Image editing explained
It’s often said that getting great shots is only half the job. The remaining 50% of the time is spent enhancing the images before clients get to see them.
So why do photographers have to edit their images? The main reason is that professional photographers capture images in RAW format which is the direct image data but can look flat and desaturated straight out of camera. So unlike JPEGs which are compressed and processed, RAW images require some form of editing before they are supplied in the right format and colour space to clients for use online or in print.
On a practical level, images may need to be edited because the lighting conditions are poor and outside the photographers’ control so the editing process can improve the exposure and enhance the contrast and colour balance of the image. Also, we live in an imperfect world. There are marks on walls, dull skies, blemishes on the skin, the wrong bottles on display, and many more. As a general rule, I believe in leaving in these imperfections unless they have a detrimental effect on the overall look and purpose of the image.
Once the colours, exposure and contrast were fixed, the editing challenge with the above image was to clean up the tarmac on the path and road and the grass plus removing any unwanted distractions. Slide from left to right to see the before and after.
The above example shows basic levels of editing you can expect for portraits including colour correction and fixing exposure, contrast, highlights and shadows, plus vignetting to draw the viewer into the subject’s face. There is also now a host of AI-aided tools at our disposal where we can soften skin, brighten teeth and other facial adjustments but the emphasise here is on subtlety to make sure the picture still looks realistic. Slide from left to right to see the before and after.
On the subject of skies in exterior architectural photography, my starting point is always to try to improve the actual sky through adjusting the highlights/shadows and colour enhancement. But when faced with a dull or overly dark sky, it is sometimes necessary to replace it. My preference is to replace it with a brighter sky captured during the same shoot as it generally works better or, failing that, to use one from my own personal sky library that matches the lighting and mood.
Editing is an often misunderstood process. The tools that we have at our disposal such as Photoshop and Lightroom, are powerful and getting better all of the time. But the software doesn’t edit the images on its own. What we do - and not do - with the tools available is so important and puts a personal stamp on the images produced. My approach is to edit each and every image individually and not batch edit. The most basic form of editing involves correcting for exposure, contrast, highlights and shadows, clarity and saturation, then cropping and straightening, whilst also adding keywords, titles and captions to the metadata.
Advanced editing. From this starting point, images sometimes demand advanced levels of editing that can include object removal, repairing buildings or surfaces, skin softening and more. As is common in the photography industry, I charge by the project and/or shoot time and this includes basic editing which covers most eventualities. The basic editing process usually takes as long as the photoshoot itself, so four hours for a half-day shoot and so on. When needed, advanced editing is charged as an additional cost based on the extent of the work involved and the option is highlighted when the initial set of images are sent over.
Editing is also about what images are included or not. Most photography assignments are based on a specific brief and with an objective in mind, like accompanying a news story, social media post or web page. Unless a specified amount of images are part of the client brief, I provide my clients with all of the images taken with the exception of duplicates and outtakes, which can include blurry images, unflattering poses/expressions or something unwanted dominating the frame. This gives the client the best possible choice to be able to select from.
By shooting in RAW and using the HDR bracketing process for the above image, I had enough information to be able to pull back the harsh shadows and recover the highlights so the image looks more balanced. A similar effect can be achieved in Photoshop by manually compositing layers. Slide from left to right to see the before and after.