Why we built CoreHue
After over a decade behind the camera and six years writing software, I got tired of running a photography business across different tools. So we built one.
On this page
Most photographers I talk to aren't short on talent or clients. They're tired of the admin.
Galleries on Pixieset. Bookings on HoneyBook. A website somewhere else. Client files over WeTransfer. Invoices in Wave or FreshBooks. Contracts in DocuSign. That's six subscriptions and six logins for one business, and they never quite connect. A lead fills in your contact form, and you copy their details into your booking tool, then your invoicing software, then their gallery. Same name, typed four times.
I started CoreHue because I didn't think it had to be that way.
Who's writing this
I picked up my first camera in 2015. By 2021 I was shooting weddings professionally, and I still am. Somewhere along the way I also became a software engineer, six years and counting. So I know what it's like to be exporting a gallery at one in the morning, the night before a couple lands back from their honeymoon. I also know what it takes to make all that paperwork talk to each other.
Most photography software is built by engineers who have never sat through a six-hour wedding edit. The tools built by photographers often stop at what their founder needed. I've tried to build from the middle of those two, and CoreHue is what came out.
Most photography software is built by engineers who have never sat through a six-hour wedding edit.
Galleries first, because delivery is the moment
Delivery is when your client decides how they feel about your work. You can polish the booking, the contract and the invoice, but if the gallery feels like a stock template, your work starts to feel like one too.
So galleries came first. CoreHue galleries have chapters, so a couple can jump straight to the ceremony without scrolling past four hundred getting-ready frames. There are 14 cover layouts, 14 typography sets and 9 color palettes, because a luxury editorial photographer and a warm documentary family photographer shouldn't be handing their clients the same gallery.
Your client gets client access, a private password that shows them everything, including chapters you've kept just for them, while guests see the rest. Bulk download works on a phone too, not just on a laptop with fast wifi. And activity tracking shows you who viewed, who downloaded, and who's been quietly collecting favorites without saying a word.
Then a booking page that feels like yours
Bookings came next. Services with add-on pricing built in, so you're not faking it with "options". A booking page that carries your brand and can live on your own address. Inquiries that land in your CoreHue inbox. Google Calendar sync, automatic reminders, and mini-session pages for the days you batch eight twenty-minute slots back to back.
You can take inquiries, let clients book themselves, or do both depending on the work. Either way, each booking is already attached to a client record, ready for the contract and invoice, with nothing to retype.
6 → 1
tools to one platform
That's the math we keep coming back to: six subscriptions and six passwords, replaced by one.
Then the paperwork, finally connected
Next came the studio side. Contracts with e-signatures, with templates that fill in the client's name, the booking date and the deliverables for you. Invoices with Stripe payments, including deposits and payment schedules, with the money going to your own Stripe account, not ours. Questionnaires that can go out automatically when a booking is confirmed.
On the inquiry side, there are proposals: one link where a lead can accept your offer, sign the contract and pay. It's what I wanted back when I was sending three separate emails and hoping nothing got lost.
All of it connects to one client record. So when a couple writes back two years later asking for the high-res of one photo, you won't be searching three apps for it.
What's still coming
We're not done. CoreHue doesn't build portfolio websites yet, so for now you link your services page from the site you already have. A website builder is in the works, so your portfolio can live alongside your galleries, bookings and clients.
Even today, CoreHue replaces most of the stack photographers are paying for, without asking you to learn six products to do one job.
If this sounds familiar
If you've been stitching tools together and hoping nothing falls through the gaps, this is for you. If you've ever typed the same client's name, email and wedding date into four platforms in one afternoon, this is for you too.
I'm still a working photographer, and I'll still be shooting weddings this season. CoreHue is the tool I spent years waiting for. Now it's here.
