The Great Undertaking: an appreciation for editing.

Wouldn't it be super awesome happy fun time if we could print a photo we shot without ever having to do anything more than point and click? I submit that that would be WAY too easy. And B-O-R-I-N-G. Sometimes within the frenzy of a wedding morning, no matter how hard you try, and how little time you have to adjust for things to get that shot that lasts a millisecond... sometimes, you just can't perfectly expose. Your fingers can't move quick enough, or you NEED to underexpose a little to catch the clarity. Sure, with landscapes you could point, adjust, shoot, print... but I'm talking about PEOPLE here. I dare you to try that! It just doesn't happen... let me rephrase: It just doesn't turn out well.

I have to say, even with all the time we photographers put into editing (hours upon hours upon hours and so on till we think we've become fused to our chairs...), I find it a necessary part of the art of photography. Photoshop and I are BFF's. And there is a friend poacher in our midst, called Lightroom. However, we just haven't warmed up to each other that much... yet. I hope lightroom and I can be good friends someday, but right now, I just don't have the time. Enough of my social life, the point of all this is that some people don't understand the process, and how we arrive to the things you're having printed. On average a photo takes a minimum of 10 minutes to edit. So let's put that in perspective for a wedding- average photo turn out (for me) is about 1000. So 1000 photos x 10 minutes= 10,000 minutes... or over 166 HOURS. That doesn't even begin to include the black and white versions or the complete custom edits- that's just adjusting for lighting anomalies, fixing blemishes, and optimizing... which sometimes takes a lot more than 10 minutes... however, I painstakingly and lovingly take this upon myself to create little masterpieces. It really is an art. And one that must be self learned. Sure, you can take advice, try out things you see online, even try some actions, and action recipes that other photographers put out there, but in the end- you find the zone and look you want to achieve, which is usually farther from where you thought you were going in the first place. I'll stop talking your faces off, and get to some photos.... because that's what we're here for.

Here is an example of a RAW photo (I try hard to not show anyone the RAWs... but this is for educational purposes...*gulp*)- COMPLETELY unedited (keep in mind this was kind of an off the hip shot... I don't usually meter so badly!)

I know, pretty dark. Generally, I would just drop this in the NO folder. But from what I could see, I loved the intimacy of the expressions, and of course the composition, otherwise I wouldn't have shot it, I also liked the lighting, even though it was dark. So I open it, and do some simple adjustments in contrast, black levels, so on and so on, approximately 10 minutes later, I have this:

It's nice, lighting is much better, and the general details that I liked in the first place are much more apparent. However, it's still just a photo. A little more editing, more time, at least another 10 minutes, and some personalization/style, and voila, a custom edit:

I know it's kind of hard to see the difference between these last two, I shall put them side by side for you:

Far left- the RAW file, middle- lighting adjustments, etc., far right- custom edit.

Gives you a better idea.

I have a few more examples, just for fun. So, here is RAW:

In the adjusted one below, you can see some recovery of the bride's back/arm and a little bit of color change, but there really isn't much difference between it and the RAW, so it was actually less than a 10 minute edit:

 And this last one really just makes it timeless to me:

 And I'll throw them side by side, for a more clear understanding:

And I have ONE more example. RAW:

 Some of you know that I LOVE to have the sun present and shining magical sun spots into my photos. And most of the time, you just can't shoot anyway but to underexpose those a bit, so there's a bit of a jump from the RAW above to the minor adjustments below:

And then, my favorite- the custom edit. I love this shot/edit combined. The little sunbow pops even more at their knees with this certain combo, one of my favorite elements in photos like these:

 And we'll do a side by side for good measure:

 So there you see a little bit of the process that goes into editing. It's very time consuming but very worth the results if you put the time and care into it. Happy editing!