you 100 shots to find one keeper? With what I've seen, I don't think that would be the case. Perhaps you are throwing away or not giving them some otherwise nice photo moments?</p>