How I transformed my wedding photography portfolio and landed dream clients
Edited using Old Hollywood by Faye Wilde Presets
Your photography portfolio is a window to your brand. It reflects your passion, skill, and dedication to do your clients and craft. Done well, it can attract dream couples and lead to lucrative opportunities. However, inconsistent quality, a lack of cohesion, and unprofessional presentation can turn potential clients away.
So, what makes a strong wedding photography portfolio, and how do you build one?
Presets are one of the best ways to create consistency and build confidence in your portfolio (that’s why I spent two years developing my own!)
In this blog, I'll explain why presets have improved the quality of my photography and increased my work efficiency, helping me maintain a high level of service—even during the busy wedding season.
Edited using Nostalgia by Faye Wilde Presets
What is a preset, and how do they streamline the editing process?
A preset is a pre-defined set of editing adjustments (exposure, contrast, colour balance and saturation) applied to a photograph to achieve a certain look and feel. Presets streamline the editing process by allowing you to apply consistent edits to multiple images at the same time.
After applying the preset, you will still need to make minor adjustments to suit different moods, emotions, and lighting conditions (as well as Photoshop out unsightly fire exit signs). But the base tones will stay the same, giving you a curated and consistent portfolio with just a few clicks.
Edited using Soul Food by Faye Wilde Presets
What are the benefits of using a preset?
The main benefit of using presets is creating consistency in your work. Consistency helps build trust with potential couples, demonstrating your ability to produce high-quality imagery in any setting. But there are other benefits, too.
Weddings are deeply emotional events. Every detail has been meticulously chosen to reflect the couple’s unique style and personality. Presets respect the integrity of these choices by enhancing the colours, details, and emotion without overediting them, whether it’s the colour of the bridesmaid dresses or the delicate hues of flowers. Couples invest so much time, money, and energy into curating the palette for their day—it’s our job to document this as they intended.
The ultimate goal is for people to know it’s your work before they see your name. Presets play a key role in establishing brand identity by giving each image the same aesthetic that reflects your unique style. Potential clients will often follow photographers for quite a while before they reach out. I’ve found that consistently delivering high-quality images that reflect my brand has led to more enquiries – and it can for you, too.
Starting with a base preset, I can quickly fine-tune each image depending on the mood, skin tone, and lighting. I deliver all galleries within six weeks of the wedding day—even during peak wedding season. This level of output, quality, and consistency would not be possible without my presets.
My presets have been an invaluable tool for me
I have managed my workflow to a high standard and built a beautiful, consistent, and curated portfolio that attracts my dream couples and weddings around the world. I spent two years developing my set of five presets for weddings, maternity and newborn shoots, and lifestyle shoots across all camera bodies: Nikon, Sony, Fuji, and Canon. There is a preset for every type of light, whether editing flash, daylight, cloud cover, or harsh sunlight. They’ve also been tested on all skin tones. The more you maintain the integrity of the image, the better it will age.
Choosing which preset to use
Each preset has its own personality and will be better suited to certain situations. It’s important to note that presets do not fix poor-quality images, and achieving the best results requires a good understanding of your camera, lighting and consistent editing in different environments.
My go-to preset for most photos with realistic colours and soft and creamy skin tones is Soul Food. It balances skin tones while enhancing colours like pinks, reds, blues, and greens without excessive saturation.
Soft touch is a diluted version of soul food. It’s a minimalist, low-contrast preset developed for extreme light conditions.
An earthy preset reminiscent of analogue film, perfect for adding extra emotion and nostalgia to your images.
My favourite black and white preset for capturing chic and tender moments, especially when editing images shot with flash in the evening or really harsh light.
Another nostalgic black-and-white preset evokes the timeless elegance of analogue film. Both black-and-white presets are designed to enhance the emotion in images, particularly when editing images shot with flash in the evening or really harsh light.
Using presets will help you achieve consistency in your portfolio, preserve the emotion of the wedding day, strengthen your brand identity and streamline your workflow.
All five of my editorial-style presets are available to purchase here.