Notes for the week after the wedding
The dancing stopped on Saturday. By Monday there are three cards on the desk, a second shooter's clock that was four minutes fast and a couple refreshing their inbox. These guides are about that week: culling it, lining it up, handing it over and keeping it safe. Most of them work whatever software you use.
How to cull a wedding
Three passes: the broken frames, one frame per moment, then the story.
What culling can judge
Eyes and blur versus emotion and story, and where we've seen it go wrong.
Syncing camera clocks
Set the clocks, photograph a reference, work out the offset, know the catches.
Delivering a client gallery
Selection, proofing, downloads and expiry, decided before the link goes out.
Lightroom XMP sidecars
Stars, labels and edits in a sidecar, and where the match is rough.
Where your RAW files live
Copying cards, backups, upload times and working without a signal.
Labelling changed photos
Where to draw the line on labels, and how to tell the couple.
Gallery storage planning
What takes the space, a worked estimate, and expiry as the lever.
Colour, light and skin
The decisions behind every edit, from the wheel your editor turns to the colour space your client's phone expects. Each one is drawn, so you can see the idea before you read it.
Colour theory
The editing wheel, harmonies, warm against cool, and the colours you didn't choose.
GuideWhite balance
The Kelvin scale, mixed light at receptions, tint, and when not to correct.
GuideSkin tones
The skin line, the edits that break it, and checks before the client sees it.
GuideWedding colours by tradition
Palettes from fourteen traditions, world first, and what a careless edit does to each.
GuideBit depth
Levels per channel, what a RAW stores, and when banding appears.
GuideTone curves
Reading the curve, four common shapes, and the mistakes that flatten skin.
GuideColour spaces
sRGB, Adobe RGB, Display P3 and ProPhoto drawn, and what to send where.
GuideNew to culling? Start with the three passes. Where CullTone does something its own way, or hasn't been tested yet, the guide says so, and each one carries the date we last checked it against the app. Looking for which button to press? The help centre has step-by-step pages with screenshots.