People tend to forget that there’s a large chunk of work for a photographer between taking the photos and returning them. I hear a lot of complaints, like “why am I paying so much for only __ hours?” Or, “why is it taking so long to get my photos back?”
The answer is: post processing! Post processing takes up way more of my time than the shoot itself. My process differs depending on the type of photography I’m doing. When it comes to photoshoots, especially cosplay photoshoots, I tend to do more in the post processing phase. This is because:
- People book me for my photography style. This includes how I post process.
- Photoshoots are not meant to document the scene. They purposely have more creative freedom and even more so with cosplay.
- People are expecting the best photos I can give them of their cosplays. I’m going to do my best to make sure it meets both mine and their expectations.
Here is a peek at my process!
1. Import into Lightroom
Lightroom is my choice for most of my photo editing. While the editing features (for RAWs) between Lightroom and Photoshop are almost the same, I prefer Lightroom for its workflow, which you’ll see in this entry.
The first thing I do is import everything into Lightroom. I have parent folders for certain types of photography, and then from there, I let Lightroom organize my photos by date.