Steph Powell Creative | Georgia Wedding Photographer + Website Designer

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tools/software I use in my photography and website business

As a multi-passionate small biz owner, I rely heavily on various tools and software to help make my work life a little easier streamline my workflow! In this blog, I’ll be sharing a handful of my MUST-HAVE tools for my wedding photography and website design business! will discuss four of my go-to tools and how they benefit my business.

Narrative Select

When it comes to culling, Narrative Select absolutely changed the game for me! Y’all know AI is all the rage right now and Narrative Select uses AI to help determine which photos are the best from a session. It detects smiles, eyes closed and rates images based on focus. By far my favorite feature is the face and eye detection - especially for those large family photos on a wedding day! Not going to lie was a bit apprehensive on changing things up, but Narrative Select makes culling so much easier and so much faster and I couldn’t recommend it more.

My referral code for Narrative Select is HERE

Lightroom Classic

This one kind of goes without saying by Lightroom Classic is my BABY. The most important word here is CLASSIC. There are two different versions of Lightroom out there and if you re wanting to take your editing to the next level, you definitely want to make sure you’re editing in Lightroom Classic. It has a wide range of tools like AI Masking (there’s that word again), HSL sliders, spot removal tools, and so much more that allows me to fine-tune my images and create my unique style. Lightroom also has a direct integration with my gallery delivery system (Pixieset) where I can export photos directly to my delivery software!

Adobe XD

On the website design side of things, Adobe XD is where the magic starts. Before I take my website into development, I design out the entire website in XD. The best part about designing a site first outside of a website platform like Squarespace, Showit, and Wix, is so that we make all design decisions concrete before having to implement custom code to develop the site. It’s super user friendly and clients can also leave direct comments on designs during the revision phases of a project! I also design my custom website design proposals.

Dubsado

If there’s one software I will scream about from the rooftop, hands downs, it’s Dubsado. Dubsado is my all-in-one, one-stop-shop CRM and project management software that literally changed how I run my business in the best way possible. It allows me to keep track of all my clients' information, send contracts and invoices, pricing guides, questionnaires, and has a great scheduling tool where my clients can snag a spot on my calendar for a call. The best part is the automation - when you start utlizing the automated features, Dubsado acts like a VA - it can send out all your emails on its own if you allow it OR if you’re like me, you can have your final stamp of approval on an email template before it goes out. The entire platform is highly customizable which makes me so happy cause I can make things super branded and custom to my business. Even without using the automations, Dubsado (or any CRM) is a MUST if you run a small business.

My referral code for Dubsado is HERE!

If you have questions about any of these tools, hit me up and let’s chat! I LOVE talking about this kind of nerdy stuff with other creative business owners!!