It definitely varies from photographer to photographer, but the industry standard for delivery is between 4 and 12 weeks.
We are lucky to work with our amazing editor Ollie, who has been with us for 12 years and knows the First Light editing style better than anyone. We’re able to deliver our weddings within a 5-week deadline, thanks to her hard graft and keen eye for detail.
Why does it take so long? It’s simple, right?
Meticulous attention to detail.
Each and every image goes through a thorough process of refining, from colour correction to retouching.
Taking time to hand edit each image means we deliver a collection that will have our timeless, clean style and our clients can love forever.
If we could do it faster, we would! We use some elements of AI to help us with many of our tasks and use powerful computers to make sure there is no lagging as we parse images, but the human touch in quality work can’t be rushed.
Here is an example of a before/after from a recent wedding. This was a tricky shot to get, where the naked eye could see all the detail of Hopetoun House behind the couple, as well as the amazing colour in the sky, but the difference was too much for me to capture in-camera. These two elements then had to be balanced with off-camera flash on the couple.
Thankfully we shoot RAW files, meaning the shadows and highlights are possible to recover in post-production. So even if you can’t see all the details in the RAW file, they are still there, and just need to be brought back.
Here is the straight-out-of-camera shot:
And here is the photo, after we brought back the detail and colour in the sky, lifted the shadows on the background and corrected exposure on the couple:
Not every image is as complicated to edit as this, but with around 900 images in a wedding gallery each being manually assessed and edited, it’s easy to see why editing takes time…