SW Photography

I’ve been getting a few questions lately on how I edit my photos and what my process it.  So, I figured I share here how I process images.    But first a little history….

Back in the day, you’d send your roll of film off to a lab and you would get the images back completely processed.  What this means is that the lab would color correct and white balance correct the images.  However now with digital, we do all that on a computer.  So while digital has been easier for the masses, it has also become more difficult for professional photographers.  We now have taken on the task of color correcting and white balancing the photos that used to previously belong to the lab.  We could choose to outsource this to task to a photo editing house and I know a lot of photographers do, however it adds to the expense of running the business.

So, how do I work?  Well, first and foremost I try to always get it right ‘in camera’.  Do I always succeed?  Of course not, I’m human.  So when I am done with a shoot, I download the photos to my computer, then upload them to my editing software.  I use Lightroom for any of the software junkies reading.  In Lightroom, I am able to tweak exposures, white balance and contrast until I am happy with the files.  These are now my proofs for the wedding or portrait session.  I do no major edits on the proofs. 

For a client that orders an album or a large wall print/collage, I do additional editing in Photoshop for these photos.  I will enhance the colors, do some skin smoothing, take out background annoyances and make the eyes pop a little.  However, what I do not do is make the photos look like someone else.  It is still you!

So, what do I put on my blog?  I only post images that are just color corrected.  I want you to see what a majority of your images, your proofs will look like.  I could only add Photoshoped enhanced images to my blog, for the WOW factor, however I do not think that would be a good representation of what your final product will look like.  In my next post, I will post some pictures that are straight out of camera images, color corrected images and fully enhanced images so you can see the difference.

Hope this was helpful!!