The adventure started over a decade ago when I joined the professional photography world. I was fresh, new, learning, and figuring it all out. During my college years, I had the opportunity to learn all about color while making color prints in the darkroom. Anyone remember these? Digital photography created a unique challenge for photographers, unlimited editing options. When shooting with film there were basically only a few variables that could be used to determine the look of your images, primarily film selection and processing. Editing digital images led to many questionable looks in the beginning, anyone remember selective coloring?

I’ve worked in nearly every possible type of photography; everything from real estate to portraits to weddings and even youth sports photography. Yup, I’ve photographed many crying three year old future soccer legends. Regardless of the type of photography, editing was always important. A different approach is often taken with each type of photography because the goal of each type of photography is different. Real estate photography, let’s sell that house with HDR photography. Weddings, let’s make the couple look amazing and convey a mood.

I’ve edited professionally in one capacity or another for most of my professional career. I spent several years working as a full time real estate photo editor. The job provided a great opportunity to focus on efficiency and taught me to work on tight deadlines. Real estate agents want really quick turnarounds, especially in hot markets. The company I worked for edited homes all over the United States. Fun fact: I’ve edited images of quite a few celebrity homes, not going to name drop but here’s a clue for one of the houses.

In 2016, I accepted a full time position with From the Hip Photo as a photographer and photo editor. In the three years I worked with From the Hip Photo I photographed over 1,000 sessions and nearly 100 weddings. Of course, I didn’t just spend my days photographing, I spent about half of my time working as a photo editor. Not only did I edit many of my own sessions, I also edited the work of the other photographers on the team. Editing consistency becomes super important with multiple photographers shooting various types of sessions. This was a great learning experience in shooting and editing every possible situation imaginable. Trust me, I know what you’re going through as a photographer, I can totally relate.

In late 2017, my husband and I were eating dinner discussing different opportunities in the market (that is how he’d describe it). We started talking about photo editing and how it was work that I really enjoyed. We both knew there were already companies in the industry providing an outsourced photo editing service for photographers. I also knew there were criticisms about some of these companies, mainly inconsistent results. In fact, I had experienced this firsthand. My husband and I started thinking about how we could provide a better experience for photographers. We knew the only way this would work is if we were able to provide a truly export-ready edit for professional photographers. No sane photographer would want to pay for a service that was inferior to what was already out there. The problem was clear, photographers wanted to outsource their photo editing but didn’t want to sacrifice quality. My husband and I spent the next year plotting the best way to accomplish this. After much planning, I officially left my full time photography position at From the Hip Photo to start LUXEDIT. Since then I’ve had the great pleasure of working with professional photographers all over the United States. If you’re interested in working together, I would love to hear from you.

Why I Started a Private Photo Editing Business