Image Editing In Commercial Photography
Updated: Apr 22, 2020
No matter how good the image is straight from the camera, photo editing is always required to produce the final image.
Depending on the shoot, an image could just require some mild retouching to remove those pesky distractions and bring out some details or more heavier manipulation work might be required.
Whatever the requirement, the aim is to make the image look the best - to capture the viewers eye!
These days, nearly anyone can grab some type of camera or other and shoot some snaps. What's important is what happens after the shot is taken - to turn that image into more than a snapshot. We're aiming for awe-inspiring!
With many of my images, I shoot a few exposures of the same scene and then merge them in Photoshop. I normally do this via bracketed multiple exposures (Although i'm currently experimenting and practising with a new lighting technique that will hopefully make my images really pop! - I'll talk more about it in a later post).
Merging several photo's is great to get every bit of detail in the scene.
Aside from merging the different exposures, editing is also crucial for a number of other factors:
Photo editing is useful when you really need to increase the aesthetic appeal of properties - Sometimes it's not possible to remove unwanted distractions in the image during the shoot, and so can be removed in post processing.
Today's society has instant access to pretty much everything, and with everyone having a tablet, laptop and/or smartphone in hand, the majority of sales are visually driven. This means images are more important than ever helping businesses stand out to potential customers.
Image editing ensures colours can be enhanced, as well as the brightness, contrast, and sharpness - making sure the image will *POP* and catch the viewers eye.
In the image below you can see the difference made before and after post processing. The image was initially shot on quite a dull and overcast day, meaning there was no chance to capture any blue sky. There was also a fair amount of street signs and lamp posts around the building which just made the image look crowded and provided nothing but distractions. Editing the image allowed for not only these distractions to be removed but also a better more appealing sky.
Images can also be "stitched" together to make a panorama. This can be useful for a numebr of things - Maybe the image required is for a banner (e.g. Website header) or the subject has a wide landscape and not much above or below (including the negative space from around the scene can often detract from the main subject).
You can see another example below - This ridiculously impressive building was huge! I wasn't able to get far enough back to get the whole building in one shot, and did not have a lens wide enough to use. Luckily, the power of image editing allowed me to merge a variety of photos looking at different points of the building - the result can be seen in the second image.
Finally, image editing is great to resize images. The use of the image determines the resolution of the final file - Online use generally requires smaller resolution images (larger ones often slow websites down, and some websites even compress large files when they are uploading making the image look somewhat distorted and/or grainy.
Full resoltuion, maximum file size would be required for printing.
It is because of this that I supply two copies of each image prodcued to the client - One for printing purposes and one for online use.
To see more of what Image editing can do check out my Before & After page.
Thanks for taking the time to read this blog (Or skim it... even if you just looked at the pictures... it's appreciated! Thank you).