Before and After ~ The Editing

Photography is a varied business, Yes you take the photograph with the clients.... but then there's the other two thirds of the job.... The edit and the finances/admin.  Editing takes time, care and attention to detail, it sculpts a regular photograph into something that shows you as a photographer, your brand, your style.  I do not outsource any editing as I believe that as a customer you are paying for me to take a photograph and to style it to my creative eye..... Photoshop and Lightroom can work wonders but you need to have a great shot in the first place to then just make that 'good' shot a 'great' photograph.

I want to share with you some before and after shots so you can see the editing details involved and get a glimpse into how much time and effort goes into the final product before you see it in you gallery.

Here is the Second edited photograph.... this is SOOC (Straight out of camera) shot in JPG on my Canon 5D MKii

Opening photoshop, firstly I decided to crop the photograph to square - so I could use it on social media sites more easily.

Within the levels (ctrl + L) I pull the midtone and whites to the left to take out the darker shadows.

Then I used the gradient tool and selected white as my foreground colour and added a gradient from the top left of the photograph to the start of the buds, this gives a hazy feel to the background.

I then added a little saturation (ctrl + U) to pump up the pinks.  This makes the blossom light and airy.

Before and After - The Edit

Photography is a varied business, Yes you take the photograph with the clients.... but then there's the other two thirds of the job.... The edit and the finances/admin.  Editing takes time, care and attention to detail, it sculpts a regular photograph into something that shows you as a photographer, your brand, your style.  I do not outsource any editing as I believe that as a customer you are paying for me to take a photograph and to style it to my creative eye..... Photoshop and Lightroom can work wonders but you need to have a great shot in the first place to then just make that 'good' shot a 'great' photograph.

I want to share with you some before and after shots so you can see the editing details involved and get a glimpse into how much time and effort goes into the final product before you see it in you gallery.

Over the following weeks I will show you various techniques I use and try and describe how I make the decisions on what to edit.

Here is the first one.... this is SOOC (Straight out of camera) shot in RAW on my Canon 5D MKii

  

Its Autumn so lets make it look like it!! 🍁 I have cropped the photograph so that the boys are central, cutting out the dark tree trunk on the left of the photograph.  I have brightened by using the exposure setting in Photoshop bridge before opening in photoshop.  Using a colour balance layer I deepen the red and yellows and paint back in the skin tone and outline of the boys to ensure that the colour balance does not distort their faces and clothes. This single edit will have taken around 10 minutes.

What do we think? Better?