Wednesday, December 12, 2012

The Importance of Editing

Well, friends, I haven't posted about editing in a while and I thought I'd show you a couple before and afters since I'm feeling extra brave today. I was talking about editing this morning with one of my friends and we were discussing how it can be a timely process. I am not a fan of spending hours on editing but because I try to master lighting, I usually don't have to. I do want to make sure the photo looks good, though. There's no use delivering non-edited or terribly edited images to a client so if the photo isn't good in camera, I usually don't even edit it or deliver it. Why would I? I'm showing the best of the best. So I spend about three to five minutes on each photo (for portrait sessions, that is; for weddings, I don't have that luxury) and actually, because I shoot in similar lighting a lot, once I edit my first picture, I usually can copy those setting over to the next set.

My editing is pretty simple. I shoot in RAW so I always have to bring contrast and color back in. In Lightroom 4, I bump my contrast and my vibrance a bit (and saturation as well, depending on the photo). Then I usually turn up the blacks a touch, turn the highlights down if the background is too blown out, adjust white balance (usually warmer rather than colder but it's a careful balance), crop (if needed), and last but not least I almost always dodge and burn. It's important to highlight the subject and dodging and burning is just my way of doing that. With all of this being said, I share this because it shows that everyone has to edit and no one has a perfect image ready to deliver in camera. But I also share this because it took me a while to discover my editing style and it changes slightly every session I edit. There's nothing wrong with being overwhelmed when it comes to editing. I highly recommend making a Pinterest board of a bunch of images you love and dissecting why you love them. It will help you figure out what you like about an image, why you like it, and how you can duplicate that editing in your photos.

And finally, here are some before and afters from Elise's lovely session, one of my favorites. Hopefully it's obvious the photos on the left are straight out of camera and the ones on the right are edited.






5 comments:

  1. I love these! I too, always edit my pictures. but I do my best to shoot them in the best lighting settings. thanks for sharing this! also, I have Lightroom 4 (since very recently) and was wondering what you meant buy copying one setting to the next picture.. I'm a bit confused. xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Natalia, there are copy and paste buttons in the left corner when you're in the Develop tab. You just click copy when the edited photo is highlighted and you can choose what things you want to copy over when the box pops up. Then you click on the next photo and paste the settings!

      Delete
  2. LIGHTROOM 4.. Oh yes I'm wanting it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I Meridith! Thanks for the comment on my post. Your blog is really adorable and I love getting photography tips from real professionals. I'm definitely just learning as I go, but love to experiment with it. (Sidenote: do you happen to have a brother named Webb?) Thanks again,
    Hugs,
    Andi

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Andi!!! You're very welcome! I'm definitely no professional, though! I'm pretty new with photography and I learn new things everyday! :) And yes, Webb is my brother!! I don't even know how I found your blog; that's crazy that you know my brother!

      Delete