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When we get home after a wedding, we generally have 1100 to 1300 photos. When we give the proofs to a client, we hand over only 200-350 final images. Without a plan in place, that would be an impossible and extraordinarily long process. Our workflow is always improving and getting easier and yours will adapt to your own business.
First, we download all photos to the computer. When they are in their own folder, we then burn a backup copy. After the backups are made, we open each photo once in full screen view to see if it's blurry, poorly composed, too dark, or someone moved in or out of the shot. We delete all the lesser quality images and are left with 800-900 images.
The next step in the process is to pick from similars. Usually we shoot 2 or 3 of each "formal" image so that we can make sure everyone's eyes are open. After deleting duplicates and picking the best of similars, we end up with 450 or 500 photos.
From what is left, we open each in Adobe Photoshop and begin the editing process.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v448/mantonino/edit1.jpg
Let's say we start with this image.
First, we see too much background and the bride is only about half of the image. Our first step is to crop the image so we have a smaller, but more focused image to work with. Once we do that, we can adjust the black and white point. Photoshop lets us pick the darkest pixel in the image and call it "black" and the brghtest image and call it "white" and set other values in between.
After that adjustment is made, we need to brighten the image. At PI, we use curves for this step. We brighten the image until we get this:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v448/mantonino/edit4.jpg
Now the bride is center stage, brightened to show off the whites, and the background is fairly knocked out. We could stop there if we wanted to, but this image has potential to really stand out. So we continue the process by dodging and burning her dress and the wall. The background detracts a little from the whites and the overall tone, so we can desaturate it with the sponge tool. A contrast adjustment helps whiten the dress and darken the shadows.
The clone stamp is useful in this image to remove the door rail behind her. We can also clone some of the tree stumps out of the picture.
And here is our final image
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v448/mantonino/edit9.jpg
Images that do not survive their edits, either because they are too dark, too contrasty, or just not interesting the story we are telling, get dumped during this process. Our 450 photos generally produce 250 images that we are proud to show to our clients.
Our workflow generally follows these steps in this order:
1. Crop the photo.
2. White/black point adjustment.
3. Brightness adjustment.
4. Dodge/burn.
5. Clone in and out.
6. Neat Image (removes noise, if required)
7. Sharpen
8. Save as a new file.
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