What we Learned During a Short Trip to Copenhagen for Way Up North

Last updated on 04/08/2024

Every so often in the photography industry, something comes along that completely changes things. These “things” might be products like when LED edge lighting popped up.

Or RGB lighting, making gels less necessary.

Or Spider Holster offers a new way to hold your camera without hurting your neck or back.

Or Apple re-inventing MagSafe for easy charging, mounting, and many other possibilities.

Then some features appear inside of existing products, like eye tracking and focusing inside the camera.

Or professional mirrorless cameras overall.

But then there are those items you might not usually think about. Software, but more importantly, software that can change the way you work in your photography business.

A good example of these might be Sprout Studio, a top-down solution for client management. Or services like Sticky Emails that make email marketing super easy for any photographer, no matter the genre, email marketing, or writing experience. Services like PhotoPills help photographers plan their sessions no matter how far away they are or their locations.

Each of these items can save photographers time and money. Time and money are directly connected, aren’t they? By saving yourself time, you’re immediately saving yourself money.

To many, it might be evident that Imagen’s personalized photo editing software can be a time and money saver. But it was not until Way Up North in Copenhagen did we realize that Imagen could also be a money-maker for so many photographers.

Here is how.

You see, Sam Hurd (a USA-based wedding photographer) spoke at Way Up North about how he has changed parts of his photography workflows by way of artificial intelligence. Sam uses a combination of tools to speed up the delivery of photos to his clients.

His first step is using AfterShoot’s AI culling software to narrow down his images to the very best. Sam even admitted that after his many years of experience, he still makes a bunch of horrible photographs at his events.

Don’t we all?

But AI photo culling has cut down his manual culling time simply by allowing him to do other important tasks while the culling is underway.

Once culled and a quick manual confirmation is complete, he moves on to the editing.

Sam has created a custom profile of his editing style in Imagen. So when he is ready to edit, he only has to send the catalog of his culled photographs from the wedding to us.

He gets the photographs back in no time, makes any final edits he has to make, and then is ready to deliver digitals, share sneak peeks, and order prints and albums for his clients.

Of course, Sam can send his final edits back to us, and our AI will learn from the edits, so future photos are edited even more accurately to his unique style. This process happens fast, by the way!

What we learned from Sam

We knew that Sam was already saving time and money by using AI culling and AI photo editing. But we did not know that Sam is also making additional revenue in his photography business because of it.

You see – Sam mentioned that his average turnaround time could take up to 6 weeks due to how many weddings and how much travel he has to do.

So he created an optional addon to his wedding packages. This option is an additional $500 and offers a guaranteed two-week turnaround time.

How amazing is that?

The coolest part is his workflow does not change. The only thing that changes is the priority of the client work he has to deliver. Even the six-week client turnarounds use AI for the workflow. But they are simply at the bottom of the queue. For $500 more, they could be pushed to the top. The clients don’t know this, and it’s brilliant for his business.

Save money and make money

Yes, you too can do this in your business, and it does not have to be weddings. If you have an endless queue of client work needing to be delivered, then give Imagen a try for your photo editing.

Your photos, edited in your style, give you back the freedom to work on other vital activities.

Imagen never stops learning your personal editing style.