Wedding photographers will take thousand of images at a typical wedding day, some will be naturally great images, others will be duplicates of the same thing, sometimes it’s a shot that just didn’t turn out so well.

While most in the wedding industry will turn to software editing programs to manipulate the lighting, cropping and effects, sometimes they also get the shot just right and nothing else is needed.

Many professionals don’t like showing what’s in the camera, only the finished product. Well today, we’re showing a bit of both.

Well today, I want to share with you a few before and after images to show you what happens when wedding professionals like us process an image.

What software do wedding photographers use to edit wedding pictures?

Well, the most popular up until a few years ago was Adobe Photoshop.

Photoshop however wasn’t really designed for mass images and although powerful, it’s usage was clunky by many professionals in the wedding industry. It’s still used although a newer, slimmer software took it’s place.

Adobe Lightroom is the new standard and it’s designed with photographers in mind, allowing for easier ways to adjust things like the color, the ‘mood’ of the image and the like very quickly.

Lightroom isn’t actually old, it was developed in 2007 and it’s primary purpose was and still is for touchups.

For wedding videographers, Adobe Premiere is suited for video editing, although Final Cut Pro by Apple is a great alternative too.

What is a RAW image and why do I care? Or do I care?

Professional wedding photographers take what’s called a RAW image.

A RAW file is simply a digital image file that is stored on your camera or smartphones memory card and it is minimally processed and is usually uncompressed, usually a flat or darker looking color to it when viewed.

RAW images are used in Adobe products for example as a way to better control the lighting, color, saturation and a bunch of other aspects that a jpg file can’t do.

They take up a lot more room than a jpg and you need a special codec on your computer just to view them.

“Just about all images you receive from a wedding photographer will have been converted from raw to jpg for you.”

The benefit of shooting in raw format is that you can better control the effects in post-production which at times can make a difference, sometimes minor, other times in a major way.

You should care that the wedding photographer shoots in raw, but in general, you will not want it to remain that way for viewing.

How long does it take to edit an image?

Honestly, it depends on the person editing and their level of experience behind the camera, the image they are taking and the experience.

However, assuming the person is good at all three of them, an image can be lightly corrected within a handful of minutes.

Assuming a wedding photographer take 2,000+ raw images, roughly half will be tossed out leaving 1,000 images, they should be able to complete a wedding edit within an estimated 11 business days.

That’s 5 minutes per image, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. That’s fairly conservative in edit time as many will go faster and it will be closer to 40-60 hours worth of work.

Again, it all depends on the professional.

What does a before and after wedding image look like anyway?

Sure, so let us give you a few examples starting with a basic raw vs jpg image that has been processed. In this example, the room was fairly dark and the image has a lot of shadows on it.

Processing it through Lightroom, you can see that the same image has been lightened and it looks much better.

In the example above, you can see that the raw image looks a lot more flat, the mountains and clouds along with the grass just seem darker than normal.

Many wedding photographers will also have different presets that they purchase and use (sometimes create on their own too) and the presets can have a huge impact on the image and the feel of the finished product too.

Take a look at the image below that we took over a summertime wedding in 2020 at Wintergreen Resort in Virginia.

Each one has a different tone to it and depending on the photographer and their style, they may like one better than the other.

Think Beyond the Wedding Day with Photographers and Videographers

One of the things I try and teach our couples is that they need to think far beyond a handful of hours at the wedding day when it comes to great wedding photos or videos.

In fact, most couple’s don’t consider that when searching for a professional for the wedding, only the time they will be onsite at the wedding day itself.

While you’re off having a fun, enjoyable and romantic day, the professionals are busy capturing the moments from your wedding day and long after the day is said and done, they will be working on creating those wonderful happy pieces of media that you can cherish for a lifetime.