I love image editing... It's one of my favorite aspects of photography actually. All of the photos that i share will be at least a little bit edited, most of them just color/contrast edits.

Once in a while though, i'll go in and clone some stuff out and take some extra care to make the image much much better. Overall though, i try not to do large edits.

Here is an example of some of the bigger edits I've done, and it shows how much better images look after being edited.

before:


after:


Most of it was tweaking the colors. I also cloned out the light, garage pull, and hose. I boosted contrast, adjusted white balance and desaturated the blue tones.

The result is a much more striking image.

Here's another example of a photo I took of a friend...

I edited the image from this:


To this:


I actually wrote a little tutorial on how I achieved that for another forum I frequent... all done with adobe lightroom and photoshop.

1. exported to photoshop to clone out snowflake infront of her eye.
2. import back into lightroom. don't pay attention to the history on the left. look at the bars on the right.


3. adjust contrast and brightness. as most of you know, i like deep contrast. that oftentimes makes the overall photo a bit dark, so i add the brightness to compensate.


4. add clarity (gives whites a bit more depth), vibrance (enhances colors), and saturation (saturates).


5. noticing that the tone is getting a bit red, i reduced the temperature a bit. wanted to keep it a colder mood. it is the snow afterall.


6. looking a bit too blue/purple, i added a slight green tint.


7. added some sharpening.


8. some vignetting to close in the subject.


9. tweaked the curves. made the darks darker and the highlights a bit brighter.


10. added a bit of fill light and saturated the yellow a bit more.


11. upped the brightness more.


12. noticing the highlights were a bit too washed out, i reduced them.


the result is just so much better

 

Colin

Are you giving us lessons?

Do you take request for certain effects one may be looking for?

FTR your first pic of the cars is not pure it has edits. Look at the license plates that is unless you drive blank plates in California .

Thanks for sharing, some of the noob's should find these tips valuable.

 

Hey!

I just get a lot of requests about my certain editing style, so I post this thread on the forums I frequent to show how I achieve my look.

I can't say that I take requests on certain effects, because quite frankly I only really know how to edit with my own personal style! haha.

-Colin

 

IMHO, you went too far with the girl. The image is overly saturated, and you introduced too much noise (probably went a little trigger happy with the USM.)

I would leave the low saturation look, bump the curves around, a little vignette, and maybe a little sharpness. Also, to give it more pop, brighten up her iris.

 

I mostly like the girl shot. It emphasizes the snow. But I would have masked and smoothed the face while sharpening and tone-adjusting the eyes (better yet would be catchlights from a flash). The current effect on her face is more suited to a guy.

 

I agree with you guys! I actually use a mac, and on PCs, my photos become very oversaturated and contrasty. It's pretty annoying that there is a difference between color profiles.

We should open up this discussion and see some other samples of edits members have done. I love looking at different editing styles, and seeing what people like to do.

-Colin

 

You might want to calibrate your screen, although macs come pretty well calibrated from the factory.

 

Editing is fun, but I really am trying not to fall into the trap of overediting. You start to lose track of the color contrasts and you end up with a blue and red blur!

 

i <3 lightroom

i actually have it open editing some pictures as well