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It was an overcast morning, so i added a little contrast and saturation. Also this is a panning shot so i added a bit of sharpness on to the boxes.
Editing photos was invented a week after the photograph itself was! Editing always has been and always will be an important part of the creative process of photography. The question is "How Much Editing Is Enough?"
This is a question i get asked often so i decided to make this tutorial. These photo are from a recent photography workshop i taught in Krungtep, Thailand ( Bangkok)
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It was an overcast morning, so i added a little contrast and saturation. Also this is a panning shot so i added a bit of sharpness on to the boxes. |
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Same overcast morning, added a little contrast and saturation. Also i added a little warmth to the woman's face. |
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This shot was indoor under drab lighting, so again i added a little contrast and warmth. This photo was taken at the wide end of the Sigma 10-20 Lens so i did something call distortion control in Capture NX. You see how the woman's head was a bit distorted in the before image? Distortion control in Capture NX "bends" the photo ( especially the edges) back into their normal appearances. The photo then requires a bit of cropping afterwards. |
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Another overcast morning & a little underexposed. So i lightened the photo, but it also lightened the shadows and left the photo very low contrast, so i added some contrast back, then a little color. Finally i added some sharpness on the Monitor lizard to show the scales better. |
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It was a sunny morning, but i spot metered to capture the shine on the golden robe. It captured what i wanted, but left the overall image underexposed. So i lightened the photo, which also lightened the shadows and left the photo low contrast, so i added some contrast back, then a little color. i used a slight distortion control on this photo as well. |
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This photo came out a bit over exposed, so i "burned" the background. i've also added some sharpness to the face. Finally a minor crop. |
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Here i started off with a crop to remove some dead space up top. Then i sharpened the face some because i took this with a 50mm 1.4 and the focus is very narrow. Finally some warmth as it was overcast. |
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This photo was taken on the shady side of a temple and i've just added a hint of contrast and color. My rule of thumb of how much saturation to add is to increase it till it looks good but natural, then take it down just a bit. |
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The Main problem with this was dust on my sensor. This is the only time i use photoshop, the clone tool is very effective at removing dust spots. Next i've cropped out a fair amount of the right of the image that i felt wasn't adding to the photo. Then i lighten the sky with a levels & curves adjustment. |
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The only editing i've done here is a minor crop to remove my student's shadow. |
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In Conclusion
These 3 days had alot of challenging lighting. There are many of my photos that i do no editing to at all. i like to do things right "in camera" whenever possible. Ultimately it saves time and results in better final images. All of these photos took about 60 seconds each to edit. If you are spending lots of time editing your photos i suggest you go back to the basics with some self-study or take a workshop to learn how to shoot it right "in camera".
Please check out other parts of idioimagers.org and Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments. Thanks for reading,
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