By Depending on the number of photos you have in a session, editing can take hours. After some time, you may find yourself more focused on getting through the images, rather than taking the time to make each one perfect.
If you find yourself spending too much time editing photos or wondering how can I speed up photo editing, it may be time to change your workflow. To help you out, we have listed 7 tips to save you time on editing.
1. Use Lightroom to Edit Photos
Adobe Lightroom is a powerful photo editor with great organisation and file structuring. With Lightroom you’re able to work on images in batches, saving you the time of editing each shot individually.
The filing structure that Lightroom uses allows you to organise your images by using folders within the software. You’re also able to create and use keywords that help you find the images you’re looking for. No more wasting time swiping through dozens of photos.
Lightroom even provides you with interactive tutorials to help you learn how to use the software while you edit. If you like this feature, you can learn many more photo editing tips from the photography tutorials on Cole’s Classroom. They even have free Lightroom presets to save you even more time with editing your photos.
2. Sync Similar Edits
Have you ever wanted to use the same edit options on all the photos in one session? This is possible with a synchronised edit option. You can easily sync the edits from one image and use them on a batch of images.
This will save you a great deal of time and you can even save it as a preset to use it in a different photo session.
3. Use a Preset
Presets are stylised edits that you can add to your images in one click. A preset can complete most, if not all, the editing for a single shot. You can find presets within photo editing software or, if you’re looking for more advanced options, you can search around online for presets that will give you a unique touch to your photos.
Some professional photographers even let you download their presets for free or for a small price. This can help you enhance the creativity in your images and you may even learn new ways to edit your photos.
Turned-on MacBook Pro on a desk using Lightroom | Photo: Kevin Bhagat via Unsplash
4. Cull Your Images Before Editing
If you’re a photographer that selects the best images after editing them, you’re wasting a huge amount of time editing photos that won’t actually go to the client. Culling your images before you edit them can leave you with a significantly shorter editing process.
This may seem hard to figure out at first; a shot that may not look great unedited can turn out to be one of the best after edits have been made. It will take you some time to realise which pictures should stay, and which should go. Though, once you get the hang of it, you’ll realise that you have much more time to edit the photos that are actually going to the client.
5. Create a Good Workflow
A lot of the time, we get distracted or tend to start on different steps before we have everything organised. For example, you may want to start editing a particular photo which will make you jump into editing your photos before you’ve even organised them.
This can put you off track and you may even be more distracted by not following a workflow. A workflow can help you stay focused on each task and allow you to complete each one individually, which can make you feel more efficient and motivate you to stay focused and finish editing your images.
A good way to take advantage of your time and manage a good workflow would be to get as much done while you upload your images. Don’t use this as a break to check social media. You can add presets and keywords and even add them to files while they import to the editing software.
6. Use a Powerful Computer
Between hundreds of RAW images, 20+ megabytes files and powerful software like Lightroom or Photoshop, your computer will need to work hard to allow you to smoothly and quickly edit a session. If you are on a computer with limited memory or storage space, along with numerous programs running at once, your editing time can easily double.
Additionally, you can be sure your images are inside your computer and not on an external hard drive when editing. Having the files directly within an internal drive will make the process faster. However, if you do find yourself working with libraries of large image files, you may need to invest in an external hard drive to increase your overall storage space and not completely fill your computers internal storage, which could, in turn, slow down the speed of your computer.
7. Get it Right In-Camera
This tip isn’t always easy, however, if you know how to nail the settings in-camera, you can drastically reduce the time it takes to edit photos. Once it’s time to edit, you won’t have to play around much with exposure and lighting options. Editing will be much quicker, as well as choosing which pictures you want before you edit them.
Person holding DSLR camera | Photo: Liam Shaw via Unsplash
If you slowly incorporate some of these time-saving tips into your workflow when editing your photos, you’ll quickly start to realise how much easier and faster it takes to complete each session. Many photographers use these editing tips to help them both save time and get better results throughout their photos.
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