My Updated 2025 Workflow - From Shoot Day to Delivery

Before we get started, let me set one thing straight: none of this blog is written by AI. I don't know about you, but when I believe an article or educational piece is written by AI I immediately start skimming and stop paying attention to the details.

I am SO fortunate to work with brand partners, like my friends at Imagen to deliver you high quality educational content entirely for free. So everyone say "thanks Imagen!", now let's get on with it!

If you've taken my course or heard me speak at conferences, you know how much I believe in taking time off from weddings over the winter. It's how I recharge my creative energy and get a clearer vision of what worked in the previous year, and what might need some tweaking (like my big switch from Canon to Nikon!!). You'll also know, that I really love processes & workflows. I have been plagued with anxiety and ADHD in the past, and anytime those pieces come into play the best thing I can do is come up with a process to ensure that my images are secure, I'm nailing deadlines, my clients are happy, and there is enough money to keep up with this crazy life I've come to love.

So while it may not seem sexy or exciting to be chatting about workflows, it is how I've built my business from the ground up to something that now earns multiple 6 figures every year.. without breaking too much of a sweat. Now that we are back into the full swing of weddings, families, engagement sessions and more, I thought it would be time for me to share my current workflow! Over the winter, I dialled it in so it's the best it's ever been, and I feel SO confident that you can gain a lot from implementing any/all of this into your own workflow!

I don't want this to turn into one of those 37 page intros before you get to the recipe, so let's get into it...

SHOOT DAY

Something that used to keep me up at night was where my images were backed up, where I was at with editing or delivering etc. So I came up with an incredibly simple workflow tracker (for Google Sheets or excel, and it's available to download for FREE at the bottom of this post) that tells me all of that info and a bit more. One of the handiest additions to this spreadsheet, was including SD card numbers that correlate with the cards I shot a session on. There are a couple of tools that help me with this:

1. SD Card case (I laminated the paper myself, worth the extra effort!)

2. A lot of SD cards (I prefer these ones - https://amzn.to/44UOsq4)

I give each new SD card it's own number, and put that correlating number into my spreadsheet WHEN I PUT IT IN MY CAMERA. I can't stress this enough. If you have ever felt the panic of not having a card properly backed up, you do not want to be wondering which card it was shot on. So put the card number into your spreadsheet when you get your camera ready for your shoot or wedding.

Once the shoot is done, enter the number of images that are on that card into your spreadsheet (another layer that gives you confidence!), and begin your backup process. I backup onto 2 hard drives, and the Imagen cloud (more on that soon).

Once you've confirmed the number of images on your hard drives match the images on the cards, put the card in you card case. I keep the actual card I shot all my sessions and weddings on until it's delivered. Sure, you don't have to do all of this.. but for about $20/card, why would you not want that layer of security?! That case is stored in a safe in our office - and if you don't have a fire proof safe yet I HIGHLY recommend it not only for storing SD cards, but also archival hard drives.

CULLING & CLOUD BACKUP

The next step in my workflow is cloud backup and culling. Cloud backup is super important, especially if you are travelling for your work and can't immediately put your hard drives & SD cards in a safe or somewhere secure. Imagen's cloud backup feature came out a couple of years ago, and truthfully it has been a game changer for my workflow.

After backing up to a hard drive, I copy the folder into Lightroom and build smart previews (this helps the process go faster!). Once they're imported and smart previews are built, I select the project in Imagen for culling.

When you upload your project for culling via Lightroom catalog, it automatically uploads your images to the cloud for secure backup ✅ Yep! That's right. No additional steps - ALL your images are backed up to the cloud!

Next I go through the selected images, and make any necessary swaps - though typically there aren't many! Imagen's culling flags blurry images, closed eyes, and groups duplicates so you only have to review a small percentage of your images. The other HUGE bonus with culling in Imagen, is that the images you're reviewing already have your editing style applied.. so you're seeing a (close to) finished product as you cull!

Once I've finished reviewing the culling results in Imagen, it's only a few more clicks to finalize the edit of the selected images!

EDITING

I have built my own AI Profile (LC Main Profile... very creative) and trained it with close to 200,000 edited images. If you haven't built your own profile yet but want to get started with using Imagen, I highly recommend checking out the Talent Profiles, or purchasing a profile from the Profile Shop. My profile isn't available for purchase yet, but if that's something you're interested in please shoot me a message!

Now, in the time it just took me to blow dry my hair, I edited this entire gallery. 😮‍💨

On to the fun part, image review and refinement. I use the Lightroom Adaptive Portrait tools to apply skin smoothing, teeth whitening, eye brightening etc. To get specific, I use "Enhance Portrait" at 80% strength, and then separately apply teeth whitening at 70-90% depending on what's needed. The teeth whitening built into Enhance portrait makes teeth blue, but the standalone teeth whitening tool is much better! Once I've applied that to one image, I sync just those masks across all the images in the gallery.

Once the adaptive portrait tools have finished processing on all the images, I go through every image and individually ensure they pass QC. Sometimes this requires generative fill to remove exit signs, touchup blemishes, flyaway hair etc. and sometimes I just click "next"! I can't begin to tell you how satisfying it is to not have to straighten every image, go back and forth on white balance, and adjust every single photo's exposure to get it just right. All of those adjustments are taken care of for me with Imagen, and the end result is always more consistent than an outsourced editor, or even I could do myself.

From there, I make black and white duplicates by simply creating virtual copies, applying my black and white preset, and syncing in Lightroom.

EXPORT, UPLOAD, DELIVERY

From there, it's on to export and upload! I export the jpegs into their own folders (one for colour, one for B&W), and upload to Pic-Time!

I have gallery templates created for all of the session types I offer, which customizes the aesthetic of the gallery as well as my delivery and sales automation emails! I can't speak highly enough of Pic-Time if you are a photographer who wants to offer high quality printed products, without having to do any hands-on sales.

When you deliver your galleries, I highly recommend sending along instructions to your clients on how to tag you and any vendors who may have been a part of making their wedding or session come to life. I also include a link to leave me a Google review!

And that's it! Along the way, I will have been marking where I am at in the process on my Workflow Tracker... so once a gallery is delivered I get the satisfaction of putting a Y in the delivered box!

MARKETING

Of course, from here it's time to use those images for marketing.. I recommend Social Templates for creating reels using trending music that will get you noticed, in just a few minutes! But that's a post for another day.

I hope you've enjoyed this post and have learned how to optimize your own workflow, so you are spending less time in front of your computer and more time doing what you love! Another huge thank you to Imagen, not only for supporting me and our community, but for creating a product that has quite literally changed my life. I couldn't imagine my business without you 🫶🏼

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Download my free workflow tracker here: