On Editing Photos

[ElNico]

This question is based on a premise that I could just be entirely mistaken about. If I am, by all means tell me.

In my research in learning about photography, both on here and elsewhere, numerous times I've encountered what appear to me to be passive allusions to the idea that "serious photographers edit their photos" - as in, all the time, in every case. Not every photo you take - goodness knows how much work THAT would be - but every photo that you intend on presenting in some capacity. There is no such thing as a photo that "does not need editing"; only photos that you don't bother to edit because you're not using them.

If that's not accurate, then by all means correct me. If it is, then, please pardon my staggering ignorance of the craft, but... why?

Don't get me wrong, I can think of no shortage of reasons to edit a photo. But nearly all of them are things that, it seems to me, can easily not be necessary for any given photo. The only thing I can think of that I can see why you would do it to a photo "all the time" is to crop it - and even then, I'm not sure if you actually need to do that EVERY time. I've seen professional photosets that I'm pretty sure have not been cropped.

So, am I just getting the wrong signal here? Or is there just that much that I don't know about "normal" photo editing?

 

[Cody'sCaptures]

Edit as much or as little as you would like. Photo manipulation is not new to image processing at all. Most of the techniques in digital editing are derived from the dark room from dodge/burning to removing distracting elements. Some of the great old film shooters would painstakingly draw ink onto a negative to remove elements, now it's just easier. Really depends on what you are trying to create. For instance photojournalists for major publications aren't even allowed to shoot in raw format and are limited to very basic adjustments. So in the end it's really up to the creator and intended audience. If you don't want to edit, don't... That's the beauty of photography

 

[Ysarex]

Big question there.

Let's start way back at the beginning with language and how the words we use influence how we think about what we're doing. An awful lot of people take photographs and they use that phrase to describe what they're doing; they take or they took a photo.

Now let's exchange the word "take" with "make." If instead we make photographs then do we begin to think differently about what we're doing and how does editing enter in then.

When do you start editing? I start before I click the shutter release on the camera. I was making this photo just this Sunday evening:

I did a lot of editing before I clicked the shutter. I removed some insects from the plant and there was a bleep bleep clematis vine in the background I was very happy to kill with prejudice.

What is editing other than making the photo look the way you want the photo to look. Does it matter at what stage in the process it occurs?

Now that photo above is heavily edited in post software as well. Here's the photo as it appeared made by the camera processing software:

I like my version much better. My version is what I intended from the beginning. What I intended from the very beginning didn't really exist out in the garden when I made this photo. The raw material I needed was there but the image I created was not. For example the background behind the leaf wasn't darker than the leaf, but I knew it would be better if it were and so I did that.

Above and in most of what I personally photograph I'm out working with the available light. I used to do a lot more in a studio but I'm retired now. Available light is rarely exactly right. In a studio we can create the lighting such that we can make a photo that requires very little to no further adjustment, but wandering around in available light we're rarely going to encounter conditions that won't benefit from some adjustment. Just as in my photo above the available light wasn't exactly what I wanted.

I kind of hear you asking, do I have to edit my photos to make good photos? And it sounds like by editing you mean post processing the image. Will you frequently encounter perfect or close to perfect lighting conditions? No. Do you plan to set up all you own lighting? So then what? What you have to do is make the photo you want regardless of the conditions and tools. Consider this famous quote by Michelangelo: Trifles make perfection and perfection is no trifle. Give it your best.

Notice how light and almost blown out looking my camera's version of the above photo appears. That's because when I took the photo I set the EC value on the camera to +1.3. As a result the camera processing software made a too light version of the photo, but that's the camera's version of the photo. I was saving the raw file and I exposed to get the best raw file. That set me up for a little more editing than I might have otherwise had to do, but I got a better final result so I did it -- I'm doing the trifles to make the best photo I can make.

Joe

 

[ElNico]

Joe - That is very insightful, thank you. Would say, then, that the majority of the reason why "[almost] all photos need editing" has to do with lighting? If so I can believe that.

I unfortunately do not have a camera capable of shooting in RAW format, but if this pursuit of mine gets off the ground enough that is probably one of the first things I will spend money on.

 

[dxqcanada]

When I was shooting film I always did some adjustment during printing ... and even during film processing with 4x5.
I did not do much cropping but I almost always did some change in contrast, because what I envisioned was not the way the film was able to produce out of the box.
With digital, I am finding that I do adjustments because it is easy and reversible (don't have to spend another 30min exposing and developing another sheet or two or three or four ...)

 

[Designer]

Would say, then, that the majority of the reason why "[almost] all photos need editing" has to do with lighting? If so I can believe that.

Not necessarily. Sometimes it's the light, sometimes it's the white balance, sometimes the crop, or sometimes it's everything.

As artists, we are seldom happy with the way the world has presented itself, and we envision the scene as we would have it, rather than what is there.

While not every photograph needs extensive editing, we can usually see what might make a photograph better, so that is what we do.

 

[Ysarex]

Joe - That is very insightful, thank you. Would say, then, that the majority of the reason why "[almost] all photos need editing" has to do with lighting? If so I can believe that.

I unfortunately do not have a camera capable of shooting in RAW format, but if this pursuit of mine gets off the ground enough that is probably one of the first things I will spend money on.

Ah, now I have more info about you.

Let's go back in time to the era before digital. When we shot film we had two fundamental different choices of film type, positive and negative. Positive was a color slide or transparency as the pros would say. Negative film, either b&w or color was the original we would print from.

Color transparency film went in the camera, got exposed and was then processed with little option to alter the processing and you had your finished image. There was no darkroom stage in the process where editing could take place. As such the discipline of shooting color transparencies was harsh. You had to have it right when you clicked the shutter and if the light was bad the photo was bad and why did you just waste your time?

The negative print process allowed for much more flexibility in post process. So let's say you have an image like this:

The lighting in that scene is basically going to shut down color transparency film. Look at the branch in the water and note the shadow falling toward you -- the scene is backlit. The clouds in the sky are blown. Where there were puffy white clouds in the scene there are flat white holes in the photo. There was nothing worse than a color slide with clear film base where the clouds should have been. What do you do? Reduce the exposure but the foreground is already too dark. So with color positive film you had to have an on site on camera fix. Those photographers would carry graduated ND filters in the field or walk away -- those were your editing options.

With negative film the above scene can be photographed in a single exposure and the detail in the clouds can be burned in during the printing process -- editing in post. Darkening just the clouds and sky is changing a local area of the photo.

Move forward now to digital and we have a similar dichotomy, but without the same degree of harshness as color positive film and with considerably more capability than negative film. A digital camera creates a positive of your image immediately and saves that as a JPEG file. A good camera has quite a reasonable suite of editing options on board and so not nearly as harsh as old color slide film. Hopefully JC will pitch in here for you with a comment. He hates to sit at the computer and edit and so he has devoted attention and practice to his camera's on board editing tools. We shoot the same camera and I know that the above image can be easily handled by using our camera's DR function. JC could get a good JPEG from his camera of the above scene without having to resort to editing on the computer. He would be able to retain detail in the clouds and at the same time get a better exposure for the foreground -- a basically good photo.

Problem with the camera editing tools is that they're limited. Biggest limit is that they can't address a local area of the photo. More extensive tools are available and more is possible if we move to the computer with a raw file. BUT -- and it's a BIG BUT we all have to draw lines and set limits so that we're happy with what we're doing.

So now let's up the ante with this image:

That's what my camera produced. Now the camera could have done better if I had used the camera's editing controls, I didn't. I didn't even bother to white balance the scene because in my mind I was saving a raw file for later. The sky is overexposed and the light is horribly flat on the foreground. This lighting condition sucks to the point that even the on board camera controls couldn't make anything worthwhile from this.

But what caught my attention was the line of smaller white trees in front of the darker background. I knew I could get a good raw file exposure and create an image I liked. In this case however it had to be computer post process or walk away because the editing required had to be local. I had to apply different changes to different parts of the photo.

Joe

 

[AlanKlein]

Shoot the best possible picture in your camera. It will make post processing a lot easier.

Also remember that content, angle, perspective, and other things of that nature cannot be corrected easily or at all with a a post processing editing program. If you missed it in the camera, you probably missed it. You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear.

 

[ElNico]

That is very helpful - thank you - and leads nicely into what was already my biggest burning question about how to properly edit photos: How do you spot edit a photo such that the affected area is exactly the right size and shape? In your photo with the trees, what stops there from being a tiny band at the top of the trees that is not affected, or a tiny band of sky just above the trees that is affected when it shouldn't be? All of my past experience with editing images - which if I recall was using PhotoShop and PaintShop Pro* - has found this to be very difficult; with the result being similar to when you copy and paste part of an image and there are bits hanging on at the edges that shouldn't be there.

Have you ever been buying clothes online that come in different colors, and instead of photographing the model wearing each version, they just edit the color of the clothing in a single photo; but there are areas around the edges where his/her skin, or the background, are also colorized? That.

Take these two images. I absolutely love these shots, but I wish that there weren't so many harsh areas of direct sunlight. Now, I figure this should be fairly easy to edit - just change the brightness of the image - but, how do I edit it such that ONLY the too-bright areas are darkened, with no tiny slivers that are either darkened when they shouldn't be, or not darkened when they should be?

*Albeit this was several years ago; maybe tools have improved since then and it's not as hard as it used to be?

 

[ceemac]

In the second shot, I think there are too many shadows on her face. But I think the direct sunlight really makes the first shot. She's far enough away from the fence that the shadows (black like her dress) tend to balance the photo. It's a great pose and I find the composition quite pleasing. It's sexy and tastefully done.

 

[mrca]

A photo is, at it's essence, a manipulation of reality. It is a crop of a whole wide scene. It is a 2 dimensional medium trying to create the illusion of 3 dimensionality. The amount of editing varies from person to person and from what the photographer envisioned. I like the adage "you don't know what you don't know." If you haven't learned editing and haven't trained your eye to see areas that can be perfected in an image, then you won't understand. I think Kelby on line training is a wonderful resource. I recommend getting light room, then taking the courses there starting with a quick start, then full courses and since your question is a portrait, one on portrait editing. It will answer your questions but you have to be willing to put in the work. I will bet it will take your photography to a whole new level unlike any piece of gear I know of that even comes close. I also suggest joining a local club that has monthly critiques or competitions. You are on the right path, asking is the first step, the rest takes effort, not just swiping a card.

 

[tirediron]

...Take these two images. I absolutely love these shots, but I wish that there weren't so many harsh areas of direct sunlight. Now, I figure this should be fairly easy to edit - just change the brightness of the image - but, how do I edit it such that ONLY the too-bright areas are darkened, with no tiny slivers that are either darkened when they shouldn't be, or not darkened when they should be?

This is a matter of selection; Photoshop (and its competitors) offer a wide range of selection tools. Learning how to use them to select just the air you want is the trick. The goal is (or should be) to shoot in such a way as to avoid having to do this sort of heavy lifting. Remember: Fill light is your friend!

 

[smoke665]

I absolutely love these shots, but I wish that there weren't so many harsh areas of direct sunlight. Now, I figure this should be fairly easy to edit - just change the brightness of the image -

Not necessarily. I didn't download and check, but it looks like there are several highlights blown on the face/chest. Alan in his comment "shoot the best possible picture in camera", didn't quite go far enough when you talk about digital. A digital image file is not an image in the sense of film, it is a data file. That data file is interpreted by software, (in camera or post) and turned into an image. The more data----the better the software can extrapolate the final image, but there is no data in blown highlights to process, therefore they can not be recovered post.

 

[Ysarex]

That is very helpful - thank you - and leads nicely into what was already my biggest burning question about how to properly edit photos: How do you spot edit a photo such that the affected area is exactly the right size and shape? In your photo with the trees, what stops there from being a tiny band at the top of the trees that is not affected, or a tiny band of sky just above the trees that is affected when it shouldn't be? All of my past experience with editing images - which if I recall was using PhotoShop and PaintShop Pro* - has found this to be very difficult; with the result being similar to when you copy and paste part of an image and there are bits hanging on at the edges that shouldn't be there.

This is an issue of degree and complexity. When you start talking about cutting and pasting you've moved pretty far away from pointing a camera at a scene or object you want to photograph and capturing an image. I edit all of my photos and will occasionally take something minor out but I almost never add something or start moving things around in the scene. If that's required then hopefully I noticed that before I clicked the shutter and moved on to find a better use of my time. If something in the scene needs removal and it's possible I remove it before I click the shutter -- do the right editing at the right time. Back to the first photo I showed you. It has 4 local edits and one of those is a removal -- but a very simple removal. (Remember I started the process by removing bugs and a clematis vine before clicking the shutter!) Here's the photo with all global edits in place -- by global edits I mean overall color balance and tone response (light/dark & contrast). I've marked the local edits to still be applied:

Those local edits are all straightforward simple. The two darken edits require only a gradient mask. The reddish color on the leaves was selectable by color and I just subtly raised the saturation and the removal is very easy since it's an out of focus background region. Start to finish we're talking 2 minutes. If the editing get's more complicated than that a flag has to get raised and a really important question must be asked: Are you appropriately enhancing your photograph or are you trying to repair a screw-up? If you're trying to repair a screw-up then you need to stop and deal with that and don't ever do that again. If you end up making screw-up repair a standard practice you deserve what you get.

Have you ever been buying clothes online that come in different colors, and instead of photographing the model wearing each version, they just edit the color of the clothing in a single photo; but there are areas around the edges where his/her skin, or the background, are also colorized? That.

Take these two images. I absolutely love these shots, but I wish that there weren't so many harsh areas of direct sunlight. Now, I figure this should be fairly easy to edit - just change the brightness of the image - but, how do I edit it such that ONLY the too-bright areas are darkened, with no tiny slivers that are either darkened when they shouldn't be, or not darkened when they should be?

In these images you've crossed a line that changes editing into something else. Here's a histogram for your first image:

Notice how the graph reaches all the way to the right (white) corner and then starts up the wall. That means you have highlights in the photo that have reached pure white without detail. The line that this crosses is simple. To edit you must have something to edit, in other words you can't edit nothing. Many photographers (myself included) draw the editing line there. I can manipulate the data in a photograph as long as I have data. I'm not in the business of drawing data onto my photos or copying and pasting data from other photos etc. This falls into that category up above of repairing screw-ups. Alan made a critical point about that up above; "You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear."

To answer your question you address local areas in a photo with some form or other of a mask. I mentioned in the photo above I used gradient masks. Here's the process using your first photo and a mask made from a highlight selection:

Left is your image as posted. In the middle you see a mask in place and you can see the mask edges. Right I blended and adjusted the mask as well as the content covered by the mask. I used Photoshop but other software is equally capable. Now look at her left cheek and you can see that I made an improvement. But what I did didn't help with the right side of her nose or her upper lip. That's because those areas are fully blown out -- there's no data there for me to edit and I'm not going to get any further involved in the repair a screw-up process. I could copy a piece of her forehead and paste it over her upper lip and then start trying to blend that edge etc. If you ever catch yourself contemplating doing something like that stop it and stop screwing up.

Joe

P.S. Sorry if the last comment feels harsh, but it's what you need to hear in this case. Smoke noticed the clipped highlights and Tirediron told you the goal is to avoid the heavy lifting in the first place -- yep. The editing starts behind the camera.

 

[mrca]

My friend Phil?