7 Essential tools you need as a photographer in 2024!
If you’re starting up a photography business and are trying to find the most essential tools for photographers in 2024, you’re in the right place!
Here are links (and some discounts) to my favourite programs and tools that I use regularly to run my business smoothly and professionally as a lifestyle photographer. Let’s get into it.
- CRM – Honeybook
- Online Gallery – Cloudspot
- Website – Showit
- Digital Designer – Canva
- Editor – Lightroom Classic & Imagen AI
- Print Labs – Dekora
Essential tool for photographers #1: Client Relations Management – Honeybook
First things first, you need a program for your client relationship management. No more of those paper contracts that you have to send back and forth. No more losing emails in the middle of tons of other email threads. The program I use to manage my projects is called Honeybook.
Honeybook allows you to create a client pipeline that shows you what booking stage your projects are in at any time. It also allows you to set up robust automations, schedule photoshoots and meetings as well as send emails, questionnaires and guides. And of course, you can also send secure digital contracts and invoices.
All this in one program! See why it’s so high on my list of essential tools for photographers? ;)
Seriously, I use this program in my business EVERY SINGLE workday. If you would like to give Honeybook a shot, here’s a 25% discount off your first year with them. Once you try it out you’ll wonder how you ever did without it.
Expect a bit of a learning curve right at the start because they have so many features. The user interface is so easy to use and you’ll get a hang of it quickly.
P.s They also have an amazing support team that is so helpful with getting your account and files all set up and ready to use as quickly as possible.
Tool #2: Photo Editing – Lightroom Classic
If you’re going to be a photographer, you need an editing software. And I’m on team Lightroom Classic ALL THE WAY! I find Lightroom Classic to be way easier to use than Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw. If you’re wondering about the difference between Lightroom Classic and Lightroom CC, you can find more information about it on Adobe’s website but here’s the short form.
Lightroom Classic allows you to create different catalogues for each project which helps with organization. This also allows you to edit off your external hard drives and save your edit history elsewhere than in the actual program.
Lightroom CC on the other hand, stores all your photos and edit history on a cloud. This is great for people who want to edit on their phones and do a smaller amount of photos.
For me editing hundreds and thousands of photos very regularly, it would slow Lightroom CC down way too much to have ALL my photos saved on the cloud. So I go with Lightroom Classic.
Tool #3: Photo Editing – Imagen AI
Moving on to when you have a large number of clients and want to ensure they all get their photos delivered in a timely manner. Imagen AI has quickly become an essential tool for photographers in 2024.
Imagen AI is an AI editing program where you upload 3000 images that are fully edited in your style (you upload the photos in their Lightroom catalogue), and the AI learns your editing style. From there, you can upload unedited catalogs and Imagen does the heavy lifting.
Here’s how I’ve used it: I upload my culled gallery into Imagen AI and let it apply my base edit to all the photos. Then I download the edits and make adjustments to fine-tune every photo. A great thing about this is that once you finish with a gallery, you can re-upload it and Imagen will learn from the changes you made and do better next time!
Speed up your turnaround time by handing over the tedious task, while still doing the creative fine-tuning of your editing to make sure every photo has your personal touch!
Get 1500 free edits by SIGNING UP HERE! (no credit card is required so you literally can’t lose!)
Essential tool for photographers #4: Online Gallery – CloudSpot
An online gallery is crucial to the success of your photography business. You don’t want to be making folders on Google Drive and sharing them with clients (like I did at the start… YIKES)! It’s not professional, beautiful or user-friendly for you and your clients!
This is where Cloudspot comes in!
CloudSpot is a beautiful online gallery that looks professional and is cost-effective. To put it in perspective, I’ve used some other online galleries and Cloudspot is ultimately the one I’ve stuck with as they have all the amazing features the other programs do, but for a lower cost. As photographers who already have a bunch of monthly subscriptions to keep our businesses up and running, this is a huge win!
The amazing people over at Cloudspot are also in the process of adding a CRM to the program at no additional cost. If you are located in the USA, it’s already up and running for you to use. Use my affiliate link to get 20% off your first monthly or annual plan when you sign up HERE.
Try it, you’re going to love it!
#5: Photography Friendly Website – ShowIt
This stunning website is made in ShowIt. And if you ask me, they are the only website builder you ever need as a photographer! They make SEO easy by dealing with the coding side of things and make designing easy by giving you complete freedom to do whatever you dream of for your site!
ShowIt allows you to drag and drop your photos and text wherever you like.
You’re not limited to the blocks that many other website builders use and you don’t have to know a thing about coding.
Click here if you’d like to try it free for a month and see what the hype is all about!
While you’re there, check out their many beautiful website templates!
#6: Heirloom Albums – Dekora
If you are looking to offer heirloom albums to your clients, Dekora is a Canadian professional print lab that hand-makes the beautiful heirloom albums my clients get. These albums are nothing like the flimsy, cheap, consumer-grade albums everyone has access to. They really are heirlooms – meant to be passed on to your children and grandchildren. Simply put, they’re amazing. Dekora also has a wonderful support team that makes it really easy to start working with them.
Keep in mind that Dekora only works with photography businesses and doesn’t sell albums to individuals. When signing up to work with them, you will need to provide proof that you are a professional photographer. They verify that you’re a legitimate photography business before you get access to their store.
I don’t have an affiliate link and get nothing from referring you to them but I love them and think you will too!
#7: Digital Designer – Canva
There’s a reason Canva makes it onto my list of essential tools for photographers. It’s the digital design program that I use for pretty much everything!
From PDF guides to Instagram stories and posts, there are so many things in my business that I couldn’t do without Canva.
One of the best parts, you don’t have to pay to try it! They have a free account that you can start with until you know for sure that it’s worth the upgrade to the premium account.
If you notice there are any essential tools for photographers that I missed, don’t hesitate to reach out! I might even have a discount code and have forgotten to add it here. :)
*The links with a discount are affiliate links*
