The complete wedding photography workflow: SD card to delivery

1. Backup on-site before you leave

Don't leave the venue without a backup copy. SD cards fail. This is not optional.

If you're shooting dual-slot cameras, one copy is already done. Still — copy to a portable drive before you pack up. Use something like CarbonCopyCloner or a simple rsync job if you're comfortable with Terminal. The goal is two physical copies before you drive home.

Label your cards by ceremony: "Mehendi 1," "Baraat 2," etc. Label the folders the same way on your drive.

2. Ingest to your main drive

Use Lightroom's built-in import or Photo Mechanic if you're dealing with 4,000+ photos and ingest speed matters. Photo Mechanic is faster for large batches — it reads the JPEG preview embedded in the RAW before rendering the actual file.

Set up a consistent folder structure before you start. A folder per couple, subfolders per ceremony. Name it how you'll want to find it in five years: "2026-06-08 Priya-Arjun Mehendi," not "wedding_june_stuff."

Apply import presets for your camera — lens corrections, noise reduction baseline. Don't spend time on these later if you can apply them at ingest.

3. First cull — remove the obvious rejects

In Lightroom or Capture One: go through every photo once and mark clear rejects — eyes closed, motion blur, misfires, duplicates. Don't stop to edit. Don't linger on close calls. Your only question is "is this obviously not going to make it?" If you're not sure, move on.

Use keyboard shortcuts. In Lightroom: X to reject, spacebar to advance. Target getting to about 60–70% of your original count. A 3,000-photo three-ceremony shoot should land around 1,800–2,000 after the first cull.

4. Second cull — select the best

Now go through what's left and star or colour-tag the ones that make it to the client gallery. This is your final cut.

For a three-ceremony wedding you're aiming for 500–800 photos to show. The exact number depends on how many hours you covered and what you promised the client. A 10-hour day covering five ceremonies is different from a 4-hour reception.

At the end of this step you have your gallery set — the photos the client will select from.

5. Export previews for client gallery

Export a JPEG version of each gallery photo. You do not need to export originals or full-resolution files. A 1500px JPEG at 80% quality is more than enough for a phone screen.

In Lightroom: File → Export → set long edge to 1500px, quality 80, sRGB. Export to a folder called "Previews — [Event Name]." This is the folder you point the fotoz.in Helper at.

6. Upload to the client gallery

Open the fotoz Helper. Create the event in the fotoz.in dashboard (name, client WhatsApp number, photo limits, sections). In the helper, select the event and point it at your Previews folder.

Upload runs in the background while you do other work. The helper watermarks and compresses each photo before upload. Your originals are untouched.

7. Send the gallery link — one message

When upload is complete, copy the gallery link from the dashboard and send it to your client on WhatsApp. One link. They tap it, enter their number, receive an OTP, and they're in.

Set a deadline: "Please select by Friday." Having an explicit deadline gets it done.

8. Client selects and submits

Your client works through the gallery at their own pace, selecting photos and leaving notes. You watch the count go up on the dashboard in real time.

When they submit, you get a notification. A PDF report is generated automatically — filename, section, any note the client left per photo.

9. Export selected originals

Open the helper, find the event, press Export. The app fetches the list of selected filenames and copies only those originals into a "Selected — [Event Name]" folder.

If your client selected 210 of 640 photos, you now have a folder with exactly those 210 originals. No cross-referencing. No duplicating the full 640 to sort through.

10. Brief your retoucher and hand off

Download the PDF from the dashboard. Write a short standard instruction (your colour grade, skin retouching style, any standing rules). Attach it to an email along with a link to the Selected folder.

Your editor has: the correct originals (named as they came from camera), the section context, and every per-photo note your client left. They can start immediately.

11. Deliver final gallery

After retouching, deliver the final gallery however you normally do — Google Drive, Pixieset, a custom link. This step is outside fotoz.in's scope; it handles the selection workflow, not delivery.

The point is: by the time you reach this step, you've spent about 15 minutes on coordination work (sending the gallery link, pressing Export, briefing your editor). The rest was your actual work — culling, editing, retouching. That's how it should be.