Where are my wedding images? | Montana Wedding Photographer
Where are my wedding images?
A common question that quickly follows the wedding day is an email or message to your photographer asking where your images are and when will you get to see them. When a photographer attends your wedding and captures your day they are only just starting the job you are paying them for, capturing images are just a small part of what they do and because of that there will be a wait until you get your images while they are edited.
How long does it take to get wedding images back from photographer?
In summary, what you are waiting for is your photographer to go through thousands of images -- culling those over or under exposed test shots, white balance test shots, shots of subjects having their eyes closed, bad angles, etc. Then there is the editing: adjusting the color balance, adjusting the highlight balance and creating that finished style you hired them for. There is a lot more work to be done once the images are captured such as ensuring you have those creamy smooth skin, sparkling eyes, alluring lighting, artistic touches to your images, etc.
Typically, it will take approximately 75 days to edit your wedding portraits. However, if it is peak season then your photographer will also be capturing many weddings during that time as well as editing other weddings or sessions prior to yours. Therefore, your images will take a little longer to edit.
Please keep in mind, average Infinite Photography wedding consists of approximately 2,500 finished images and 2,500 black & white images totaling 5,000 finished images.
My editing style is very custom based because I pay particular attention to this special moment of my clients' lives and I also pay particular attention to making my clients look incredible. I am also a perfectionist! I will not deliver images that have not been perfected by me first. I control the entire editing process to give you my personal artistic touch throughout your entire set of images. I prefer not to send my images to an editing company to edit or apply the same editing preset to all of my images in Lightroom. I custom edit every single one of my images and this is just my style as well as personal preference to ensure all of my clients are receiving that overall finished look.
Every photographer’s editing style is different, but below is a timeline of editing a typical wedding at Infinite Photography:
Uploading images from SD cards to Mac – 1 hour
Backing up images to multiple cloud storage to ensure your images are safe – 3 hours
Categorizing images – 3 hours
Uploading images to Lightroom – 2 hours
Culling images in Lightroom – 8 hours
Adjusting exposure, contrast, shadows, highlights, etc. in Lightroom – 45 hours
Exporting images out of Lightroom – 12 hours
Importing each image and creative editing in Photoshop (creamy smooth skin, artistic essence, etc.) – 40 minutes on each image
Importing all edited images from Photoshop to Lightroom – 5 hours
Converting images from color to black & white – 32 hours
Exporting images from Lightroom – 8 hours
Upload images to online gallery – 8 hours
Create 1080p HD video slideshow in FinalCutPro – 4 hours
Of course, the excitement of seeing your beautiful wedding images makes us impatient and question why it takes such a long time to get your images of your beautiful day. Infinite Photography Missoula will share some sneak peek photos of a selection that have been edited for you to view within a week of your wedding day!
Just remember, it is worth the wait!
You have hired Infinite Photography for a reason. Be patient, it will be worth the wait. When you see your images, I am sure there will be smiles, joy, happiness and even some happy tears as all those emotions come back as you relive the best day of your life.