5 Easy Ways to Speed Up Your Editing
As a photographer, it’s always an awesome feeling when inquiries and bookings start rolling in and you begin filling your schedule with sessions! But what do you do when it’s the middle of busy season, your schedule is packed, and there’s still a ton of backed up editing to get done?
Well, if you’re anything like me when I first started; you stress, avoid, and freak out a little bit. But that was before I discovered these neat little tricks that made my life a whole lot easier! Today, I’ll share with you 5 easy ways to speed up your editing workflow, so you can leave the stress behind.
First things first, you’ll want to get your head in the game. If you’re someone who works best with a little background noise, you can open Spotify and set up a playlist for yourself full of tunes that put you in the editing mood. Or to completely zone in to your work, grab some headphones and put on a white noise app.
Oftentimes, when I’m supposed to be editing, I find myself subconsciously clicking out of Photoshop and heading over to Facebook. Before I know it, I’ve found two new recipes I wish I had the time to make, and wasted an hour watching Buzzfeed videos. While arguably more entertaining, this actually only ensures that my editing process takes that much longer. So, for me, getting in the zone means I need to sign completely out of Facebook and Pinterest before opening Photoshop and getting to work. That way, when I find my idle hands creeping over there, that log in page will catch me up and help remind me to stay on task.
I’ve also found it helpful to set aside specific periods of time that are just for editing. Consider your daily routine and schedule your editing hour during the time of day you feel your best. If you’re a morning person, maybe set aside some time at the beginning of your day when you feel most productive. Scheduling your editing in advance is a great way to make it part of your routine and feel more manageable.
Whatever your method, putting yourself in the mood to edit may seem like an obvious step, but it’s actually one of the ones we skip the most often.
Adobe Bridge is a great way to speed up your overall workflow when it comes to editing. Not only does it allow you to quickly navigate through your RAW files, but you can also rate and label your images quickly to group the best ones for editing!
If you aren’t familiar with this program, click here for a video tutorial that will show you some quick tips you can use when organizing images in Bridge.
Batch Processing, or batch editing, is a method that allows you to apply the same set of editing steps on many images at once. It’s one of my absolute favorite ways to speed up my workflow, without compromising the beauty of my resulting images.
If the idea of editing multiple images at one time is blowing your mind, you absolutely have to watch the two videos below. They’ll help you get started utilizing this technique and creating a gorgeous gallery for your clients in half the time. I hope you love it as much as I do!
Click here to learn about Batch Processing in Adobe Camera RAW (ACR)
Click here to learn about Batch Processing in Photoshop CS or CC
Keyboard Shortcuts are a really quick and simple way to pull up certain functions or tools in Photoshop without having to search around or navigate through the menus. With the click of a few buttons, you’ll be speeding through the time-consuming parts of editing in no time!
Check out these 26 Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts you can implement today!
Many people know about using Photoshop Actions to speed up their editing process and enhance their images more quickly, but another cool way to use them is for resizing your images for the web. Doing this helps reduce the amount of steps you have to take to finalize your images, allowing you to get done even faster.
Click here to grab this free set of resizing actions and try it out for yourself!
Do you have any other time-saving tricks you swear by? Post your favorite in the comments below.
