Image Editing - an overview

Why is editing so important?
I spend more time editing than actually taking pictures. In an ideal world images would make perfect prints straight from the camera, but in reality this rarely happens. There are so many reasons why an image may require some "correction" to produce a high quality print that I will just try to explain two of the most common ones - "blinking eyes" and contrasty lighting.

Why do I take so many photos?
Everyone blinks naturally, but some people do it more than others, particularly when they are being photographed using flash. The more people there are in a group photo, the more likely it is that one person will blink or look away just at the wrong moment. In the top example both bride and groom blinked at the same time. Fortunately, this is easy to fix providing the photographer has got at least one good shot of each person. People sometimes ask me why I take so many shots of the same pose!!!

Why do the faces look dark and the sky too light?
Everyone wants a bright sunny day for their wedding but this can make it quite difficult to capture all the tones from white dresses in bright sunlight to dark suits in deep shadows. When all these tones are compressed into an image, detail can get lost in either the highlight or shadow areas. The camera records the relative brightness of each part of a scene far more starkly than you actually see it.

In the middle photo harsh sunlight has caused loss of detail on the flowers, the top of the veil and bride's right arm. Also both faces are in shadow and will appear too dark in a print made without any editing. In the bottom example, parts of the men's faces are in shadow but the dramatic clouds in the background have been lost because they are so much brighter than the foreground.

Why do I charge several £s for a print when a machine print costs only 40p?
With a machine print you can brighten the faces but this will only make the highlight areas even lighter. The "flaws" in all three examples can only be fixed by selective editing on parts of the image or by combining two or more images to get the best out of each one. This requires specialist software plus skill and experience, and of course this takes much more time than making a machine print.

How much editing is included if I purchase the copyright?
I shoot every assignment in "Raw" files which capture the maximum detail. These are edited and converted to smaller "Jpg" files that you can purchase. This involves a) discarding unwanted images; b) improving composition; c) adjusting colour, tones and sharpness ; d) fixing obvious “flaws” such as blinking eyes.Too much editing at this stage is bad as original data captured in the "Raw" file is lost, so more "selective" editing is needed later when making prints. If you buy the copyright for images you aready purchased as prints or in an album, you can have the Jpg files with this extra editing included.

Can I have the original Raw files?
Yes, if you know how to use them. They are very large and require special software to open. Also the numbers will not match the Jpg files, so for most people there is no benefit in having them.

Next Steps: To see more "before and after" examples visit my Digital Image Enhancement Portfolio