Your galleries live and die on things most wedding editors rarely deal with: a lake colour that looks unreal on a laptop screen, peaks lit bright behind a couple standing in shade, snow that goes grey, and wind across every vow in the film. Add a summer of back-to-back elopements and a winter season after it, and editing becomes the part of the job that never ends.
This guide is for photographers and filmmakers who shoot in Banff, Canmore, Lake Louise, Yoho, Jasper and the wider Rockies, and want to know how outsourced editing handles mountain work.
Mountain and lake grading
The hard part of a Rockies gallery is range. Bright sky, snow on the peaks and glacial water in the same frame as faces in valley shadow.
How we approach it:
- Faces first. Exposure set for the couple, because they are why the frame exists.
- Then the sky and peaks, recovered with highlights and a sky or linear mask rather than pulling the whole frame down.
- Shadows lifted gently, with a little midtone contrast added back so the landscape doesn’t go flat.
- Water treated on its own. Lake Louise, Moraine and Peyto have a real blue-green colour that is easy to overdo. We adjust aqua and blue hue, saturation and luminance separately, and check against frames shot in neutral light.
- Skin warmed locally against cool rock, water and sky, so the whole frame doesn’t go orange.
We keep it to the colour the couple remember from standing there. We don’t swap skies unless you ask for it, since many elopement photographers would rather keep the real one.
Our mountain meadow wedding film is graded so the peaks and greens stay true to the day.
Winter elopements
The Rockies don’t stop in winter, and winter galleries bring their own editing problems:
- Grey snow. Camera meters aim for mid-grey, so bright snow comes out darker than it was. We lift exposure until the snow is white with texture, then pull highlights back where it clips.
- Blue casts. Overcast skies and open shade turn snow blue. We set white balance for skin first, then take blue out of the snow with HSL or a mask.
- White dress, dark coat, white background. The dress is protected with its own mask so lace keeps its detail against the snow.
- Frozen lakes and ice. Shiny ice reflects the sky and can read as blue-grey or green. Treated like water: on its own, against a neutral reference.
- Wind on the audio. Outdoor winter vows almost always need cleaning for the film.
There is more on this in our post on editing winter weddings in snow.
Parks Canada permits and the drone question
Banff (including Lake Louise and Moraine Lake), Yoho and Jasper are national parks, and Parks Canada has its own rules for commercial work. What the official pages say, as of this writing:
- Business licence. Parks Canada’s film and photo guidelines for the mountain parks treat wedding photography and videography as an activity that needs a business licence, with a service standard of 15 business days to process an application.
- Ceremonies. The Banff permits page says ceremonies need a Special Event Licence.
- Drones. The Banff permits page says drone use is prohibited, while the mountain parks film guidelines describe a two-permit path for aerial filming. The official pages don’t agree, so we don’t tell anyone what they can fly. Ask Parks Canada directly before you plan aerial footage in a national park.
Canmore sits outside the national park boundary. We haven’t checked the rules for Canmore or the provincial parks around it, so check those separately.
Our Highlight film includes drone footage, and we also offer a Drone-only edit. For work in a national park, read both as drone footage you were permitted to fly.
No drone? The film still works. Wide lenses from a lookout, slow gimbal moves along the shore, small figures against big peaks and plenty of natural sound carry scale without any aerials. Tell us in the brief and we cut around what you shot.
For a deeper look at the edit and the permits, read our post on Banff and Lake Louise elopements.
Elopement-size packages in CAD
Most elopements are smaller than a full wedding day, so the smaller packages often fit. All prices are fixed in Canadian dollars.
| Package | What you get | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Engagement gallery | 100–200 images from up to 1,000 raws, Lightroom catalogue, 2 revisions | C$70 |
| Wedding gallery | 300–500 images from up to 3,000 raws, Lightroom catalogue, up to 3 revisions | C$110 |
| Highlight film | 5–8 minutes, 1–3 cameras plus drone, project file, 2 revisions | C$140 |
| Essential | Wedding gallery plus Highlight film, one grade across both | C$205 |
| Social reels (add-on) | Three 9:16 cuts for Instagram and TikTok | C$55 |
| Drone-only edit (add-on) | A short aerial film, from drone footage you were permitted to fly | C$40 |
The Engagement gallery is a good fit for a small elopement with just the couple. If family came along, or you shot from getting ready to a dinner, the Wedding gallery gives you more room. Elopement couples often want something to post right away, which is what the Social reels add-on is for.
Standard turnaround is seven business days from the point your link works and the brief is complete, with weekends and Canadian public holidays not counted. Rush is 72 hours for +50% on the whole order. If you send five projects a month through the summer, the retainer takes 15% off.
Summer and winter seasons
Rockies photographers often have two seasons rather than one. Summer weddings and elopements run through the June to October rush, when lakes are open and trails are clear. Then winter brings a second wave of snowy elopements and engagement sessions.
That pattern suits outsourcing in a specific way. In summer, you can send the full galleries and keep only your sneak peeks in-house. In winter, when volume drops, you may want to edit more yourself and send only the films. Nothing is locked in: book single projects when you need them, or use the retainer (five projects a month at 15% off) for your busiest months only.
Working across the time difference
Banff and Canmore are on Mountain Time, 11 hours behind Pakistan in summer and 12 in winter. Our editing team works 24 hours a day, in shifts, so a project you send in the evening is picked up soon after it arrives, and questions about the brief can come back at any hour. Delivery is still seven business days, not overnight.
What makes the handoff work:
- Your preset and three edited frames, ideally including a lake scene and a shaded portrait.
- A note on drone footage: what you shot and where, or that there isn’t any.
- Must-have shots: the hike-in, the ring, the view they chose.
- A link to your own storage. Your raws stay in your Dropbox, Google Drive, WeTransfer, pCloud or Box. We download working copies and delete them once the project and revisions are finished, unless you ask us to keep them.
More on the handoff is in our post on working with an editing team in Pakistan.
Send your next elopement free
- Your first Gallery project or Highlight film is free, edited and delivered like a paid one. Start the free trial, with no card.
- See every package in CAD on packages, and finished work in our work.
- See the shoot types we take on in what we edit, and how each day of a project runs on how it works.
- Other questions are in the FAQ.