Photo Editing Fundamentals You Need To Know
Photo editing can be complex. There is no correct or best way to edit a photo. You can achieve the same result using different methods. Also there is no correct editing style either as it’s all personal preference. Of course there is definitely a level below which we can all agree a photo is over edited. Each year Lightroom is getting more features and now more than ever there are tons of different photo editing apps out there. No wonder this seems like a minefield.
In this blog I will share with you six photo editing fundamentals that will give you a solid foundation from which to progress. This is not a how to make moody cinematic edit blog. Instead the following tips will make sure you have the best possible start to your editing.
Get It Right In Camera
Before we start it’s important that we have a good image to work with. A photo that has been taken well, in good light with good composition and reasonable settings will require far less time to edit compared to an image that has none or few of the mentioned qualities. I know this sounds a little vulgar but it’s true… you can’t polish a turd. Don’t expect editing to fix a poorly exposed, badly lit, badly composed or generally a bad image. Another way to put it is to think of editing like cleaning a car. You could spend a whole day detailing a car and make it look showroom fresh. However if the chassis is rusted through and will crack over the first speed bump, then it’s fundamentally useless. You want to make sure the the structure is solid before doing any finishing touches. Same with editing. Make sure you have a solid image to start with.
Set Correct Exposure & White Balance
The first step is to set the correct exposure and white balance. In some scenarios one or both of these will not be optimal. If you start editing your shadows, highlights and so on using an under exposed image, you will sooner or later run into issues. You will most likely increase your shadows too much and introduce unnecessary noise. Or you will eventually increase the exposure only to find that you need to go back and re-edit everything again. Same with white balance. There is no point colour grading an image that does not have to correct white balance. It just means that you will only have to start over or patch things up later in the process.
Geometry & Crop
The next step is to make any geometrical changes. By that I mean making sure all the vertical and horizontal lines are straight. This is not necessary however if you want to do it, then it has to be before the cropping as it can change the overall composition of the image. Once done, the next step is to crop as desired. Cropping before any further editing is important as it is easier to edit to the final composition. Composition can impact some editing choices so it’s best to set it at the start.
Apply The Biggest Effect First
You want to make sure that you apply the biggest, most creative, most stylistic and most noticeable effect first. Only then would you go about making small changes to sell that effect. Big effects could be presets, black and white conversions, lighting changes, heavy colour grades and heavy contrast changes. If you start editing your photo using various tools and then decide that actually you want to make it black and white, well you might have just wasted your time as almost everything will have to be redone. Another way to explain it is to imagine that a glass is your photo, an apple is your biggest edit and the water is your small edits. If you fill your glass with water and then place the apple in, a bunch of water will spill out, create a mess and require more time to put right. However if you first put the apple in the glass and then simply top up the water to the desired level, things are cleaner and more efficient. So do your biggest edits first and then you can make a bunch of smaller edits to sell the look and complete the image.
Work With The photo, Not Against It
I will write a whole blog on this topic as there is more to unpack however for today will keep it brief. Try to not work against the photo by forcing something that is not there. It is all too easy to remember how amazing the location was or how you felt at the time and try to convey that in the edit. However the final photo is what it is whether through your fault or not. So rather than forcing the photo to be something it can’t, instead work with what you have. For example if you have a low contrast midday scene, there is no point forcing it to be high contrast because you like high contrast photos. Equally if you remember the sunrise being warm, yet in the image it is a little cooler, don’t try to force that into the edit. Of course if the image looks good warmed up, go ahead. However if the file clearly doesn’t respond well to that adjustment, then perhaps just work with the cooler tones instead.
The Histogram Does Not Need To Be In The Middle
I think this advice is slowly fading away but I still see it from time to time. The histogram does not need to be in the middle to have a “correct exposure”. In many cases photos look best with the histogram pushed to the left or right, meaning over or under exposed. A histogram is nothing more than a tool to show you where your exposure is sitting based on objective data. It does not have a sense of whether the image looks good or not. Editing using the histogram is like driving a car using only the sat nav. If the sat nav tells you to drive straight yet the road is flooded, of course you will over ride it and take a different route. Actually I say that but the number of pillocks that end up stuck in fields because of sat navs still amazes me. Point is, the histogram does not dictate how to expose your photo. That’s what your eyes are for.
Less Is More
Last but not least just because Lightroom has a ton of sliders and adjustments, it doesn’t mean you need to fuck around with every single one of them. Equally just because you can colour grade your photo, it doesn’t mean your photo needs it. Of course a big caveat to this is that we need to mess around and adjust every single thing to learn. However for the final edit, try to keep things simple and clean. Less is more.
