Photography turnaround times and editing deadlines

Late galleries rarely come from slow editing. They come from a promise made in a quiet month and kept in a busy one. Pick a turnaround you can hit in your busiest weeks, tell your client exactly what to expect, and work from one queue sorted by due date. For where editing fits in the whole job, see A photography client workflow from inquiry to delivery.

How long does photo editing usually take?

There's no industry standard, and every photographer works at a different pace. These are the ranges you'll see most often from working photographers, as a starting point rather than a rule:

Job	Common turnaround for the full gallery
Headshots	2 days to 1 week
Mini sessions	1 to 2 weeks
Family, portrait and newborn sessions	1 to 3 weeks
Events	1 to 3 weeks
Weddings	4 to 8 weeks, sometimes up to 12 in peak season
Commercial	Agreed per job, often selects within days and finals a week or two after approval
Sneak peeks	24 hours to 1 week

Clients rarely mind a six-week wait they were told about. What upsets them is a date that passes in silence.

Choosing a turnaround you can actually hit

Work it out from your busiest month, not your average one. Say a wedding takes you about 12 hours to cull and edit, and you have around 10 editing hours a week once you've shot, answered emails and done the books. In a month with six weddings, that's 72 hours of editing against 40 hours available. A four-week promise is already broken before the season starts.

Some ways to make the numbers work:

• Quote your peak-season time all year. Delivering early in winter feels generous. Delivering late in summer feels like a broken promise.
• Leave a buffer. If you usually finish in five weeks, promise six. Illness, a failed drive or a family emergency will happen at some point.
• Price rush delivery as an add-on instead of saying yes to every "could we have them by Friday?"
• Outsource in busy months. An editing service can take culling or basic color correction while you keep the final look.

Setting expectations in your contract and emails

Put the turnaround in your contract in plain words, such as "Your edited gallery will be delivered within 6 weeks of your wedding date." A firm "within" date is easier for both of you to hold than "approximately". See Writing a photography contract.

Then repeat it at the moments your client is likely to wonder:

• The week before the shoot. Mention the sneak peek and the full gallery date in your pre-shoot note.
• The day after. A short thank-you with the date again.
• Halfway through. A two-line update ("Your edit is going well and you're on track for the 14th") stops most "any news?" emails before they're written.

Save each of these once as an email template so they take seconds to send. See Email templates.

A culling and editing queue that works

Edit in the order you shot, first in, first out. Jumping a louder client up the queue is how quiet clients end up waiting twice as long.

1. Back up before you cull. Two copies on two different drives before the cards are formatted.
2. Cull within a few days, while you remember the moments that mattered.
3. Edit in batches. Set the look on a handful of key frames, sync, then refine.
4. Export, upload and check the gallery on your phone before anyone else sees it.
5. Deliver, then clear the job off your list so the next one is at the top.

Break the edit into its own due dates on bigger jobs. A wedding might have the cull due in week one, the edit due in week four and delivery in week six, so you know you're behind long before the delivery date arrives.

Sneak peeks buy you breathing room

A sneak peek of 10 to 30 favorites within a few days gives your client something to share while the real edit happens. It also takes the pressure off the full gallery. Edit these first, straight after the backup. Keep the number small and consistent. If you send 50 one time and 10 the next, your client will notice.

Tracking deadlines with CoreHue tasks

Every edit you owe can be a task with a due date, so nothing depends on your memory. Tasks are on every plan, Free included.

1. Open the client's project and choose New task on its Tasks tab, so the task is filed with the job. See Creating a task.
2. Give it a title like "Edit Amara and Tolu wedding" and a Due date a few days before your promised date.
3. Add the Editing label.
4. Add separate tasks for the sneak peek and the delivery, each with its own date.

Then save an "Editing queue" view so the whole list is one click away:

1. Go to Projects → Tasks and choose New view.
2. Name it "Editing queue", pick List for Layout and Due date for Sort by.
3. Under Filters, set Labels to Editing and Status to To do and In progress.
4. Choose Create view.

It sits under Views in the sidebar, soonest deadline at the top, across every client. Tasks you add from that view get the Editing label by themselves. See Saving task views.

Seeing where each edit is

Labels say a task is editing work, but not how far it's got. For that, add a field. Go to Projects → Settings, open Fields, and create an "Editing stage" field with options like Culled, Edited and Exported. Then open your Editing queue, choose Display and set Group by to Editing stage. Each edit sits in its column, and dragging a card across updates it. See Adding fields to your tasks.

Reminders, the morning email and the overdue count

Every task with a due date reminds you in the app at 9:00am on the day. For a big edit, open the task, choose Reminders, turn off Use the default reminders and tick 1 week before by email, so you hear about the delivery while there's still time to act. Email reminders arrive together in one morning email, earliest deadline first. See Setting up task reminders.

If a date slips anyway, a count appears beside Tasks in the sidebar and in red above your task board until you finish the task or give it a new date. Late cards offer Today, Tomorrow and Next week, and Reschedule all moves every late task at once. Treat the count as a nudge to send your client an honest update, not just to quietly move the date. See Tracking tasks on a board or list.

Want a step-by-step routine inside the delivery task? Add a checklist: export, upload, check on your phone, set downloads, publish, send. See Adding a checklist to a task.

For how this fits with the rest of a busy season, see Running your studio with projects and tasks.

Delivering the gallery

When the edit is done, create the gallery from the project's More actions menu with Create gallery, so it's filed with the job. Sort the photos into chapters, preview it as your client, and choose Publish. The email composer opens straight away, so the gallery goes out while it's on your mind. See Publishing a gallery.

For a sneak peek, you can use the same gallery. Upload everything, hide every chapter except a small "Sneak peek" one, and share it. When the full edit is ready, switch the other chapters back on and your client keeps the same link. See Hiding chapters from visitors.

Once it's sent, tick the delivery task and move the project to Delivered. Neither one emails your client. See Delivering photos and videos your clients love.

Frequently asked questions

How long should it take to get wedding photos back?

Most wedding photographers deliver the full gallery within 4 to 8 weeks, with a sneak peek in the first week. The right answer for you is the date in your contract, so set one you can keep in your busiest month.

What should I do if I'm going to miss a delivery date?

Tell your client before the date passes and give a new date you're sure of. An honest message a week early lands far better than an apology a week late.

Should I put a delivery deadline in my photography contract?

Yes. A clear "within X weeks" sets expectations from the start and gives you something to point to if a client asks for the photos sooner.

Can CoreHue tell my client when their gallery will be ready?

Not by itself. Tasks and projects are private to you, so your client never sees your deadlines. Send them the date yourself in a message or email, and let your task reminders keep you to it.