ugh....how far do you guys go?

red96ta · Oct 21, 2007

I'm staring at something like 700 photos of a wedding job and wonder how far you guys go in editing each picture? Teeth whitening each shot, cropping, selected photoshop filters, extra stuff?

The bride and groom look great in most of shots (after the first trip around the discard bin) but some of the other guests have such anomolies as dingy teeth....would you go in and fix every photo with bad teeth?

Cropping: This is essentially a 'direct to dvd' shoot with no album or prints, but do you drop them in, or set up an action to crop to say 8x10 or just dump to disc and go?

'Super Deluxe Extra Spectacular Shots': How many of 700 should get the extra deluxe treatment of adding diffusion, vignettes, and all the artsy stuff?

Please bear in mind that I'm a video guy that got wrangled into this job by my beloved wife....

JIP · Oct 21, 2007

I think that depends on what kind of money you will be making on this job. Also, I think you only have to go sooooo far on certain specific images and you should know wich ones need that kind of work.

kundalini · Oct 21, 2007

Shouldn't a lot of these questions have been answered prior to the wedding? Even if you shot 5 times that many, what are the couple expecting? Are you getting paid? What do you expect out of yourself, but more importantly, what do the couple expect from you?

red96ta · Oct 21, 2007

The couple know that I'm a video guy and I've never shot a wedding (although I've been doing about ten wedding vids a year for four year)....I made them go as far as signing a contract stating as much. Second, they were given a price of $500 which even in my depressed market is 1/3 of the nearest competition's lowest package.

So....having said that. I want to give them the best I can, but don't want to spend the rest of my life banging away in Photoshop for the rest of my life.

So far, I've looked through my shots and nailed one in particular....perhaps I should upload it to my site and link it up....

sabbath999 · Oct 21, 2007

IMHO if they need work, it is incumbent on you to fix them. When you take money from somebody for a wedding, you should own the fact that they deserve your best effort.

There is a reason people are charging 3x as much as you did for this wedding. They EARN it.

Flash Harry · Oct 22, 2007

Fix what needs fixing, I started with film and still shoot accordingly, unlike many here who think machine gunning a wedding is the way to go, I take a max of 300 shots, out of these I'll present around 250, its enough for any album and also enough for my prices to cover the PP involved. Quality not quantity. H

nossie · Oct 22, 2007

I think you offered to do a budget job so I'd hold back plenty and get on with my own life. I'd do obvious fixes so that you don't look terrible. However I would also create a "Touched up" folder with about 10 pics that you aced as an advertisement to what can be done if they want to pay you for more of your labour, but also to be fair I'd make those 10 shots important shots, rings, first kiss, etc.

Battou · Oct 22, 2007

I am going to base this call on the assumption you intend to continue with further photography endeavors of this nature so...If I am wrong in the assumption just disregard, as this is more basic business than anything else.

suck every last drop of experience you can out of the situation and run them all threw the ringer, by the time you get to around to the second or third hundred you will have found a large number of the cutable corners and have found out how to cut them effectively with out damaging the image or leaving telltale signs, these are called "tricks of the trade" and can only be learned threw experience. After the corrections have been done you or who ever can choose the best of them or the ones they want and go from there. You are charging a fraction of what the others around you are, so you have some room to learn here, use it to it's fullest. Practice makes perfect, perfect makes money. You stated that you had them sign a waiver stating that they knew in advance you technically had no photography experience of this nature, so mistakes won't kill you yet. Take the time to figure out how to save time now wile you can. Once you get it figured out you will be able to produce the same quality in a fraction of the time for future customers. Yes, the first few customers are going to drain you mentally and psychically and push your abilities to the breaking point, but when you get into any business your own happiness is no longer the primary, your customers come first. You will have to make sacrifices to make the customer happy, make the customer happy beyond their wildest dreams they will talk, happy customers bring new customers. This brings to mind an interesting twist on an old saying "talk is cheap", this will save you a fortune on advertising because technically you are not paying for it. You dump extra time and effort into sucking every last drop of experience you can out of the situation, it will pay off in the long run. Eventually you will be able to keep pace with the competition with quality, quantity and speed charging prices similar to theirs because your portfolio will look just as good.

WolfSpring · Oct 22, 2007

NM reread and mis interpreted.

Iron Flatline · Oct 22, 2007

I try to crop in the native format that I shoot, so I will crop 2x3. A lot of shots are effectively the same, just firing away three or four or five times to get the right smile or gesture. Batch process thoses. I will also do an overall curve adjustment.

red96ta · Oct 22, 2007

How about using liquify? Ever slim down a bride ever so slightly (but keeping it real)? And how about warts? Blemishes? Moles?

I'm about 2/3 of the way through an initial pass to bump levels and discard bad shots...so far so good.

Iron Flatline · Oct 22, 2007

Nah, that's hard work. I don't mean to be flip, but unless you set that expectation, what you're describing is substantial post-production work. That's not part of the shoot.

RMThompson · Oct 22, 2007

What you're doing is two different jobs.

The job you got hired to do, IMHO, is take the pictures. While that should include a minor amount of adjustments, levels, color, cropping, that should NOT include "photoshopping" out blemishes, weight, unwanted guests, etc.

Those are two different services, and you should be charging for both.

Also, if you took 700 pictures, I would only give the couple 300, and that's a high amount. Make it your best 300, but you don't need 14 pictures of Uncle Ned's speech, even if you took them.

red96ta · Oct 22, 2007

Thanks for all the suggestions folks....this is much need assistance. I'm plodding away at it.

In the meantime, here's the best photo of the whole day. This one wasn't posed and was shot through a mirror as evidenced by the door hinge being on the wrong side of the door. Ironically, for all the flash gear I got for the shoot, the best shot was done with the flash turned off

Pretty much zero photoshop on this one other than levels, a slight diffusion, and the matte. This one is going up on the wall of the office when I'm done...

http://awcproduction.com/photography.html

JerryPH · Oct 22, 2007

Trust me, the B&G know all their bumps, warts, scars and pant and dress sizes. So do the others that will want to buy pictures of them. If you do obvious removal of facial traits, sliming down or any other drastic modifications, it will detract from the photo and look photochopped. All post processing should be extremely subtle, not concentrating on improving the looks of the people, but improving the entire experience of looking at the picture itself. You could spend months wasting time and money working away for nothing.

I see one person above mention that they shoot 300 pics and offer 250. Though this works for him, the average wedding photographer shoots anywhere from 1000 to 2000 pictures per day. It also means that if the photographer goes to the practice ceremony, thats again more pics (about 200-500), and what happens if they go to the bride's home for the pre wedding events? How about the groom's preparations for the day prior to arriving at the church? This means often a minimum of 2 photographers... and I have seen as many as 6, male and female. "Bob" is NOT going to get into the room while the bride is dressing, but "Mary" does and some of the most poignant shots of any wedding photoshoot happen way before the couple walks down the isle... like when she is putting on the makeup and you see over her shoulder in the mirror, her wedding dress hanging from a hanger from the door (just a simple example).

That means if there are 2 photographers present, they get between 2000-4000 pictures (or more!) to go through, remove the lower quality ones and concentrate on the "cream of the crop" shots.

In terms of post processing, most will batch process all the chosen pics for proper WB and light levels and then go back to each one and see what is needed to make the 2nd or 3rd round filtered pics that standout and REALLY tell the story of the day(s) event(s).

From that pile you *may* end up with 1000-1500 pics for the B&G to choose and pay to get prints of. Thats another place where wedding photographers make a little extra coin. With 250 pics to choose from, they may choose 20-30 favorites, and that makes a slim album.

Wedding photography is really an art where long-standing experience shows... not just by the quality of the pics, but the entire experience. I bet if I sat down with you BEFORE the wedding and we talked ONLY preparations, you would be a walking stack of jitters 2 days before the event. Here is a sad truth... for all that I may appear to know about wedding photography... I've never done one professionally... nor do I think I ever will. I've done a ton of homework and spoken to at least 35 photographers about it and of course attended at least 40 weddings (2 of my own!), and have a darn good idea of what the differences between an OK wedding shoot and a damn good one are and 90% is preparation.

Ok, so thats a LOT more than you asked about (lol) but it also shows that the real effort is not post processing, but everything leading up to it, and the PP should be a relatively minor event where you focus on the story... not the colour of the groom's teeth. It also explains the "they EARN it" comment. :biggrin: