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Photographers, this one’s for you! Whether you’re a full-time photographer looking to scale your business and speed up your workflows, or you’re a part-time photographer who wants to spend less time working and more time creating art that you love, having the right photography resources & tools in your toolkit is key to running a successful business. And not just a successful one, but one that is profitable, aligned, fulfilling, and abundant. I am so incredibly proud of the elopement photography business I’ve grown over the years, and I have spent a large chunk of that time figuring out what tools would best support me, my business, and my clients—so today I wanted to share my favorites with you.
I’ve gone through many a program, many a free trial, and many a failure to get to where I am today. I hope that by sharing these 10 must-have business resources for photographers, you’re able to skip over some of those more painful steps and find your way to success with speed, ease, and confidence!
Included in this list are my favorite culling & editing softwares, client experience programs, business operation programs, and marketing tools. For the sake of transparency, I’ve also included an affiliate code and/or link for each tool that will give me a small commission (at no extra cost to you; in fact, some of them even give you a discount!). Know that I am very intentional about the resources I’ve added to this list, and I would be sharing about them all even if I didn’t have affiliate links!
10 Must-Have Business Tools & Resources For Photographers
Culling & Editing Software
1. Narrative Select
I LOVE Narrative Select so much, I don’t think I will ever be so loyal to any other culling tool. I’ve tried many over the years, but this one takes the cake by far for its ease of use, incredible speed, and incredible user experience. Narrative Select is powered by smart technology and AI features that can help you narrow down your choices, but even if you don’t use the AI features, culling a full gallery manually is still extremely seamless and easy. You can customize your keyboard shortcuts so that you have an intuitive workflow, which is a game changer if you’re like me and thrive on using shortcuts to speed up your work in places like Lightroom and Photoshop. The platform is also super fast and beautiful—they designed it perfectly for us photographers because they know aesthetics are important to us! I don’t know about you but I hate working when the work is ugly, so having a clean, minimalist, and pretty workspace is 10/10. Plus it makes the process of culling (which can sometimes feel super tedious) actually feel fun!
Top features:
- Eye & focus assessments
- 3-second RAW image import
- Instant image rendering
- Ingest from multiple memory cards
- Rename images and change capture time
- Lightroom integration
- Crop & level
- Customizable keyboard shortcuts
Free trial: 6 projects
Pricing: $15/month (billed yearly) or $20/month (billed monthly)
Make culling a breeze by downloading Narrative Select now!
Aftershoot is another really innovative program for automating the process of rating, culling, and editing your photos. I’m still trying to fall in love with the AI culling feature, since it’s not nearly as beautiful and intuitive as Narrative Select, but I do love using it for editing! It’s as effective as any other AI editing tool that I’ve tried, with the ability to train your own personal AI editing profile that learns from your edited photos to mirror your editing style. It’s a pretty cool way to speed up your editing process; as a perfectionist, I tend to usually go through and hand-edit every single photo afterwards when I use an AI editing tool, but Aftershoot has actually given me edits that don’t require any additional tweaking!
Besides the editing feature, Aftershoot also offers AI-powered culling, similar to Narrative Select. The algorithm will do an initial cull of your images by grouping similar ones together & choosing the best ones, and then you can choose how you want to further cull down the selection from there. Every time you make changes to the photos it chooses, the AI learns your preferences and improves its selections!
One of the best things about Aftershoot, especially compared to the majority of other AI culling/editing softwares out there, is that it’s a flat annual fee with unlimited edits. It’s such a relief to not have to add yet another subscription to my ever-growing list as a photographer, and the fact that you get unlimited culling and editing with it, without your price going up?! I love it.
Top features:
- AI-powered culling and editing
- Automated detection of blinks, camera shakes, duplicate shots, and more
- Key face detection
- Easy keyboard shortcuts
- Personal AI editing profile
- Pre-built AI editing styles
- Flat annual fee with unlimited edits
- Offline culling and editing
Free trial: 30 days
Pricing: Starting at $40/month (billed annually) for unlimited culling, editing, and 1 personal AI editing profile
Start your 30-day free trial of Aftershoot here!
Client Experience Programs
3. Pic-Time
If you’re looking for a seamless and beautiful way to deliver photos to your clients, Pic-Time is far and away the best and most professional-looking site I’ve used. So sleek, fast, and easy to use, both on the backend as a business owner and on the front-facing, client end! You can completely customize your galleries to fit your brand, and you have a ton of options when it comes to the layout and aesthetic of each one. When a client logs into their gallery, they can favorite photos, download them individually or as a batch file, and can even order prints, albums, and other products directly through Pic-Time. The automated sales features are the easiest way to increase your print sale revenue, especially if you set up automated emails and discounts to encourage your clients to order prints—for example, the month after their wedding, or every year on their anniversary!
Pic-Time is always adding new features, the most recent one being AI gallery search, which is a cool way for your clients to be able to quickly and easily find photos that include certain people. They’ve also got CRM integrations, elevated slideshows and a huge music library, a full album builder, and tons of pre-built marketing automations.
Top features:
- Unlimited client galleries
- Print store
- Worldwide labs
- Marketing automations
- Album builder
- Custom branding
- Slideshows
- Blogs
- AI image filter
- Advanced Lightroom plugin
Free trial: 30 days, plus 1 extra month when you sign up with this link!
Pricing: Starting at $21/month (billed annually) for a professional plan
Get a bonus free trial month by signing up for Pic-Time with this link!
4. Lulus
Lulus isn’t really a business program or tool, but I love using their dresses for styled shoots! They have tons of gorgeous bridal options for under $100, ranging from summer-y maxi dresses to sleek form-fitting gowns to fit any type of wedding or elopement vibe. I don’t have an affiliate code or link to get you a discount quite yet, but honestly, you won’t need one with how cheap their dresses already are! Bonus to owning dresses: you can re-use them for styled shoots, or lend them to other photographer friends if they’re in need of one.
Business Operations
5. Dubsado
I’ve tested just about every CRM (Customer Relationship Manager) out there—Honeybook, 17hats, Studio Ninja. . . but Dubsado is by far the superior option in my book. The workflow automations, customization, and customer service are all out of this world in terms of managing my clients as a full-time business owner, not to mention in helping me create a seamless and professional experience for my clients themselves. If you invest in ANY type of resource as a new (or experienced!) business owner, it should be a CRM like this: one singular platform that has nearly every type of tool you’ll need in order to manage your clients, projects, contracts, invoices, questionnaires—and somehow that’s barely scratching the surface of what Dubsado has to offer!
With extremely customizable form templates, it’s easy to impress your clients and leads with professional contracts, branded proposals, and in-depth questionnaires. This also makes it incredibly easy for you, as the business owner, to collect important information from your clients and store it in an organized, personalized way. And with a seemingly endless array of automation options, you’re able to set up all sorts of workflows to make your backend process & front-facing client experience smooth from top to bottom, including appointment schedulers, automated email templates, payment plans, and so much more. Dubsado even has their own integrated payment system, powered by Stripe, to help you get paid as fast (and as much!) as possible.
Top features:
- Customizable form templates including contracts, questionnaires, lead captures, and proposals
- Online invoices
- Personalized automations and workflows
- Built-in scheduler
- Integrated payments through Dubsado Payments
- Customizable client portal
- Integrations with popular platforms such as Quickbooks, Xero, and Zapier
- Customer support 7 days/week
Free trial: 3 clients, no time limit
Pricing: Starting at $200/year for a starter plan
Start optimizing your client management workflows & systems using Dubsado now!
6. Lens Rentals
I don’t need to tell you how expensive photography gear is—we all know just how much we’ve paid for our multiple cameras, lenses, batteries. . . you get it. Which is why I always rent gear before I buy it to make sure it’s what I need, and what I love! I don’t know about you, but I don’t have the money to be spending on a new $2000 lens that I won’t actually end up using more than once or twice. Lens Rentals is cheaper than my local rental options, and have been super reliable and easy to use every time I’ve rented through them. All you have to do is pick out the gear you’d like to rent, choose a date to receive it, and send it back on the day your rental ends! They even send you the packing tape needed to return your gear, so that’s one less thing you need to do once you’re done using it.
No matter what camera brand you use, you’ve got a ton of gear options to choose from through Lens Rentals: Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fuji, Pentax, and even a few others I’ve never heard of. Their inventory is massive, featuring all sorts of camera bodies, lenses, lens mounts, and even accessories such as flashes, batteries, remotes, and tripods. I can’t recommend this company enough if you’ve been eyeing a new camera or lens, but want to get your hands on it to test it out before you commit and drop your credit card info.
Get 15% off your next rental with this link!
7. Adorama
Now when you ARE ready to make a big purchase and get some new gear, Adorama is the place to go. I always get my gear from Adorama because you can rack up points, reach VIP status really easily to get free 2-day shipping, and new equipment almost always comes with extra goodies. When you reach VIP Pro status, you even get access to a sales concierge service who can help you pick the right gear and make your purchase! Adorama’s bundles can also include camera bags, batteries, chargers, cleaning kits, or SD cards—for the same price as ordering a new camera body from an actual camera company’s website or Amazon. And one of the biggest perks of that VIP Pro status is that you get free extended returns in case your gear doesn’t work out, as well as a 1-year protection plan in case you accidentally damage your new gear. So much peace of mind!
Get free 2-day shipping on your next order of $49.99+ here!
8. Marcus
Money can be a really scary topic when you’re a business owner, and there’s a LOT of pressure that comes with relying on only yourself to bring in a consistent cash flow. One of my favorite (and one of the easiest) ways to maximize my income as a business owner is to put money into my high-yield savings account, instead of a traditional savings account! I personally have my HYSA through Marcus by Goldman Sachs, whose online savings account offers a rate 8x the national average with no minimum deposit, and zero fees. It’s incredibly convenient for me to access my account and manage my transactions from either their website or mobile app, plus I never have to worry about keeping a certain amount in my account in order to avoid any fees. This HYSA is literally free money and there’s no reason not to sign up!
Top features:
- APY 8x the national average
- No minimum deposit
- No account fees
- Convenient website and mobile app
- Same-day transfers to/from other banks
- 24/7 customer support
Earn an extra 1.00% on top of the (already competitive) 4.40% APY for your first 3 months when you open an account with this link.
Marketing Tools
9. Wandering Weddings
If you’re looking for a really lucrative way to get quality leads and build your online presence in the industry, I highly recommend joining Wandering Weddings! There are a ton of benefits to becoming a member including backlinks from a high-authority website (great for your SEO), the ability to submit content to their blog, social media feature opportunities, and exclusive partner discounts. You can also apply to be a featured vendor, which is by far the best way to get leads; as a featured vendor in WA and OR, I’ve gotten more than $40K in bookings through Wandering Weddings over the last 2 years. About 75% of the leads that come through Wandering Weddings go to their featured vendors, but even if you don’t become a featured vendor, the social media and SEO benefits you’ll get from being a member are more than worth the annual membership fee.
Top features:
- High authority backlinks for SEO
- Blog submissions
- Instagram and social media features
- Exclusive partner discounts
- Members-only Facebook group
- Personalized vendor listing
- Opportunity to become a featured vendor
Pricing: $200/year for membership; additional fee for limited featured spots
You can get 10% off your membership using the code “BXLUWVFYH8”!
10. SEO Blog Templates
Since we’re on the topic of SEO, the final resource on this list is Defy Creative Co’s collection of blog post templates! These templates are everything you’ll need in order to get started with blogging to improve your website’s SEO, and to position yourself as an expert in your industry + provide your clients with incredibly valuable resources. Every template is customized to a specific type of blog post for photographers (or other wedding vendors), and includes a huge variety of prompts so you know what to write, SEO tips, title examples, and bonus suggestions from an SEO expert. A couple of my personal favorites are the National Park Elopement Guide Template and the Elopement Gallery Blog Template!
Top features:
- Plug n’ play blog templates to fill in
- Prompts to help you get rid of that writer’s block
- SEO tips
- Loom video walkthrough
- Example blogs
- Sample blog outline
Pricing: $47 per template, or $37.60 with code “MARLA”
Use code “MARLA” at checkout to get 20% off your entire purchase!
I hope these resources and tools help you uplevel your business and elevate your client experience, whether that means finding a new CRM to use like Dubsado, or increasing your lead gen through a directory like Wandering Weddings. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions, as I’m happy to continue singing the praises of each of these business resources for photographers as long as I use them!