Edit photos before or after posting?

I shoot a lot of High School sports. My ? is I want the photos to look good for viewing online, but I post hundereds of pictures and don't have time to edit everyone before posting online for viewing.

What are others doing? Any tips or suggestions.

This goes with all pictures. Nothing like spending all the time to edit photos people are never going to purchase.

I also like to crop pictures, but then depending on what size print they order, It won't be the same as what they may have viewed online. Or I cropped so tight they can't order the size they want.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thank You, Brittany

Honestly unless exposure is messed up or something I dont edit my sports images... but that is just me.. I have to get them out quickly.. With sports I dont try and be Creative...

I do weddings and social events, all RAW files. The only editing I do are the global RAW adjustments like WB, exposure, contrast, brightness, etc. There is no "touch up" work of the sort that would be done in PS to the hundreds of files before posting to the online gallery.

Once the client makes their album or enlargement selection, then I will spend additional post time on the purchased image. - Stu

I shoot lots of high school sports as well. I normally import them into Lightroom, check exposure and white balance (which are usually ok because I manually set these before shooting). I then do a quick run through them, cropping as needed, and deleting any which are not up to my standards. I can get through 300+ images in less than 30 minutes. I then post to my website.

Once an image is purchased, I then do a full edit on that image, but I never do a full edit on images that are not purchased.

I do very little until the image is purchased, I generally won't crop but do check exposures

britt777 wrote in post #7396307
I also like to crop pictures, but then depending on what size print they order, It won't be the same as what they may have viewed online. Or I cropped so tight they can't order the size they want.

Thank You, Brittany

I believe the only way to address the cropping issue is to use a sitethat the clients order from that allows them to crop their own images. The way Costco and others does it. If the site just automatically uses a center crop to fit the print proportions, you'll have unhappy clients claiming that their 8x10 doesn't look like the picture they ordered online.

Thank you for the replies, I guess the way im doing things is a good way to do them, just a little time consuming.

I agree with the others.Why waste time on shots that may not be ordered. Only correct the real obvious such as a tilted horizon. After a game, I do a quick edit and delete what I don't want to post and get the rest on line. On my site it states that photos are cropped and edited when ordered. The less time you spend having to edit shots is equal to a higher profit for you because the time spent in front of a PC is work.
I just completed a cheer anad dance competition, over 3000 shots which had to be put on line in galleries by team. It took 2 days and if I edited each shot prior to posting them, It would be weeks before they got online.

britt777 wrote in post #7396307
I shoot a lot of High School sports. My ? is I want the photos to look good for viewing online, but I post hundereds of pictures and don't have time to edit everyone before posting online for viewing.

What sort of editing are you referring to?
I shoot all raw and only do a quick exposure/wb correction. for web viewing. Even that is futile in a way. I cannot control the condition of the viewing. Potential clients may see a vastly different image then I do. Long ago I decided not to knock myself out trying to get them to look perfect.

The main thing is to make your shooting as efficient as possible.
We generally walk away from an event with about 300 keeper shots per shooter per hour ... with as much in-camera deletion as possible, and careful shooting to provide proper exposure and action that fills the frame.
The result is that photos can be posted in minutes after a cursory review to remove any remaining blurred or obstructed shots.

If you keep this workflow in mind, it's much easier to resist the temptation to take shots in zones where you know the action won't fill the frame or is too deep in shadow for proper exposure. In a situation like what Mike R mentions (which is a typical event for us too, but we often have 10-20,000 photos from some events) even a global exposure adjustment can add hours to processing and exporting time.

It may sound strange, but the fastest, most efficient way to process/edit pictures with bad framing or exposure is to not shoot (or delete) them with the camera in the first place.

For youth sports all I do is cull (with Photo Mechanic) and then upload. I can't understand why anyone wants to go through each shot and tweak, what a waste. I only work on a shot after it's sold and then reupload to my site and release to the lab. I also try not upload a whole lot of shots maybe 175-200 max, any more than that and it's a lot for the customer to look at and they loose interest. I also shoot tight, usually with a 400/2.8, from the beginning and the customer may indicate desired crop on my site.

For Pro sports or other contracted shoots, I deliver what ever the customer wants. If they want unedited jpegs, that's what they get. If they want them cropped, captioned, all the other IPTC data in the jpeg and transmitted live, that's what they get.

Sledhed wrote in post #7404584
For youth sports all I do is cull (with Photo Mechanic) and then upload. I can't understand why anyone wants to go through each shot and tweak, what a waste. I only work on a shot after it's sold and then reupload to my site and release to the lab. I also try not upload a whole lot of shots maybe 175-200 max, any more than that and it's a lot for the customer to look at and they loose interest. I also shoot tight, usually with a 400/2.8, from the beginning and the customer may indicate desired crop on my site.

For Pro sports or other contracted shoots, I deliver what ever the customer wants. If they want unedited jpegs, that's what they get. If they want them cropped, captioned, all the other IPTC data in the jpeg and transmitted live, that's what they get.

I like the 400 2.8, I just got one today in my room..

Brit, try the auto functions, they can work fine for proof quality images. Use something like "Photographers shopping cart" for print ordering, it shows a preview of the crop when people choose the image size they want.

I had to turn the crop by customer off because I had customers that wouldn't pay any attention and when they placed order would get prints back with a white border.....grrrr

I just adjust the exposure and WB, then I do some cropping. I don't do anything else, but its still very time consuming. I would rather be shooting...lol

feel free to check out my website under sports and let me know what you think.

Thanks