Editing

In my last few posts, I discussed this whole Sepia drama thing. Unsure what that is? Read up here and here. Your wedding photography is so important, and I thought educating people on how editing works was essential. My goal is to provide some education about the editing process. 

I am not going to go over the editing process. That was already discussed in pt 2. But there is one major thing I want to address. One of the issues that the bride had in this situation was that her eyes looked very shadowed in some of the photos. And yes, I agree with the bride on this one. Her eyes were so shadowed. But why? 

Lighting Matters!

Obviously, I was not the photographer for this wedding, so the only information I have is what has been posted. However, looking at the wedding photos, it seemed it was overcast that day. As a photographer, I LOVE it when wedding days are cloudy. It makes shooting easier without worrying about insanely bright and harsh sun. But, you do still have to watch for shadows. Light is reflected everywhere. When photographing a wedding, I look for where the sun is, even if it hides behind clouds. I am looking at what sun is bouncing off of — building? Dunes? Water? A black wall? All of this is important to remember because it can impact the tone and the way light is reflected. 

When I can, I personally always try to look for something neutral-toned that the sun is hitting. I try to place that behind me. That acts as a reflector of the light onto the subject. I try to wear a white T-shirt to family photo and portrait sessions for this reason. That isn’t an option, obviously, for a wedding!!

What could the photographer have done?

Lightroom and Photoshop have gotten SO good at their enhancements. Brushes, AI, etc. have become really powerful tools to have in our arsenal when the shots or the weather conditions just are not perfect. In my opinion, the photographer could have lowered the shadows, and used a shadow brush just on the subjects face. Kept the rest of the image the same and just brushed off those shadows that the bride complained about in her wedding photos. Maybe she did and it wasn’t enough. In that case, I personally probably wouldn’t have delivered that shot. This is also why I personally, during a wedding, will take the same shot from different directions. So I would have had the sun behind, the sun on the face, sun to the side. Just pivoted around to get different variations. Having said that – I do not know what the background looked like, so it is very possible that doing this was just not feasible. 

Again, lighting matters!!

Jumping back to the lighting matters section – I also do not know what was behind the photographer. It could have been a black wall, which would reflect dark light, which could have emphasized the shadows even more! Though I suspect the sun was just so diffused that it was hard to know exactly where it was and that the photos just came out that way due to the sun being in the wrong spot. 

I saw one comment – if she just used off camera flash she could have avoided this (this comment was coming from another photographer!). Sure, probably right. But not all photographers enjoy off camera flash and prefer natural light. I often see photographers with their big flash, stands, reflectors etc. outside and I personally would never do that. It isn’t my vibe. I like the way sun hits. I am not a fan of flash until I need it, or to do something really specific. Not to mention – she traveled to this destination to shoot – lugging around a case of lights and stands seems miserable. I would have brought my on camera flash and maybe one or two tiny off camera flash. But packing a whole big kit is not really reasonable. Anyway – I digress… 

Back to editing…

OK so in the video below is MY example. This was a Indiana Dunes elopement. I absolutely love the shot, but it was still pretty harsh sun. I have the sun behind the subjects – so their faces that are in my direction are pretty shadowed. The way his head is angled makes his eyes very shadowed. Now I personally did this quite intentionally. I thought this would look really dope with the sun poking in behind. I also had a vision of this in black and white and I love heavy shadows for b&w.

So I had to really use my Lightroom brushes to lift up those shadows. Once I got my base editing, I took shadows down more, then I grabbed my remove shadow brush and made those softer. I painted this one and then adjusted some of the settings in my brush. You can see the flow in the video below. For the final image, I tossed into photoshop and pained the shadows a tad more, and then painted shadows back into the background for an extra pop. 

Moral of the story?

I think that some of the editing problems could have been avoided by using some brushwork or the magic of Photoshop. But also maybe the photographer did and the bride wasn’t happy and wouldn’t be happy with anything? It’s a bummer of a situation in general. Us photographers take your wedding photography very seriously and really put our hearts into giving you the best product we can. I think it is important for us creatives to still pay attention to the small details. There’s no shame in using brushwork and photoshop to remove some of the problems of a photo. 

That’s all for now, loves!