If you’re drowning in wedding gallery edits right now, spending entire weekends chained to your computer while your personal life takes a backseat, this episode is for you. As we head into the heavy fall season with galleries piling up from your busy summer while you’re continuing to add more to your editing queue, I’m sharing exactly how I went from editing burnout to delivering wedding galleries in under 2 hours of work time. This isn’t clickbait — it’s the real workflow that saved my sanity and transformed my business. Listen to the episode below, or keep reading for a summary of what’s covered.
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The Breaking Point That Changed Everything
Welcome back to the show, friend. What I’m sharing with you today literally transformed my entire business and personal life — outsourcing my editing. Four years ago, I hit a wall that I know so many of you are probably hitting right now, especially if you’re listening to this in September as you’re exiting your busy summer season with a pile of galleries due and entering into heavy fall bookings.
I was exhausted, overwhelmed, and completely burned out. I’ve always been the photographer who never delivers anything late — delivering on time is absolutely non-negotiable to me and such an important part of the client experience. But there came a point where I truly just could not keep up if I was going to have any kind of personal life at all and not run myself completely into the ground.
You know this struggle if you’re a photographer. Editing takes up so much of our time, and it’s our art, which makes outsourcing feel so scary. What if it doesn’t actually save time because the work is awful? What if they get it totally wrong and you don’t have the gallery you need to send to your couples? All those “what ifs” start racing through your mind.
But it really comes down to having to decide: Am I going to outsource, or am I going to continue down this path where I’m so overwhelmed and burned out that I’m actually probably not editing as well as I could be because I’m exhausted and rushing through galleries just to get them out while I still have twenty more in my queue?
The Time-Tracking Challenge That Will Change Your Perspective
Here’s a little challenge for you that’s going to be eye-opening: I want you to track your time from start to finish for your next wedding that you edit. If you shoot a wedding this weekend, track the time it takes you to cull for previews, edit your previews, upload the gallery, send it, and then when it comes down to culling for the full gallery, editing the full gallery, and delivering the full gallery.
Track that time for that one client and just see how much it actually takes you. Then when you apply your hourly rate to that time, you’re going to realize that hiring an editor is absolutely a no-brainer. If you could take on more clients with the time you gain back—and sometimes more clients isn’t the answer, like if you have thirty weddings a year, please don’t take on more—but if you would be able to take on more clients with that reclaimed time, that’s going to add so much revenue to your business.
Or think about this scenario that’s probably hitting home for so many of you right now: during busy season, you’re spending all that time editing, and that’s just for one gallery. How much are you ghosting your marketing? Probably a lot. If you were able to gain back a lot of that time you spend editing and culling, that gives you more time to focus on the money-making, needle-moving parts of your business that instead just get completely ghosted during busy season because you’re out shooting, culling, editing, and then repeating while trying to eat and live your life in between.
My Specific Workflow for Outsourcing Success
Let me walk you through exactly how my editing outsourcing process works, because this is the workflow that allows me to spend just two to two and a half hours putting finishing touches on a wedding while still maintaining complete control over my artistic vision.
Step 1: Curating and Editing Previews
First, I cull and edit around 100 to 150 previews that include moments from every single part of the day—different lighting scenarios, different moments. I want this not only for my editor to understand my style and the day’s flow, but also for my client experience. This is just what I’ve chosen works best for my specific workflow and the delivery standard I want to maintain.
Step 2: Gallery Selection Process
From there, after I go through and cull and edit those previews, I’ve actually outsourced the full gallery culling in the past because culling is honestly the bane of my existence. I love to see all the photos I take, but you guys, I am a chronic overshooter. If you have education for me on how to stop overshooting, please slide into my DMs and help a girl out!
Here’s a little side tip that was one of the best things I ever did for myself as an overshooter: shoot in low continuous mode for the entire day, except for high-energy moments like the ceremony where I’ll use high continuous just so I don’t miss those first kiss moments and the excitement that happens after. But literally shooting in low continuous for everything else? Chef’s kiss. You’re welcome if you’re also an overshooter and haven’t tried this yet—it’s going to save you so much time.
But back to my workflow—I’m a chronic overshooter, and I don’t love culling because of that very reason. I do it to myself and then I’m always frustrated with myself afterward. I used to not cull through the entire gallery myself, but now I do go ahead and cull all images while I’m selecting previews. I’m not doing the final cull in that moment (sometimes I will remove some before delivery), but typically I do get what would be my final gallery to around 700 photos, or a little bit more if it was a longer wedding day.
Step 3: The Handoff
So from there, I have the photos selected, I have the 100 to 150 previews edited, and then I deliver those previews to the client. I go ahead and send the full selection to my editor, and usually this entire timeframe takes me about an hour to an hour and a half.
Then from there, once I send my gallery off, I usually have around seven days until I get it back. I try my best to send out the gallery the week after the wedding so it’s off my plate, and I know that once I get the edits back, I’ll have plenty of time to block out time on my calendar to finish them.
Step 4: The Finishing Touches
Once I get the photos back from my editor, that’s when it usually takes me about an hour to two hours total to do the finishing touches. And here’s something really important: there is no photo that gets delivered that I have not had my eyes on. I know some people, and even videographers, will ship off their work and then get it back and just deliver it to the client without any additional touches. I personally can’t do that, and I know if you’re listening, you probably can’t either.
You want your work to truly be reflective of your art, and you want it to be the best of the best. I know you’re probably incredibly hard on your work, so you’re thinking, “How can I even trust anyone else to do this for me when I’ve got it all dialed in? I know exactly how I want to edit it, I know exactly the colors I want.”
This is where you need to hear me: you will still save yourself so much time by just doing the finishing touches compared to if you did the entire gallery by yourself. That’s where I go through every photo and adjust slightly—probably things that clients wouldn’t even recognize, but I still adjust anyway because I want it to have that finishing touch from me. Then I’ll also brush out skin, whiten teeth, remove any blemishes, do any kind of Photoshop work that needs to be done, like cloning out backgrounds or whatever other adjustments are necessary.
From there, that process usually takes me about an hour to two hours depending on the size of the gallery, and then I deliver the photos. My friend, I can usually deliver an entire wedding gallery within four weeks, and I know some people are incredible out there—I’ve had students who literally deliver the entire gallery the week of the wedding, and kudos to you because that’s so impressive to me. But I really give myself a pat on the back for four to six weeks, and that timeline works perfectly for my workflow.
The Time-Saving Results of Outsourcing Editing
Every photo still gets my finishing touch. Every photo still gets my attention. And yet it ends up taking me literally less than half the time—probably about 25% of the time that it would take me if I did it all myself.
My friend, what this looks like for you is that you actually get to go on a vacation and you don’t have to stress about the fact that you’re going to have all these galleries due, because if you outsource, the work is being done while you’re enjoying yourself. You can go on a date with your person and you don’t have to worry about a client asking, “Hey, where’s our gallery?” Your Instagram stories don’t need to be filled with disclaimers about how just because you’re on a date doesn’t mean you’re not working on galleries. I see these kinds of posts all the time, and if that’s where you’re at right now, then it’s your responsibility to do something to change it.
You deserve better than that. Your clients deserve that level of service. And your personal relationships deserve your presence without the constant stress of pending work.
Overcoming the Fear and Training Process
Now, I know a major fear around editing outsourcing is “What if it doesn’t save me time because the quality is awful?” This is where any kind of outsourcing experience requires proper training. I teach this in-depth in my mentorship program Scale It because you can’t expect someone to be exactly like you. There are going to be differences because it’s a different human being.
And yet, I know if you’re listening to this, you probably relate to the fact that you don’t want to wear all the hats anymore. You’ve done it for long enough, and it’s clearly not getting you where you want to be—whether that’s because you’re burned out, because you want more time with your family or maybe your baby, or because you’re capped on income and you know you need to do something different.
That’s where I’d probably recommend starting with outsourcing editing, and if you’ve never done this kind of time-tracking practice before, it really will help bring a lot into perspective about how valuable your time really is and how minimal of an investment it is to actually outsource these tasks.
I’ve personally had a lot of trial and error with outsourcing too, and I think that can give you some peace knowing that just because you decide to outsource doesn’t mean it’s going to be perfect right away. It doesn’t mean you’re going to think “Wow, I’m so happy I did this” on the very first gallery you outsource. However, I am at that point now where it requires very little from me and truly allows me to spend just one to two hours putting finishing touches on a wedding.
My Editor Recommendation
If you’ve heard this conversation today and you want to get started outsourcing, I’ve been through a few different editors and I can say hands down, Honest Editors is the best one I’ve ever worked with. They are very open to feedback, very responsive, very on time, and they’re just kind human beings who do great work. They have been the absolute best that I’ve worked with.
I have a code to get 25% off your first order with CLAIRE25. But truly, this can change the game for you, my friend, and you can outsource your next gallery. You absolutely can—I’m giving you the permission slip, signed and sealed.
Why This Matters for Scaling Your Business
This conversation ties directly into something I’m really passionate about helping photographers with. I cover outsourcing really in-depth in my mentorship program Scale It, and that’s really designed for the photographer who is capped out. They don’t want to have to trade their time for income anymore—sure, for some of their income, but not for most of it or all of it. They want to increase their booking average, they want passive revenue streams, they want more time, they want more things automated so they can put their laptop away and actually enjoy their vacation.
If you’re there—if you’re capped out on your bookings, capped out on your time, kind of capped out on your income—then usually starting with outsourcing your editing is going to be such a great place to begin. Because here’s what happens when you don’t address this: you end up ghosting your marketing during busy season, which means you’re not getting as many bookings or as many aligned bookings as you’d hope for the next year, because you’ve ghosted everything because you’re drowning.
I don’t want this for you anymore, and I hope you don’t want it for yourself either.
Key Takeaways:
- Track your editing time for one complete wedding to understand the real cost of doing it all yourself
- Outsourcing editing can reduce your hands-on editing time by 75% while maintaining artistic control
- Every delivered photo should still have your finishing touches and approval
- Proper training and communication with your editor is essential for success
- The time saved allows you to focus on revenue-generating activities and maintain work-life balance
- Starting with preview edits helps your editor understand your style and vision
What’s Covered in This Episode:
- My personal journey from editing burnout to a 2-hour wedding editing workflow
- The specific step-by-step process I use for outsourcing while maintaining quality
- How to overcome common fears about outsourcing your artistry
- The importance of time-tracking to understand your true editing costs
- Why finishing touches are crucial even when outsourcing
- How outsourcing impacts your ability to scale and maintain work-life balance
Resources Mentioned:
- Scale It mentorship program for photographers ready to scale their businesses
- Honest Editors discount code: Get 25% off with code CLAIRE25
- Claire’s Instagram: @itsclairehunt
If you have any questions about outsourcing editing, I’m happy to chat with you in the DMs. Come over to Instagram—I’m @itsclairehunt. I’d love to talk with you, and I’d especially love to hear from you if you decide to take the leap. Message me and say, “Okay, I’m doing it, Claire. This is how much time I gained back. I was able to go on a date, I got my edits back, and it only took me three hours to finish.” We’re going to celebrate that together, and I’ll cheer you on because this is what I’m here to do.
I’m not only here to help photographers build and grow their businesses like I do in Book It, but I’m also here to help you scale it—hence the Scale It program—because it’s so important. Once you get to a certain point, you need different strategies to give yourself better work-life balance, to allow you to live life first, and to allow you to still pour into your clients and give such a great experience without running yourself into the ground.
Thank you so much for tuning in to today’s episode. I hope you got some really great takeaways from this conversation, and remember—you have permission to make your business work for your life, not the other way around. Until next time, my friend!
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