Quite often I hear from other photographers or photo enthusiasts alike on the method I use to make my pictures look the way they do. Well…first of all the most common belief individuals have is that its “the camera”…others believe that its a “particular lens” which must be used and then photos basically come out beautiful.
Now in both cases…either of these individuals would be totally right in their thoughts to a degree because any photographer needs to have a decent camera and lens to make photos look presentable. However to make a photo look amazing it takes a tad bit more…it takes post-processing…or in other words…editing!!!
I decided to carry an image I took through different stages of my workflow and hopefully it will make more clear what I am speaking about. In the example below we are going to use a photo of a Donkey which I purchased in Mexico…
Now the first step I take for any photo is attempt to get a very good exposure and good clarity…so below is the shot I took of my Donkey indoors with the assistance of an on-camera flash. FYI…I mainly use bounce-flash techniques whenever I am indoors…
As you have probably noticed…this is already a decent picture…nice clarity and plenty of light in this picture to play with. In the photo below…I’ve imported the above image into Photoshop Lightroom and I have applied a custom preset which I’ve created…this preset adds a number of settings like clarity, saturation, enhances each of the colors to a degree, sets the temperature to a warm tone…it does plenty much more…but you get the idea…
Now our image is looking way more vibrant…the colors are popping out of it. My next step would be to further enhance the image…this can be done very simply in Photoshop Creative Suite. The method I am using below to enhance the image is call an “overlay”. The definition I’ve found online for an “overlay is as follows: “Multiplies or screens the colors, depending on the base color. Patterns or colors overlay the existing pixels while preserving the highlights and shadows of the base color. The base color is not replaced but is mixed with the blend color to reflect the lightness or darkness of the original color.” In short…it basically enhances your image and makes it look more rich.
My final step in my workflow…assuming no re-touching or things like that need to be done…is to apply my vintage style finishes on the image. I feel it makes it look more classy…of course editing in general is largely a matter of preferences anyway.
And there you have it…there is how I edit most of my images for CivicPhotos. This covers how I edit the color images…Black & White image editing is pretty much the same but sometimes I add a few extra tasks. Either way…I hope this helps some of you out there understand how I get my photos to look the way they do…I would encourage anyone to play around with different settings in Photoshop Lightroom and Photoshop Creative Suite so that you can find “your particular style” of post-processing images to make them look even more beautiful.
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