Editing our Photos
Editing our Photos
Is it an important part of our photography or just cheating?
Hello, I’m Gill and I write a photography blog inspired by the landscapes of Suffolk and beyond. Please subscribe to read more of my writing and visit my website to view my images.
Following on from last weeks post about my photographic journey I thought it would be interesting to talk a little about photo editing - particularly as it has been in the news a lot recently.
I am a big fan of photo editing and I feel it is part of how I express myself creatively. I use Lightroom and Photoshop as my tools of choice and I enjoy the process of refining the images I make in the field.
Having said that, I only ever process an image using the information I have captured in my RAW file. I will never replace skies, or add any elements that weren’t present at the time. I might occasionally combine images such as a focus stacked shot or a panorama composed of several frames but I don’t make composite images with the purpose of presenting the landscape in an alternate way.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying there is anything wrong with this approach, if you are doing it as a piece of art and it is part of your creative expression. However, I don’t feel it would be appropriate for documentary photography or any instance where the image is portrayed as a true representation of a place. As for my photography, making up composite images doesn’t interest me. Spending time in the landscape is more enjoyable than spending time in front of a screen. I want my images to represent a moment in time that I personally experienced because that is where my connection to the landscape comes from.
So what do I do with my editing and why?
For me editing is all about communication with the viewer. When I take my images out in the landscape I experience different emotions and moods that I want to pass on. I also have a journey through the frame that I want the viewer to traverse. Post processing can help me convey these things. I will explain my thinking using this recently taken image of sunrise on the River Deben.
Whilst I like this image it is a compromise where composition is concerned. In other words I didn’t quite achieve what I set out to do. When I saw this scene the elements that caught my eye were the red boat, the yellow gorse in the foreground and the tree in the mist in the background. I wanted to incorporate all these things in my image but I didn’t originally want to include the other boats on the left. My initial idea was to use a portrait shot which included all 3 elements but as I explored the possibilities it became obvious that I couldn’t achieve what I wanted without the tree in the distance disappearing behind the mast of the boat. In the end I settled for this composition which was my best compromise at the time.
When it came to editing this shot I felt that the RAW file was too cold. I always shoot in auto white balance and then alter it to suit in post processing.
I follow a similar work flow for most of my editing. If necessary I make changes to the white balance, exposure, highlights and shadows across the whole scene and then I work on individual parts of the image using the various masking tools in Lightroom to get the look I am after.
My intention with post processing is never to deceive the viewer but to convey what I saw and felt in the field. In the case of this shot it was the beauty of the misty river, the peace and tranquility of the location and the joy at being the only one out there. Having such a cold look to the image didn’t get across the feeling of joy (which is better expressed with warmer hues) so I adjusted the white balance which in turn changed the colour and intensity of blue in the sky and warmed the colours on the horizon.
When adjusting the sliders in Lightroom I almost always increase the whites in my images which stops the colours looking too muddy and in this shot I reduced the dehaze and the clarity to enhance the misty conditions across the river.
As a progression through the frame I wanted the viewer’s eye to go from the boats to the trees on the opposite bank. The eye has a tendency to go to the lightest parts of the image so I have dehazed the area where the trees sit using a radial mask which has softened the shadows, brought out the fog and brightened the overall area.
I have also brought out the detail in the grass in the foreground. This was covered in early morning frost and I wanted to make sure that the colour and texture was noticeable in the image.
Finally I have removed one or two small elements that I felt were distracting and this has left me with the finished image.
Has my processing changed over the years?
The short answer is yes - a lot.
I though it might be interesting to discuss a couple of images I made 12 years ago and reprocess the RAW files so that you can see how I would approach the same shot today.
These images were taken at a time when post processing was completely new to me. I hadn’t experimented much and this really shows in the way I approached my editing. Looking at the images now I find it hard to understand how I ever made any money from my photography back then! I am much more subtle with my edits these days and I think the resulting images are a better representation of how I see the world.
I know that instead of being embarrassed by these images I should look at the progression I can see in my photography and realise that evolving how we do things is an important part of growing as a photographer.
This shot was taken on a Nikon D700 back in November 2012. It was shot as a JPEG, something I wouldn’t do now and it was processed in Lightroom. I find my original edit too harsh and the colours too bright, both of which I feel detract from the tranquility of the scene. The image should have a peaceful vibe instead it’s shouting ‘look at me’.
My re edit is below and I feel it is more in tune with the feeling I was getting from the river at the time.
The next panel shows a 2012 edit of a Bee Orchid compared with the 2024 edit that I did for this blog. Again the colours in the re edited image are more subtle and there is a more natural beauty to the image. This time I have desaturated the greens and taken some of the yellow out of them. This has given the image a softer effect which I feel is more in keeping with the beauty of the flower.
Post processing is definitely a personal choice and how any photographer approaches it is down to how they wish to portray their images. There is no right or wrong but there are clumsy ways of editing which can make the resulting image look false and un natural.
For me editing is now about subtlety. If I can see where I have been then I feel I am over doing it. I feel a layered approach of subtle edits is better than one or two heavy handed adjustments that may look a bit out of place. I approach my editing a bit like painting, except I am starting with a base picture already on my canvas. My aim is to gently build a full picture of tones across the whole scene that compliment what I saw and experienced in the field.
I don’t consider post processing cheating or in any way a detraction from my skills as a photographer. Sometimes the camera cannot see things exactly as our eyes do. It is also a tool and cannot convey our feelings or emotions. I believe, once we have mastered how to use our camera, there are three areas that are really important to focus on if we want to improve our photography:
Learning to see - for without this skill we won’t have a good subject for our images.
Learning composition - not necessarily based on rules but looking at how all the elements within the frame relate to each other.
Learning to process our images so that they convey the mood and emotion we felt when we took them. In my opinion this is definitely as important as the other elements and shouldn’t be an after thought or overlooked.
Take away tips for processing images
I see post processing as an important part of my creative journey. It is a tool to compliment the technical process of taking a photograph out in the landscape. It will not fix mistakes and will not turn a ‘bad’ image into a ‘good’ one.
Editing will help convey mood and feeling within an image. To use it successfully it is a good idea to identify what we are trying to convey.
Photographs are two dimensional depictions of the landscape. Post processing can help emphasis depth and three dimensionality by using techniques of dodging (making lighter) and burning (making darker). Darker areas will reduce attention and deflect the eye while brighter areas will draw attention. In general the eye will always travel to the lightest part of the scene.
Balance is key in any image. If photographing over water the top area of an image (the sky) will never be significantly darker than the bottom (the water). In my boat shot the tones all balance as they did in the field, but, I often come across unbalanced images where the skies are much darker than the water below (particularly when graduated filters have been used) and I think this is something to be aware of. Tonally an image should always balance.
Most of all editing should be an expression of our art, so I feel it is important to experiment and have fun. If we don’t like what we have produced then we can try again, mistakes are all part of the journey and are never a waste of time if we learn something from them.
You can find more information on post processing in this PDF download available from my website.
What do you all feel about editing? Is it something you embrace or something you avoid? Please share your thoughts below.
Thank you very much for reading and until next week enjoy your photography
Gill
Thanks for sharing your process, Gill. I was nodding in agreement all the way through.
There's a lot to digest in this post.
I'm an old man, so my photography goes back to the days of a real darkroom with an enlarger and chemicals in trays.
From the beginning, the real joy of photography has always been in the darkroom. When you press the shutter, it's all over in 1/60th of a second (or less). But in the darkroom -- I could spend days with an image.
Days. That's where the real joy was.
The camera hardly ever sees the image the same way we do. Fine-art photography is all about FEELINGS and if you want to communicate your feelings to the user, you're gonna hafta shoot in RAW and post-process.
Otherwise, you'll have damn few photos to share.
I have a certain standard workflow I use for pretty much every image. After that, there are certain things I will do to images that are special.
That isn't cheating: it's bringing the camera to see the same thing(s) I saw when I took the shot.