PhotographyMar 12, 20269 min readKamero Team
Photo Editing Tips for Fast Event Delivery: Edit Smarter, Not Longer
The biggest bottleneck in event photography isn't the shooting — it's the editing. A 4-hour event produces 2,000-5,000 photos. Editing them one by one takes weeks. Here's how to deliver a polished gallery in hours.
The Culling Workflow
- Import and rate: Use Photo Mechanic or Lightroom to quickly rate photos. One pass, 1-5 stars. Spend 1-2 seconds per photo.
- Reject aggressively: Out of focus, bad expressions, duplicates — reject immediately. Aim to keep 30-40% of what you shot.
- Select the best: From the keepers, select the absolute best for editing. For a 4-hour event, deliver 300-500 edited photos.
- Speed tip: Use keyboard shortcuts. In Lightroom: P to pick, X to reject, arrow keys to navigate. Never touch the mouse.
Batch Editing with Presets
- Create event-specific presets: At the start of editing, perfect the look on one photo. Save it as a preset. Apply to all similar photos.
- Lighting-based presets: Create presets for different lighting conditions — outdoor, indoor flash, stage lighting, golden hour.
- Sync settings: Select all similar photos, sync exposure, white balance, and tone curve. Individual adjustments only where needed.
- AI-powered editing: Tools like Lightroom's AI masking and auto-adjust save time on individual corrections.
The 80/20 Rule of Event Editing
- 80% of photos need only basic adjustments: exposure, white balance, crop.
- 15% need moderate editing: skin retouching, background cleanup, color correction.
- 5% need detailed work: composites, heavy retouching, creative edits.
- Don't spend 10 minutes on a photo that only needs 10 seconds of adjustment.
Export and Delivery
- Export settings: JPEG, 90% quality, sRGB color space, long edge 4000px for web delivery.
- Original quality: For clients who want full resolution, export at 100% quality with original dimensions.
- Batch export: Export all photos at once. Lightroom handles this in the background while you work on other tasks.
- Upload to Kamero: Use the Kamero desktop app for bulk upload. Drag and drop thousands of photos — background processing handles the rest.
Same-Day Editing Workflow
For same-day delivery with Kam-Sync:
- Photos upload to the cloud in real-time as you shoot.
- An assistant reviews and approves the best shots from the hidden album.
- For events where editing is needed, the assistant can download, quick-edit, and re-upload selects.
- Guests get professionally edited photos during the event — not weeks later.