A Workflow to Love for Your Photography Business

Oooh girl, I get it, when you are unsure on “what’s next” after a photo shoot it can be super frustrating! Here are some of the steps and tools I have found SUPER beneficial to loving my workflow start to finish without frustration!

 

 

1. Back up! When I get home from a shoot I immediately make backups! My worst fear is losing someones precious memories that they have entrusted me with! I know things still happen but we need to do our best to be good stewards! Look into getting some good hard drives and an online backup service. This is something you can’t afford not to do! Do it now before it’s too late! Every time I have lost something it was when I said “I’ll do a backup soon!”

 

2. Keep yourself organized! Organization is something I wish I wouldve learned earlier, having so many files not kept properly is simply a recipe for a headache! Name your files in a clear and concise way that will help you have a faster workflow! After learning the hard and confusing way, my files will go through these steps.

a. Make a file named after the session something like “JaneDoe-Senior-1025”

b. rename file according to session, i.e.; ExampleSession-originals.jpg

c. backup to hard drive(s)  (see, I just had to bring up this important step again)

d. import into light room, work your magic on those files and export into subfiles of my original name file for what they are being used for. i.e.;  Examplesession-Blogpost.jpg or Examplesession-Final.jpg

This way, the files are always clearly marked and easily accessible!

 

3. A big one for me is culling! I despise it! Culling is going through your session and deleting the unusable images, make sure you sit down as soon as you can and go through them while you still have a fresh eye on your session! For me, the longer I put this off the more i dislike doing it or even worse… won’t even get done and I have to do it AFTER I’ve completed the session! WHAT. A. MESS! Don’t do that, its a nightmare. I promise if you give yourself a distraction free 20 minutes, you can get it done! Also, My next purchase is going to be PhotoMechanic! Ive heard nothing but GEAT things about it!

4. Lightroom! This tool will save you SO much time! The batch editing, ability to create your own presets and countless other easy to use tools give you 101 reasons you need to get lightroom if you aren’t using it already! When I import into lightroom I go and favorite them, for example1 star is everything I will edit, 2 stars are what I post on social media, 3 stars is what I want to blog, things like that! This way when I want to export the ones I just want to share on my business page or twitter I can simply only show the images rated at 2 stars and export just those ones when I’m ready!

5. Blogstomp! Praise. The. Lord! This tool is from heaven itself, I’m convinced! All you bloggers have to check it out! I import my blogpost images into the program and I can easily make collages, or images with my watermark on a frame or resize them in a click, its SO fast and you can upload strait into your blog! It cut my workflow in regards to blogging in half at least!

6. Posting online! This can be very time consuming and tricky, especially since sometimes the most effective time of day to post is morning and evening, Sometimes I can’t be at a computer. A great tool to utilize on your blog and Facebook is the scheduled posts. I love it when I’m working late at night but can schedule something for a more normal time of day ;)

Social media- Typically I will share images to get people to be excited for my blog posts on Facebook and instagram. When I am done with my editing I will make my blog post and upload a new image to my social media with the blog link attached because content with images does better on your social media. Keep up with your media on a schedule if you can not just for yourself but for your viewers!

7. Take a break. Whats that one rule called? like the 2/3 rule? You work for a certain amount of time and then take a break? This method has helped me so much to simply allow myself a break! I just tell myself “Ok, finish this up in 45 minutes and then we will take a little 15 minute brake and get back to whatever is left.”  Its awesome to see what you can do when you set goals! Because hey, you are your own work boss and you deserve a little break. Your brain will thank you for not slaving yourself at the computer for hours on end!

 

I truly hope this has helped you, please feel free to ask questions! I would love to answer them to the best of my ability!