Editing your photos can easily become a “boring” task that seems routine in your photography business. What if you treated every single session with fresh eyes and each story you told was unique and special for your clients?

While you’re editing, it’s so important to ask yourself WHY are you doing what you are doing. This is how we tell stories that compel, capture and emulate our clients in the best way possible.

THREE QUESTIONS TO ASK WHILE EDITING PHOTOS:

1. “How do I want my clients to feel when they see these photos?”

Your client came into your business wanting to look and feel good. How can you edit these images knowing what they want out of it? I’m sure they want to feel confident, proud and understood. How do you honor those feelings while editing? You go beyond. You crop in ways that flatter your client, heal small imperfections like acne + blemishes, add filters to enhance the way their hair shines or their freckles lay on their face.

Going into Lightroom with the goal that you’re going to make your client’s feel good is SO important for their happiness and satisfaction.

2. Am I editing for me or my clients?

You should not be going into editing mode with the goal of making the next best instagram image or Pinterest pin. This shouldn’t be about your portfolio being everything you ever wanted. This is about your client and if it’s not, you need to define your reasons why. We are a service based industry in which the happiness of our clients should be coming first and so that same mindset should be applied when considering this question. Edit for your clients, not for yourself. That’s what styled shoots are for.

3. Is this photo 90% finished?

It is SO easy to get hung up on one singular photo, editing it for an hour to only realize it looks almost exactly the same to where you started. If your photo feels 90% finished, be done with it. Your client will not notice the difference between +2 on the hue slider, I swear it. If you aim for perfection you’ll never export.

Make sure when you enter Lightroom you are going in with the correct mindset. It’s easy to focus on what we get out of our own work but we have to remember who we’re in this business for and who is ultimately paying our bills.

All the love,

Anna