Photoshop

A lot of people could be mistaken into thinking that 90% of a photographer’s time is spent photographing, but actually this is not the case at all.  Aside from the emails, enquiries, orders, invoicing, marketing, packaging, posting, delivering, researching, location scouting, advertising, training, website and SEO updates I also spend my time editing photos.  Especially at this time of year when I am so busy…

I am currently doing a lot of photographing outdoors in the evening, for family and maternity sessions especially.  This means that the light is softer and easier to work with.

At times though, some photos need a bit more work.

I’ve picked a few of the more extreme examples below, to show you what happens after a shoot.

Some of the issues I was faced with below:

  • Lack of light – for the maternity sessions we stayed quite late which meant the light was almost gone. This makes for some fabulous silhouette type effects but also means that some of the pretty details and light from a photo needs to be brought back in when using photoshop.
  • Change of location in a session without adjusting settings – When chasing toddlers around I end up using many different places within one location.  One minute I’m photographing them in bright sunlight and then I am under the trees or running through the forest.  So whilst I adjust my aperture/iso/shutter speed to cope with this, things like my white balance don’t change and then need to be tweaked in post production.
  • Distracting elements – trees, benches, people, you name it!  They can take away from the focus of an image and I spend A LOT of time removing things when working in public places, especially photobombing dogs!  If there is something I really want your eye to focus on, like a pregnant lady in the distance, I remove anything (trees) that will make your eye wonder form that focus).
  • The need to compliment and accentuate what’s already there.  Sometimes photographs just need a bit of extra colour, light or contrast to highlight what was already there.  For example, when working in the long grass it can often look a but dull in camera, so accentuating the warmth or the colour can make an average photo have more drama and impact.

I hope you found this interesting!  If you’d like more info on Maternity, Newborn, Baby or Family photography then please contact me using the form below.