My Top 10 Photography Applications

• 1. PhotoMechanic $60* ; $150 w/out discount

PhotoMechanic is used to cull images quickly! There’s a 30-day free trial, do it!! Culling means going through all photos to pick which ones you will edit. Images don’t need loading time like they do in LR, and you can’t edit while you cull! After I’ve picked all the photos I want to work on, I import directly into LR and start working. This makes LR faster too because now I don’t have a million images in there that are just using space and slowing it down.

• 2. Adobe Photoshop & Lightroom $9.99/monthly

This one’s obvious, though it might not be for starting photographers! I use Lightroom more than Photoshop to edit my images. Though I sometimes pull into Photoshop for some extra creative stuff. I create a new Catalog for each couple in LR and work from there. This is a very important app for my photography workflow to edit my images.

• 3. JPEG Mini $66.75* ; $89 w/out discount

JPEGmini reduces your image size without compromising resolution and quality. Because of this, I have saved so much space on my website! It has also sped up my downloading images to galleries as well as exporting images from Lightroom. They have a free trial of 200 photos, try it! There are two types, 1) you gotta import images into it manually. Or, 2) a plug-in to LR and it exports after going through JPEG Mini automatically.

• 6. Instagram free

This is a huge business tool. It helps me connect with clients that may not have come across me or my work otherwise. Instagram is the only app that can be used on a very personal level too, which is a perk if used correctly!

A lot of times, people think Instagram is a curse. I haven’t felt that way because I use it like this: I think of it as a preview gallery for my clients to see my work, and to see my personality. I story constantly and post consistently for those two things to happen. I also engage with my followers as often as possible. The number is meaningless, it’s the people behind them that matter, remember that and you’ll use the app properly!

• 7. Pinterest App free

Although I can get distracted and start searching for recipes, I’ve transformed my Pinterest to a business account and it helps me keep track of activity, pins, clicks to my site, etc. Aside from that, it’s a nice tool to put my work in front of a new audience and the potential of new inquiries!