After the shoot. What is expected?

[Eggwhite]

Greetings all, I've been viewing posts here for some time and truly appreciate the valuable info provided by so many! So THANKS up-front!

I am an amateur photographer. I recently assisted a semi-pro portrait tog, with a wedding shoot for his close friend (his gift to her). It provided me an opportunity to shoot my first wedding and gain the experience. I researched for weeks and weeks the many of the aspects of wedding photography, and made it through the two days with some great shots, good flash control - bounce, light balance, exposure, focus, etc.

My job was to shoot, and provide the RAWs to the 1st shooter as this is his gig. He is doing the post prod work for the B&G.

But what I really want to know now, is what should I do to the photos I took, in photoshop, to produce "proper" wedding shot examples? Is there a set of "things to do" that are expected for wedding photographs? I know about the techie side of the workflow. But now that I have a few hundred photo's to work with, I'm a bit overwhelmed by the ART side of re-composing the shots in PS. (adding effects, filters, etc) I do understand the basic re-touch concepts.

I have looked everywhere and see beautiful examples of post PS work. Is there a starting point, recipe, formula, or expectation?

Thanks and cheers!
Eggwhite

[form]

Have a look at the stuff that good photographers do and you'll find there are many directions to go. General skin retouching is usually a given for Single photos, not necessarily batch work; for large volume, some people add glows, significant color casts or other alterations. I do a lot of contrast enhancement, along with some orange/pink tone photos and some black & white.

[cdifoto]

But what I really want to know now, is what should I do to the photos I took, in photoshop, to produce "proper" wedding shot examples? Is there a set of "things to do" that are expected for wedding photographs?
Nope. It's wide open and based on style, preference, knowledge, level of give-a-damn, etc.

[randplaty]

What software are you using to post process your images? If we start there it can help us give you some advice.

[Eggwhite]

What software are you using to post process your images? If we start there it can help us give you some advice.

I am using Adobe Photoshop CS3 (Bridge ACR and PS). No other tools yet, but I'm open to suggestion :-)

Thanks

[tim]

I process less than many people. I'm higher volume than most people here at around 30 weddings per year, and you can't take every image into photoshop and still do things quickly enough to make money. Plus I just like natural photos.

I fix exposure/brightness, color, and contrast first, then a little more playing in the raw tool, but very little other processing. These get made into proofs (print, digital, or online depending on the customer), and later albums.

[Eggwhite]

....
I fix exposure/brightness, color, and contrast first, then a little more playing in the raw tool, but very little other processing. These get made into proofs (print, digital, or online depending on the customer), and later albums.

So do I understand this to mean that multi image prints, funky length/width rations and special effects are not really the "norm". Hey, I'd love that. Take good pictures and off we go. :-)

As I looked at the many wedding photographer sites, I saw "packages". I assumed this to mean a certain amount of re-touched and super modified images would be included. This is why I am trying to find out what to do once I have a few hundred images to work with.

Tim... I like what you're saying! Thanks

[tim]

So do I understand this to mean that multi image prints, funky length/width rations and special effects are not really the "norm". Hey, I'd love that. Take good pictures and off we go. :-)

As I looked at the many wedding photographer sites, I saw "packages". I assumed this to mean a certain amount of re-touched and super modified images would be included. This is why I am trying to find out what to do once I have a few hundred images to work with.

Tim... I like what you're saying! Thanks

My product after a wedding is an album. Inside the album design process I do some slightly more complex processing to achieve my vision of the page and the album. Pages are anything from one big image to 20 small images, though simple is generally better IMHO. I do non-standard ratios in albums all the time.

Some photographers style relies on post processing - Bobby Earle seems to run a bunch of actions over every image anyone sees of his, i've never seen a simple well exposed image without processing from him. It's just different styles, there's no right or wrong.

[canonnoob]

I am using Adobe Photoshop CS3 (Bridge ACR and PS). No other tools yet, but I'm open to suggestion :-)

Thanks

take a look into lightroom.. you might find that fun also..

[tim]

take a look into lightroom.. you might find that fun also..

Bridge does pretty much the same thing as Lightroom, i'd suggest not wasting money on a tool that duplicates functionality unless you're a high volume shooter and prefer the workflow.

[canonnoob]

Bridge does pretty much the same thing as Lightroom, i'd suggest not wasting money on a tool that duplicates functionality unless you're a high volume shooter and prefer the workflow.

hmm well weddings can be high volume and bridge does not do nearly as much as LR does...

[tim]

hmm well weddings can be high volume and bridge does not do nearly as much as LR does...

Since the OP has done one wedding, as 2nd, that's hardly high volume. I'd also love to hear what you think LR does that would be useful to wedding photographers over bridge.

[canonnoob]

Since the OP has done one wedding, as 2nd, that's hardly high volume. I'd also love to hear what you think LR does that would be useful to wedding photographers over bridge.

honestly I find that bridge was good for me working through files and keeping things straight, while working with ps. but really thats all it served me.

LR has many creative options and still makes sorting images easy.

[tim]

honestly I find that bridge was good for me working through files and keeping things straight, while working with ps. but really thats all it served me.

LR has many creative options and still makes sorting images easy.

I think you'll find Bridge and Lightroom have exactly the same image processing functions, with a different user interface. LR has more organisation functions, but since weddings are self contained events I find them unnecesary. LR has more overhead, things like catalogs are a PITA. I shoot and process 30 weddings a year quite happily on bridge.

Anyway let's not take the thread in that direction. Anyone interested should download trials and decide for themselves which they like.

[Eggwhite]

Tim,
Thanks for the info....
You are right on target with my desires too. I think my original questions were really about "album creation", I just didn't know this was my destination. I've also seen your other post about PhotoJunction and will give that a try!
Thanks you for your kind guidance!

Eggwhite

[AlexMoPhotography]

Nope. It's wide open and based on style, preference, knowledge, level of give-a-damn, etc.
That's exactly right. If you're asking an artist how to paint, it's really open-ended.

Look up some good wedding photographers you like and study their styles, and you'll end up developing one of your own.

Play around with ACR as much as possible and you might surprise yourself. Open your mind!

[PhotoMatte]

If you've already shot the wedding, and given your images to the professional who was contracted to shoot it, are you asking what you should do when you start shooting weddings on your own? I shot for an established professional for two years before opening my own business (I now shoot about 30 a year), and learned some valuable tips just from watching him shoot. Here is an example of something he taught me:

[PhotoMatte]

Oops, I forgot to attach the image to my last post! Here it is:

[PhotoMatte]

One more thing: if you shoot a lot of RAW files, Adobe Photoshop doesn't have a way of opening and working on them without some level of degradation. Adobe Lightroom does have lossless processing; you can work on one, or many, RAW images without any image destruction. I've found that using LR to open and white-balance (if needed) my RAW files is easy and very fast; then I use Photoshop for any further editing I want to do. I generally shoot around 30 weddings a year and I do open and work on every single image. Nothing too dramatic, or overly Photoshopped, but I think every image should look absolutely perfect. As far as albums go, try Graphistudio.