Happy Monday everyone! If you haven’t noticed I have started to write more intentionally to help other photographers. I have always wanted to be able to help others in this industry, but I just didn’t know how. I guess I got scared thinking I am not a good teacher (which maybe I am still not that good), but I love my business, photography, and people so I am throwing all fears aside and just going to write. If it helps out one person, then I will be incredibly stoked.
Recently, I have been getting a lot of emails about which equipment and software I use for post-processing so I wanted to share. If you are a new photographer out there these are some of my top 3 investments that I guarantee will change your post-processing workflow and make things immensely easier on you. This was a recent email response I sent to someone inquiring about it so I’d thought I would share here. I would love to hear what works for you though. Maybe there is a program out there that you love and I have never heard about. If there is, let me in on the secret!
Computer: MAC! All. The. Way. I cannot stress this enough. This changed my business. For one, I am completely mobile with my Macbook Pro and I have the Retina display so the editing is dreamy. I had SOOOO many issues with my PC and had to recalibrate the monitor all the time. It was also super slow on upload and download speeds and I got viruses like every other day. I have had my Macbook Pro for about two years and haven’t had to calibrate it once. This was by far one of the best investments I have made for my business. It’s super fast with uploading and downloading and has run the same since day one. Literally, the frustration I had pre-Mac is GONE. I’ve never complained about this computer and I’ll never go back!
Culling: Photo Mechanic. If you go to the website it looks like a crappy program, but don’t be deceived. A ton of professionals use it. It personally has saved me some serious time culling through images. It’s way faster than LR and super easy to drag and drop into new folders and keep things organized. I can cull and organize a wedding in about an hour compared to the multiple hours it took before. If you have a lot of organizing to do or throwing out unwanted pics because of the quality or what have you, this is the program for you! http://www.camerabits.com
Editing software: I use Lightroom 99% of the time. The only time I pull my photos into PS is when I have to remove clutter from the backgrounds or do skin retouch-ups. I think might even cancel Photoshop soon though. The more comfortable I get with LR, I realize that for what I need it for, I can do almost everything in PS. One of the reasons why I love Lightroom so much is if you have a group of pictures in a similar lighting situation, you can sync up all the settings for that series and be done. Now, if you are looking into editing a ton of details in each picture and not that familiar with LR, you might want to stick with PS. I feel like initially it was easier for me to learn all the tools for crazy edits there. But, now that I shoot more intentionally and try to avoid bad backgrounds, I find I am rarely pulling my images into Photoshop.
**Reminder about Mentor Sessions: If you haven’t heard about my new Mentoring Program, be sure to check out this blog here and here. There are only a few more weeks until the discounted spring/summer rate of $350 changes to the regular rate of $500 during the fall/winter.
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