How to speed up your editing | Photography

 

One thing you won’t ever catch me doing is sitting in front of a computer for 5+ hours editing individual photos. If you find yourself lost in your workflow of editing hundreds or even thousands of photos after each night of racing, let’s talk how to improve that!

 

Obviously, editing is a very personalized workflow that depends on you and your desire, but editing for hours isn’t something I want to do (nor waste precious time on)

 

Over the last 10 years in motorsports photography, here’s 3 top ways to start editing faster in Lightroom to streamline your workflow and spend more time shooting:

 

1. 𝐔𝐬𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐁𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞

– Apply a custom or purchased preset on import or as your first step. This gives you a consistent starting look, saving time tweaking every slider from scratch.

– Establishing a specific “editing style” helps speed up your editing and helps your audience recognize your work.

– 𝘽𝙤𝙣𝙪𝙨 𝙩𝙞𝙥: Save your money – Create your own “base preset” for different lighting conditions (e.g., golden hour, indoor, overcast).

 

2. 𝐂𝐨𝐩𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐏𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐀𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬 𝐒𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐚𝐫 𝐏𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐨𝐬

– Edit one photo in a series (same lighting, setup, etc.), then select the rest and copy and paste those settings to apply the same photos instantly.

 

3.  𝐔𝐬𝐞 𝐀𝐈 𝐑𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐥 𝐓𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐍𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐞𝐝

– Speed up the amount of time when needing to remove distractions with Adobe Lightroom’s new AI generated removal tool.

– Fences, tractor tires, blemishes, etc. – all of these are easily removable at the click of a button. Learning processes is so much easier than using the clone tool, patch tool, or spot removal tools in old Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom.

– Work smarter, not harder. If someone is going to give you the tool to make life easier, why not take full advantage of it.