Help!! How many photos should I be editing per hour? Events, weddings etc..

[alexxk]

Hello all,

I started working recently at a photo studio and my boss is giving me weddings to edit in Lightroom 5. Most of the photos are JPEGS.. only some are raw.. he sends 2 or 3 photographers per wedding..

He explained to me that what he wants from me is to edit only the basics.. such as exposure.. add vibrance, play with shadows and highlights, clarity, add vignetting and Noise reductions.. but of course from photo to photo we have to make other adjustments but he insists in not doing anything advanced as it's no necessary.. only global adjustments.

Another thing he said is that I should be editing around 300 photos por hour.. or about 2100 photo in 7 hours..

My question is.. is this within normal range? To me that sounds like too much.. I know I can batch edit.. but I still need to go over every picture checking to see if it's blurry, or if something is in the way like bags and stuff, as well as people's expression.. along side editing here and there.. some photos do take longer than others depending on several factors..

I've always taken some time to edit photos as I try to be as perfectionist as possible.. but in that environment how can I be?

Any tips from anyone?

His weddings and events usually have more then 2.000 photos


Thanks in advance!!

On top of that his computer is slow.. it takes time to load each photo..

 

[MCAsan]

Use a fast browser like Perfect Photo Browser to quickly pick the best images. Import only the best images into LR. Use a import preset that matches scene...outdoors in daylight, outdoors by fire/candle/torch light. Use othe preset as needed by the scene specifics.

 

[alexxk]

Use a fast browser like Perfect Photo Browser to quickly pick the best images. Import only the best images into LR. Use a import preset that matches scene...outdoors in daylight, outdoors by fire/candle/torch light. Use othe preset as needed by the scene specifics.

Can't do it.. he wants his way.. his way is using lightroom and using his editing method which is not all that bad in terms of editing large amounts of photos.. but 300 per hour is my problem.. that's about 12 seconds per photo.. not counting the 3-5 loading time per photo..

That can't be right!!

 

[VirtualRain]

Can't do it.. he wants his way.. his way is using lightroom and using his editing method which is not all that bad in terms of editing large amounts of photos.. but 300 per hour is my problem.. that's about 12 seconds per photo.. not counting the 3-5 loading time per photo..

That can't be right!!

I don't know what's the norm for professional retouchers, but that sounds crazy. I feel sorry for you and your clients. How to turn something fun into a dreaded task.

 

[TheReef]

not counting the 3-5 loading time per photo..!

Upgrading to LR 6 may help with this.

 

[alexxk]

I don't know what's the norm for professional retouchers, but that sounds crazy. I feel sorry for you and your clients. How to turn something fun into a dreaded task.

Right? Since I'm starting I would love to hear from people who work in this field longer with much longer experience so that I have an idea..

I love editing photos... but that's just crazy.. to me it's quantity over quality or Am I missing something here?

 

[jms969]

Alex

I feel sorry for you and for his customers.

All you can do with those time constrains is apply global adjustments and mark the keepers...

Enjoy your next job

 

[MCAsan]

If that boss is serious, you need to find another on tomorrow.

 

[Miltz]

Typically the people who shoot high quality work edit their own photographs because the editing is part of the photographers signature look. That being said... this doesn't sound like that kind of situation. I can't tell you from a boss and employee point of you... you best option is to discuss how you feel with YOUR BOSS. The bottom line is when you work for someone, you have to do what they want even if it's not the best thing for the customer. I remember a long time ago I was shooting events, and they told me to shoot jpg and not edit any of my images... I told them I couldn't put my name on work that's wasn't refined. Ultimately I edited all my images on my own time and the customers loved them. The problem was I wasn't being paid for that, so I had to quite. It wasn't worth it for me.

 

[jecapaga]

OP, you are right to question every part of what his requirements are. Completely unacceptable and I feel bad for his customers. Learn what you can at this gig, if anything, and move on.

 

[Apple fanboy]

I don't think I could work in an environment where it was dictated how many photos I could edit in an hour.
Also the quality of the photographers eye and skill would play a major part of what is achievable or not.

 

[acearchie]

The fact that he's getting you to edit all of them is crazy.

If I had a batch of 400 I could probably do them in ~2 hours but that would involve cutting it down to ~130 keepers (did this last week)

I use quite a few brushes though.

There is no way that the majority of 2000 shots are keepers.

Is he paying you well for this job?

If you aim to continue the best thing is to learn all the keyboard shortcuts, +\- for exposure, x for reject, 6 for red, etc. that will increase the speed.

Also worth mentioning that if you're working with JPEGs then edits have to be minimal and the photos will load very quickly.

 

[tomnavratil]

To be honest it is a lot. Even though you can apply some development presets at import depending on the scene, you will still spend much more time than needed on the shots. I shoot mostly landscape and travel photography and I spend much more time on these, shooting 99% RAW.

However good luck and I hope you get some clarification on that!

Also shooting weddings mostly JPG and not RAW is kind of brave. I know skilled photographers can get exposure pretty spot on in the camera but I still think having RAW images for a thing like wedding give you much more backup in case things go wrong, just my, partly unrelated, $.02 - although it does speed up your work a lot!

Good luck mate!

 

[sim667]

Can't do it.. he wants his way.. his way is using lightroom and using his editing method which is not all that bad in terms of editing large amounts of photos.. but 300 per hour is my problem.. that's about 12 seconds per photo.. not counting the 3-5 loading time per photo..

That can't be right!!

Cant you just do the first one, lift the adjustments, and then stamp them onto the others......

Then go through and check if any look odd.

 

[kenoh]

No chance.


I/O 3 srconds
WB 1second
Pre assess 5 seconds
Reject/keep 1second
Exposure 2 seconds
Contrast 2 seconds
Shadows/highlight 2 seconds
Saturation 2 seconds
Curve tweak 3 seconds
Sharpen 2 seconds
Noise reduce 2 seconds

Assume 2 in 5 reject rate, then 5 shots done in roughly 2x9 seconds plus 3 in 25 seconds 94 seconds so 3 a minute.

5 mins break per hour for eye relief/wrist/hydrate/pee

55x 3 is 165 an hour....

 

[acearchie]

No chance.

Saturation 2 seconds
Curve tweak 3 seconds
Sharpen 2 seconds
Noise reduce 2 seconds

I reckon I can save you 9 secs per image with a copy/paste preset on these. My sharpening is always the same (mask varies occasionally) and you can apply NR to every shot over a certain ISO.

 

[kenoh]

I reckon I can save you 9 secs per image with a copy/paste preset on these. My sharpening is always the same (mask varies occasionally) and you can apply NR to every shot over a certain ISO.

Yeah but i am crap so bin way more than you lol...

Good point... Still a tall order though

 

[admwright]

Cant you just do the first one, lift the adjustments, and then stamp them onto the others......

Then go through and check if any look odd.

This method can get you in the ballpark for most pictures quickly. Also, has someone else been doing this job before you? If they are still with the business you could speak to them, or ask your boss for some more input on the process.

 

[kenoh]

I reckon I can save you 9 secs per image with a copy/paste preset on these. My sharpening is always the same (mask varies occasionally) and you can apply NR to every shot over a certain ISO.

Good point... Still a tall order though.however... Same lighting, same or similar inages coming from same event will drive up the economies of scale in automating

Not 300 unique images so lots of repeats and lots of opportunity to burn through chunks at a time...

 

[tomnavratil]

I guess creation of proper development presets will be one way in order to speed things up even further. If it's a similar setting / scene, this might work. And even if not, you can always group the shots quickly and copy / paste development settings like curves / sharpening / noise reduction over etc.

 

[swordio777]

What happens after you process the image? I might be wrong, but I'd guess the client doesn't get all 2000 images with only those tweaks?

I'm a wedding photographer. On a 10-hour day I might shoot as many as 2000 photos, but the client would only actually receive about 150-200 of those.

In my business we decide the shots that are delivered, however I know of other photographers who deliver everything at a smaller size either watermarked or on a contact sheet. From there, the client is allowed to pick their own images that will be included in an album or delivered as prints/digitally.

If your boss works this way then he's right - you honstly do not need to put much time or thought into this process. All the client needs to see is what's in the shot to decide whether they'd like it. Then, once they've chosen the final images you can actually spend time working on them.

If, on the other hand, your boss considers the job complete after those small tweaks then I'd start looking for another employer. He obviously believes quantity to be more important than quality (that's fine - there are clients out there looking for that) while you believe the opposite. So try to find an employer who delivers a reduced number of high quality images. You'll be happier at work and learn more.

Best of luck.

 

[alexxk]

He tries to give their clients a CD with as many as possible and he picks a few only to make an album but still he gives them as much as he can.

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I guess creation of proper development presets will be one way in order to speed things up even further. If it's a similar setting / scene, this might work. And even if not, you can always group the shots quickly and copy / paste development settings like curves / sharpening / noise reduction over etc.

I already do that lol. But still have to over each image.. Still too much!!

 

[tomnavratil]

He tries to give their clients a CD with as many as possible and he picks a few only to make an album but still he gives them as much as he can.

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I already do that lol. But still have to over each image.. Still too much!!

I see.

I guess you can either use keyboard shortcuts or select more and apply same development settings to save time based on scene / settings. If theses are just for the CD, that might be acceptable I assume.

 

[steveash]

Sadly this is often the reality in businesses with a small profit margin and where there are plenty of young people desperate to get experience. My first graphics job was in a studio where I had to produce a small advert every 5 minutes. I managed to do it for a year before moving on to a much better job once I had that bit of experience.

Yes, 12 seconds is unreasonable and I imagine your boss knows that and wants to see you sweat a bit. I would consider it a target rather than a rule. It could be achievable using a combination of presets/batch copy and paste of basic settings and fast adjustments with keyboard shortcuts. A keyboard is always way quicker than a mouse for this kind of thing.

Stick at it for the experience value and start looking for better jobs elsewhere.

 

[960design]

Seems like if he was a better photographer, you wouldn't need to work so hard. I'd have him send me the 'picks', apply signature global via script and then manually step through for adjustments; clearing skin, removing glare, ect.

He shoots 200 'picks' in a day. I could professionally edit and have them uploaded for the client to view online for adhoc purchase the next day.

Editing 2000+ pics in a day, is not editing, that's mass crap slopping.