Ok, cool, you make the camera go, but what editing do you do?
It depends on what level of service that you’ve purchased. At a minimum I do color correction, and basic adjustments to all of my client work. From there I have several levels of editing that I provide:
You can read all about my editing options over here.
What do I use for photo editing?
Capture One Pro, Lightroom, Photo Mechanic, & Photoshop
All of those? Yep… all of those. Each has its best usages; it’s all about the best tool for the job.
I like the colors that Capture One gives right out of the gate, but it’s workflow is a little cumbersome. So I like to use that when I’m only working on a few photos, or on high end portraiture.
Photo Mechanic, on the other hand, is the powerhouse that I use when I’m trying to cull through 4,000 or more photos from a wedding or full day of shooting.
Lightroom is the workhorse in my workflow. Its the “Swiss-army knife” in the photography world. One of my favorite new features that I use is the client “Proofing”. With this I can share out a link to my clients (for portrait & headshots typically), and they can go to the gallery online to review their photos and pick their favorites that they want edited.
And, we all know Photoshop. It’s built for punishing pixels and bending them to your will. I dive into Photoshop for everything from removing stray hairs, to full skin retouching, and sky replacements. Not every photo, hell, maybe only 20% get Photoshopped. But for those images that warrant it, it’s there.
What do you use for video editing?
Final Cut Pro X
I have a very talented video editor whom I work with, but often I dive in and get the files set up for her to reduce the workload. Then I handle all of the color correction, and color grading in Final Cut Pro X.
Just because of its nature, video edits take quite a bit of time to complete. Footage has to be ingested from the cameras, reviewed, aligned, color corrected, edited, tone mapped, sharpened, and exported. Figure roughly 1 hour of editing for every 15 seconds of final video.