Tips on Editing

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~ExtremeCombustion Jun 13, 2012 Student Digital Artist

Does anyone have any tips for photo editing?

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^Kaz-D Jun 15, 2012 Hobbyist Photographer

HI!
You've been featured -> [link]
Enjoy

!OldaGardner Jun 14, 2012

Practice, practice. Read articles and/or books. Practice, practice. Read more articles and/or books. Practice, practice.

In otherwords, get hands on experience, then read about areas where you had problems and read to get some new ideas, then get more hands on experience with what you just learned, and so on. It really is the best way to learn this subject.

The suggestions about revisiting your edits later are good suggestions as well.

*dwalldorf Jun 14, 2012 Hobbyist Photographer

What turned out to be good for me is to do the corrections I like (others already wrote some good tips for that) and look at it again one or two days later.
When I use photoshop for hours, I'm in my photoshop-universe and think something looks good or natural. Sometimes, when I look at it a few days later, I realize it doesn't look natural at all

*Fuzzypiggy Jun 14, 2012 Hobbyist Photographer

Editing a photo for me usually has the same base steps, sorting out my highlights and shadows and my overall exposure. I'll then look at a small amount of sharpening and lens correction. This is all done in Adobe Camera RAW, if at that stage the photo is worth carrying on then I'll proceed into Photoshop with it. Cropping to the right size and rotational correction to ensure the image is straight, if badly distorted then I'll warp it straight if I need to. Next I'll start looking at contrast, more detailed look at shadows and highlights. Start to pick out specific areas for colour correction. Next I'll start picking out areas for patch-correction, removing dust spots, blemishes in areas I don't like. Next is the second round of colour and contrast correction globally or specific areas. Next the noise reduction, either globally or specific areas and then sharpening.

During any one of those stages I'll use different levels of correction using different tools, sometimes levels and curves, sometimes specific filters depending upon what is needed. If it's BW then that will require colour in so far as the pre-BW conversion to ensure the H&S come through when it goes to BW conversion. Once in BW I'll be working very heavily on highlight, shadows and contrast tools. That's the flow that usually in my head, but any one of those stages could be dropped or replaced by something completely different if needed.

If it's an easy shot to sort out that lot can be done in 20 mins, some shots I'll spend maybe 3-4 weeks on to ensure it's just the way I want it. If I feel the shot isn't working then I'll stop, save it and go on to something else and come back to it later on when I know I can get what I want. I think the longest spell one of my shots was in editing was something about 8 months before I was happy with it!

~HalfBloodPrince71 Jun 13, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

Do it subtly. Overdone editing is much worse than none.
Depends what you want to do. If we're talking enhancement of an image, then stick to level correction, curves, SLIGHT changes in saturation, sharpening. Don't overdo HDR or saturation, it will look terrible.

(I haven't had a look at your gallery yet though)

*Euphrein Jun 13, 2012 Hobbyist Photographer

Photo editing is something that is part of the process of photography. So it shouldn't be an after thought but something you consider as you take the picture. I was looking through your photos and you post many nature photographs. So I assume those are the type you like to edit. I like your Verde work, but I confess I'm having trouble seeing the subject clearly. So that's something you might work on with crop and or selective focus or other methods.

~rcooper102 Jun 13, 2012

Yup, i do: [link]

~ManualFocusPhoto Jun 13, 2012 Student Photographer

Well, what do you wanna know? photo editing is a very broad subject that takes a while to learn.

As general, I say just get something like Adobe Lightroom, and play around with sliders there and see what you like.

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