As you Edit

[comicIDIOT]

When you edit your photos, what do you look for? What rules have you taught yourself to follow in post-production? Different steps for different subjects?

I have two different methods to editing my photos: Landscape & Single Subject (Portraiture, Still Life, etc). In landscape I generally like everything to be in focus, correct colours and very little photoshop work. And you guys see this result more-often as landscape is my preferred field of photography.

Single Subject photos are a bit different. I work these quite a bit, trying to capture either complementary or a triad of colours - I follow the guide that I've attached but a better explanation can be read here. I generally try to capture the colours on camera but sometimes it's harder than it seems, so I'll brush in the colour later in Lightroom.

I'm hoping I can post a photo (outside facebook) from a recent glamour shoot I had with two friends of mine because I'm using Orange, Green & Purple colours - a Triad - to create a complete looking photo. The Orange is from the flesh tone and make-up, purple from their outfits and green was brushed in.

I didn't want to over-power my subjects with colour so my triad is subtle and the exposure bright, forcing the eyes to look at the subjects rather than the colour. The bright exposure adds less definition to the subjects curves and I add some false blur via the Orton Effect.

And in the end I have a very powerful and seductive photo
And hopefully I'll be able to publish an image to show you guys just how strong the turn out is!

Attachments:

[Saknika]

My big thing is focus. If it's not in focus, I trash it 99% of the time. And by trash, I mean that I mark it with a rejected flag and will burn it to disc anyways later. This is because I don't believe in getting rid of any photos. I may need them for something later. Like, perhaps I like the lighting, and can mimic it again, or the pose. Or the texture in the shirt might make for a good background helper somewhere else. I don't know, so I keep everything.

After that I look at composition. If it's composed well, I keep it. If it can be cropped to a good composition, I keep it. If neither can happen, it's removed from my choices.

Then I look at exposure. Can I save any hot spots and dark spots? If I can't do too much with it, and the extreme exposure doesn't work with the photo, it's gone.

The final thing I do is check colour, because often I do purposeful colour schemes in the set up. So I'm not as worried about colour as everything else 75% of the time.

[firequall]

I don't really follow any rules. The biggest thing that I go for is simply what looks most pleasing to my eye and if the image coincides with what I am trying to show in the image.

[comicIDIOT]

That works as well, some times a specific routine doesn't reach the desired affect for each photo, such as portraits in a landscape. Sometimes you want the background in detail, other times not.

[Accebera]

Sept 8, 2009 18:51:08 GMT -5 Saknika said:

My big thing is focus. If it's not in focus, I trash it 99% of the time.

The same goes for me. I'll tolerate a little over/under exposure from time to time, but if the subject of the photo is not in focus, I throw it out. No questions, 100% of the time. I just can't stand an out of focus picture. That's my biggest pet peeve. When I look at a photo, I want to see the subject, not some screwed up blurry version of it.

And if it turns out that all of the photos I've just taken are out of focus (even just a little bit), I delete them all and go shoot again.