I use the phrase editing to describe the finishing process I do on my photographs.  There is an aspect of sorting and choosing that goes on, so in that way it is editing.  I might only work with 10% of the photos I took on a particular outing (I try and keep it over 7.5% but 10 is my goal).  Then after I pick my 10% of photos I like then I start tweaking.  This I don’t know if you would technically call editing.  So let us take a look at what a selected photo might look like before I start tweaking it.

What the camera saw

Next up we have the basic edits I usually do, this includes reclaiming some highlight detail (bringing the bright areas that are close to white back into a more colorful area, mostly used on the skies), adding some definition (basically makes things look sharper and more defined), raising the black point (makes the dark more intense and the photo look richer, however with details in the shawdow areas this can be a bad thing), adding some vibrancy (makes the non skin tones in the photo look richer and stronger) and then I usually add a vignette to the photo (darkens the edges, I over do this a lot but I enjoy the look of it so much.  Later I imagine I will return to the photos I used it on and think it looks teribble.).

The basic edits

Some photos though seem to me like the need a little more, I might do this on 10% of the photos in step two.  Photos that have potential but need something extra.  In this example I brought more details to the shadow areas, made the sky much bluer, made the greens brighter and made the vignette even stronger.

The finished photo

So that is what editing a photo involves.  The photo may look drastically different, but I didn’t add or subtract anything.  All the same basic information is there, I just changed how it was interpreted.  I think of it being like the Tao Te Ching, the different translations are mostly all the same book, but the words are very different.

Tags: brightness, Color, editing, images, Photography