The Full Wedding Photography Workflow
Wedding photography is demanding. A typical 10-hour wedding produces 2,000 to 4,000 RAW files that need to be culled, edited, and delivered within a few weeks. Without a systematic workflow, the post-production process becomes a bottleneck that delays delivery and increases stress. Here is a proven end-to-end process.
Shoot Day: Organisation Starts in Camera
Good workflow begins before you sit down at your computer:
- Use dual card slots and write to both simultaneously for instant backup
- Format cards before every shoot, never mid-shoot
- Keep a consistent naming convention — many photographers use ClientName_Date_CameraBody
- Shoot RAW for maximum post-processing flexibility; imagic supports all major RAW formats
Day-After: Import and Backup
Import all cards to your working drive and immediately create a backup copy to a second drive or cloud storage. Do this before any culling or editing. A lost drive before backup is a career-ending event. Once backup is confirmed, organise into a folder structure: ClientName/RAW_Originals.
Culling With imagic
This is where most photographers save the most time. Open imagic and run the Analyse step on your RAW_Originals folder. imagic scores every image for sharpness, exposure, noise, composition, and detail, and groups duplicate and burst sequences automatically.
In the Review step, work through the grouped results. For each burst group, confirm or change the AI's pre-selected best frame. For individual shots, the quality scores help you quickly identify and reject blurry, poorly exposed, or duplicate frames. A 3,000-frame wedding can be culled to 500 selects in 60 to 90 minutes with this approach.
The Cull step exports your selects to a separate folder — ClientName/Selects — ready for editing.
Editing
Import your Selects folder into your RAW editor of choice. Build a base look using your tone curve, colour grading, and exposure adjustments on a representative image from the ceremony, reception, and portraits separately. Sync those base adjustments across images shot in similar lighting. Each lighting scenario — outdoor ceremony, indoor reception, off-camera flash portraits — needs its own base correction.
Expect to spend 30 to 60 seconds per final image on individual adjustments after the batch correction is applied. For 500 selects, that is 4 to 8 hours of focused editing.
Export and Delivery
Use imagic's Export step or your RAW editor's batch export to produce final JPEGs. Standard delivery specifications:
- Full resolution JPEG at 90 to 95 percent quality in sRGB colour profile
- Consistent file naming: ClientName_001.jpg through to the last image
- Web gallery versions at 1800 to 2500 pixels on the long edge
Upload to your gallery delivery platform (Pixieset, Pic-Time, Shootproof) and send the client their gallery link.
Timeline Targets
- Day 1: Import, backup, and run imagic culling
- Days 2 to 5: Editing sessions
- Day 6: Export, quality review, delivery
- Target delivery: within 2 weeks of the wedding
Photographers who implement AI-assisted culling with imagic consistently hit these timelines without the extended post-production burnout that comes from manual culling of thousands of frames.