My digital wedding workflow

In response to a reader's question I present my digital wedding workflow. It's very efficient and allows me to finish processing a wedding by the next day.

1. RAW files loaded from memory cards to a folder labelled with couple's names.

2. Imported into Lightroom.

3. Quick eyeball of all photos in library module. If a shot is spoilt by blinking or grimacing, or if someone has walked into shot, use X key to mark image as reject.

4. Verify and then delete rejected shots.

5. Work through all the images in the develop module (I can do 200 shots an hour when I'm in 'the zone' - use the paste develop settings within Lightroom to save time).

6. Tonal adjustments are the major correction to make. Tone curve to strong contrast (I apply this to all the images in two steps by copying the develop settings from the first shot and then pasting to all the rest). Recovery and exposure sliders to adjust highlights. Fill light and brightness to adjust shadows (this can introduce considerable digitial noise if the image was shot at high ISO). Contrast and blacks to further tweak contrast.

7. Adjust white balance and vibrance. If interior shots are bathed in fluorescent light, adjustment to tint (green-magenta shift) is necessary.

8. I use the 'Previous' button at the bottom of the develop module extensively. It pastes the previous photo's develop settings. Notice that I am not making changes that are unique to a shot at this stage (such as crops and rotations) as I do not want to paste these between images.

9. I now export all the images as JPEG files (Quality 80%, resolution 240) and use the post-processing 'Export actions' facility within Lightroom. I've created a Photoshop droplet based on an action which removes digital noise using Neat Image and then sharpens the image (file size can expand to 6MB). You need the pro-version of Neat Image to do this. I've created a custom noise profile for my EOS 5D - Neat Image can read the ISO setting in the EXIF data and apply the right level of noise correction. I prefer Neat Image's noise removal and Photoshop's sharpening to the equivalents in Lightroom.

10. I have a top-of-the-range MacPro but it still takes 3-4 hours to complete the above step - I often run it overnight.

11. I import these files into Lightroom with the couple's names and the suffix 'tweaked jpegs'.

12. I now adjust cropping, straighten shots and make any other minor tweaks which are necessary.

13. I choose my picks from these to make up my web slideshow.

14. I export all the shots twice as high res (files now typically 2MB) and low res (resize 1000 x 1000, resolution 72, typically 300KB) images which are burnt to DVD.

15. If I want to do any really special treatments I can use the adjusted RAW files and export to Photoshop as 16-bit TIFFs.

Please feel free to post any comments.

Check out my photography here: Kent wedding photography

A simple way to add zing to your portraits

I took this shot of Emily at the weekend using window light and a collapsible background - an impromptu shot with no fussing over set-up. She's got a lovely expression and the skin tones are natural - perfectly acceptable. However, as I didn't bother to light the background separately it is rather muted.

A couple of minutes in Lightroom and Photoshop though and you can make the shot a lot more vibrant. I used the brightness control in Lightroom (this protects highlights unlike the exposure control) to give a modern high-key look to Emily and then split-toned the image, introducing a gold hue into the highlights. I then exported to Photoshop and made a crude selection of the face which I then inverted. I used the 'replace color' command to select only the background and then lightened this (if I hadn't deselected Emily's face, areas here would have lightened as well). I then added a white stroke and black border (a process I have stored as an action). Very simple but gives the portrait a very different feel.

Check out more of my photography here: Kent portrait photographer