As a wedding photographer for almost 10 years, Lara White has always loved the business side of photography. She shares her passion for business and marketing strategies with photographers through her PhotoMint blog and recently authored a free book for photographers interested in learning how to get their images published. Follow Lara on Twitter.

Want to get published? Follow these easy 4 steps and you will be on your way to creating images that wedding magazines find irresistible.

The first thing you need to know is that wedding magazines and blogs are all about details. Their readers can never get enough details. So that right there should tell you that your submission needs to be at least 75% or more details, and you need to have that on your mind when you are shooting your next wedding that you think has a shot at getting published.

1. Plan Ahead

Take the time to plan ahead for your shoot and how to get the most out of it. Speak with the planner and the florist to get an understanding for the décor and the florals. Will there be a cool escort card table, and if so, how will you capture it prior to the guests spilling into the cocktail hour? How about ceremony details-can you get to the ceremony area prior to the guests, in time to capture how the ceremony looks prior to guests putting their purses down and otherwise cluttering up the area? Ask the catering manager to keep the reception doors closed until the reception, and that you’ll be coming in for a few minutes to capture the room before the doors open.

2. Allow Plenty Of Extra Time For Capturing Details

It takes time to capture details in a way that “sells” them. Allow yourself the extra time needed to spend time in the reception finding just the right angle for capturing the centerpieces. Arrive early while the bride is just starting makeup, and you’ll have plenty of time to “play” with the details in the bride’s room. These can include the dress, shoes, jewelry, bouquet, invitation and other items with personal meaning.

3. Don’t Be Afraid To Rearrange & Declutter

Nothing ruins a great detail shot like a half empty glass or a partially eaten plate of appetizers. Think of your detail shots like a product shot. You want the image to “sell” that detail. It’s OK to rearrange things a bit or remove bits of clutter from your image. Think of yourself as styling the details. It’s perfectly ok to take the salt and pepper shakers (or the table number sign if it’s ugly) off the table for your shots of the centerpiece. Take the bouquet out of the cardboard delivery box and find a beautiful spot with nice lighting. It only takes a moment and will vastly improve your images.

4. Consistent Photoshop Style

If you create certain looks or styles in Photoshop, be consistent. For example if you go for a desaturated vintage look on some of your images and some of them are just in a “standard” look. Most magazines and blogs prefer to have all the images in a set done as a consistent style and look. Otherwise the overall theme and feeling of the images is lost.

The more time you spend working on mastering the art of detail shots, the better you’ll become. And the better you are at capturing details, the more likely you are to find your images in the next issue of your favorite wedding magazine. If you’d like to learn more tips about getting published, check out Get Published: A Guide for Wedding Photographers.

It takes time and patience to learn to create images magazines will be interested in publishing, but it’s well worth the investment of time, because your brides will love those images too.

Remember – You can pick up Lara’s e-book, Get Published for free. No strings attached. I’ve read it and it’s full of great, actionable topics. Get it now!

I’ve described my photography workflow before. At its core is the belief that by keeping things simple, my workflow will cut short the time I spend in front of the computer and allow me to return to making images or spending more time with my family.

Fortunately, I am not alone in this line of thinking. Paul Gero, a friend and fellow photographer based in Orange County, California has published a lucid, step-by-step guide for a vast majority of photographers who have no clue about post production or who are frazzled by all the tools and options presented to them. The guide book is called Simple Photo Workflow.

With over 20 years of experience as a photographer – first at newspapers and then documenting weddings and portraits – Gero is one photographer whose words and work I trust. You may recall his excellent guest blog post on Tiffinbox – Control & Chaos: Two Genres of Photography.

Now, go on check his blog out. It’s a source of weekly inspiration for me. Set aside for a moment the way Gero expresses the light and life he sees in front of him. I think he is a master at photographing the unguarded moment. However, take another look at the way the images are processed.

To my eyes, there is nothing complicated about them, yet they are brilliant. I see natural skin tones, just the right amount of grain, light vignetting that draws your eyes to the main subject of the frame and the black & white images that have both depth and drama to them. With Photoshop and other image processing tools, it’s much too easy to go crazy and drop layer after layer of actions, until your vision of the final image is not only blurred, it’s obliterated.

Getting back to saving time, the post production work Gero introduces us to in his new e-book, is simple, yet elegant. It won’t stress you or your computer out. Gero expresses his thoughts simply as well. Chapters on exposure, editing, raw processing, using Lightroom and photo finishing (retouching) are all punctuated with exceptional examples and step-by-step instructions, so you’ll never falter. As a bonus, Gero has a “cheat-sheet” at the end of the book that walks you through all of the processes he goes through when he is editing his own images! This is like looking over his shoulder and watching him work, except you’ll be doing it yourself and learning from it.

If you already use Photomechanic, Lightroom and Photoshop and use them well, then this ebook isn’t for you. However, if you do use these programs in your post-production work and you are just stumbling along, I urge you to . Yes, I called it an ebook before, but it’s much more than that. You’ll want to print it out (as I have) and use it as you edit your images. Once your post production become intuitive, then you can go in and customize the system.

When it comes to Photoshop actions, I have a short stack of them that I depend on for retouching my portrait and wedding photography images. I go to these almost all the time, for all my images. We’ll talk about which one of those actions made the cut, in a subsequent blog post. So please do remind me.

Jodi Friedman of MCP Actions sent me an email asking me to test a new set of Photoshop actions that she was launching called MCP Fusion Photoshop Actions. So, let me at the outset tell you that I received them gratis for the expressed purpose of reviewing and writing about them here.

The MCP Fusion Photoshop action set combines the most versatile and user-friendly workflow actions with beautiful color and black and white conversions, bringing you an action set with infinite possibilities.

It makes sense to review actions only when you have some really good examples. The image below is from a headshot portrait session I recently completed for my client Carole M.

Straight out of camera, otherwise known as SOOC:

Enhanced using the Liquify filter in Photoshop + MCP Actions’ Eye Doctor and The Dentist:

Enclosed action:

Beach House action:

Sentimental action:

Pendulum action:

Color Fusion Mix-n-Match action – Peachy/Rustic/Sentimental/Shades Of Gray:

In addition to the usual actions to enhance color images, this set includes ways in which you can convert images to black & white. Most of the black & white actions I’ve seen online have been pretty heavy handed at this, but the Black & White Fusion Mix-n-Match is particularly useful because like its Color counterpart, you are allowed to turn on and off layers and of course dial in the opacity for those layers just to get your desired effect. I really enjoyed this level of control to consistently produce images.

Black & White Fusion Mix-n-Match action – One Click Black & White/Highlight Helper:

See more sample images on Jodi’s site and check out this video to show you how you would set these actions up in Photoshop (18 minutes):

The Review:

I’ll make this short and sweet. I had a lot of fun exploring these actions. Like any other set of Photoshop actions, I am likely to pick and use only the ones that feel natural to me and for what I want to deliver to my clients. In this regard, to each her/his own. There are several among the MCP Fusion Photoshop Actions have just been added to my short stack. Some of those actions you have just seen above. As I promised at the beginning of this post, I’ll have a new article describing those to you in greater detail soon.

I almost never use any action at full throttle, that is the opacity is set to less than 100%. What is that magic number? It’s very hard to pin down and kinda silly to even divulge because your images and tastes are different than mine. And these actions by MCP are no different. I toned it down several notches to meet my artistic sensibilities.

The mix-n-match actions were great, but even on a fast iMac, they took about 20 seconds to run. This isn’t a shortfall of the action set, but I have to admit it did surprise me a bit. And as Jodi put it, that’s 20 actions all running at the same time. If you are trying to get something done quickly, try then the individual actions that come bundled within this set. The mix-n-match is much too comprehensive and may be overkill for what you want to achieve. That said, I liked the multiple options the actions gave me. In my opinion, Photoshops actions are as perfect as you want them to be for your own workflow, sense of style or approach to photography.

Jodi’s Photoshop actions are well-known in the industry for a reason – she consistently provides a quality product and her level of support via video tutorials, or in my case a quick email response to a quick question, was always greatly appreciated. If you are open to gaining some control back into how your images should look, you will want to get this Photoshop actions set.

Unsolicited words of advice:

1) Have a vision for how you want to retouch your images. What you present to the world says a lot about who you are as a photographer and an artist. Adding actions willy-nilly is no way to correct a badly exposed image. So start there first. No idea what I am talking about? Try this book by David duChemin. Figure out what the end product needs to be, how it will be applied and who your target audience is. Those answers will direct you into the appropriate use of these or any other Photoshop actions.

2) Make sure your monitor is calibrated. If you want WYSIWYG, this is one of the first steps you should take.

3) Use these actions on un-cropped, high-resolution images first. Then resize and sharpen at the very end of your workflow. The MCP Fusion Photoshop Actions include two nifty actions that will do just this for you, so rest easy.

4) Uncle Ben said it best: “With great power, comes great responsibility.” Just because you can use actions and mix-n-match them up, does not give you license to do so. Well, you could, but then your images are going to make your audience gag a bit.

5) Be aware that as you start adding more actions and you mix-n-match them as you can, your file size is going to inflate and your computer is liable to slow down to a crawl. So have lots of RAM and have a scratch disk for Photoshop to play nice.

6) Have fun. If you aren’t having fun when using these or any other actions, that means you are just going through the motions of creating art for your clients and ultimately yourself. So, pace yourself, experiment and stick to the plan (ie. see number 1)

7) You are going to be naturally drawn to some actions over others. Let your gut instinct guide you. You’ll know when you have crossed the line, or your friends or even clients may let you know pretty directly. Learn from these trials and move on. Don’t cling to an action as the be-all and end-all of all your images. Keep making images and you will find Photoshop actions that are best used to enhance those specific frames. It is a learning process, so don’t force it.

If you’ve enjoyed this post and want more like it, please let me know in the comments below. Also, please support this site by buying the e-books you see here. They have each been reviewed for quality and value and I am sure you will find them just as useful as I have for my photography business.

This guest post is by David Macvicar. He and Sean McGrath are wedding photographers based in Nova Scotia, Canada. Storyboard is their bright idea.

Have you ever wanted layout photos like in the image below, but were absolutely defeated by the number of steps and amount of time required to make this happen?

I think the process goes something like this: Create a new image at the right size, open up each image, resize, drag, resize again, nudge image, etc. etc. Even with an action, you are still doing a number of steps that slow down your blogging workflow. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if this process was completely automated and worked at the touch of a button, or a simple run of an action?

That’s why we created a photoshop script called Storyboard. It makes blogging diptychs and multiple image layouts as easy as selecting the images and clicking a button. We built this tool for ourselves, because we didn’t have time to do layouts the traditional way, but just loved the impact they have on a blog post.

So what exactly is Storyboard?

Storyboard is designed for photographers who blog their work and love to show numerous images which provide a sense of storytelling. Diptychs, triptychs and other combinations of images are perfect for telling a story from a wedding or a portrait session. It works with any blog size & color, any number of images, any combination of aspect ratios, and best of all it was designed with speed in mind. We wanted it to be as fast as possible to build image layouts for your blog.

Why use Storyboard?

We have heard from photographers who have resorted to a tonne of different ways to handle this situation – create actions that still require a lot of user input, photographers who have created InDesign documents with predefined layouts (who wants to jump between different applications!?) and a few other situations which were less than ideal. Other blogging actions often lock you into pre-determined blog sizes (900px, 750px, 600px to name a few) … what if your blog is a different size? What if your blog background features a different color? It’s much better to have options than it is to be pigeon-holed into some other photographer’s idea of how to blog. Since creating these layouts is a challenge and the brands and blogs of photographers all vary, we thought it was time to solve this problem and provide the best solution for blogtographers! With Storyboard it is possible to create an entire blog post worth of images in just a few minutes.

What does a storyboard look like?

Here is a basic example:

And here is something a bit more complex:

How can I configure Storyboard to work with my blog and workflow?

Storyboard is a simple script, but has a powerful configuration panel. Within a minute you can have it working specifically for your blog. Here are the parameters you can change to work with your blog:

- Set your blog width
- Set the space size between your images
- Change the background color to match your blog brand
- Run actions before your Storyboard saves (perfect for running web sharpening actions)
- Save your Storyboard’s automatically and have them close out for quick workflow speed
- Choose your destination/save folder and filename
- Handy archive to folder feature moves images you have already used into a folder of your choice
- Visual re-ordering of your images in your Storyboard by seeing thumbnail order of your images (get the most visual impact by choosing the image order)
- Loop Mode: Storyboard will prompt you to keep making boards – the fastest way to create a blog post

Check out this video on how to configure Storyboard for your blog:

Availability

Storyboard is available at an introductory price of $54.99. Get your copy here and to learn more about Storyboard visit us on the web at http://www.storyboardrocks.com/

Win! Storyboard is generously offering ONE free license to a Tiffinbox subscriber. Here is how you may be able to win this awesome Photoshop Script.

1) Subscribe to the bi-monthly Tiffinbox newsletter

2) Tweet the following:

I just learned about an amazing new Photoshop Script for blogging @Storyboardrocks on @PicSeshu’s Tiffinbox.org Please RT!

IMPORTANT: Don’t forget to mention your Twitter handle so that I can make sure you have done both. I need to see a minimum of 50 real, honest, entries before I can give this away on January 20, 2011.

David and Sean also want to mention that anyone can enter this contest. If you have previously purchased Storyboard, you can still enter and they will just refund you.

Beginning today, I invite all of you to submit an image (.jpg, 72 dpi, no larger than 300 pixels wide and no larger than 80 kilobytes) or a URL (web link) that showcases your recently published work (as long as it falls in the following categories: photography, art, design or writing).

I call this section TOOT! for a reason. It’s your space for bragging rights, to toot your horn. Send me an image or a link to the following email address: tiffinbox{at}pipalproductions{dot}com.

And since this is my site, I’ll go first – the image you see below appears in this week’s India Today (January 19, 2004). I shot it in Brooklyn Heights, NY, for a feature on overseas born Indians. Special thanks to Anil Padmanabhan of India Today (akin to Time or Newsweek and published in India) for making it all possible.

When submitting your work, please comply by these simple rules: The obscene and vulgar will get shot down and the downright offensive or pornographic will get you banned. So please do the right thing and keep it clean. Copyright will ALWAYS remain that of the creator – you (assuming you aren’t swiping it from somewhere and calling it yours) – not me.

With your submission provide your name, a valid email address and a telephone number. If you email me without this information, I’ll have to delete it. Spammers and thrill-seekers need not apply. This is fun but also serious business. I think a lot of us just don’t get our due in the limelight. Help me get the word out about our small achievements. Let’s do this together!

I’ll pick and choose the ones that are appropriate for this site. If your work is South Asia specific, you are that much ahead of the game. If you have any questions, email me. Spread the word and good luck!