Every wondered why professional photos look so very different to those taken on your own DSLR camera? Well one of the reasons is photo editing. Professional photographers go to at lot of effort to edit your photo after it has been captured, most often in programs such as Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. Of course there are the other major differences of lighting and posing of subjects, but today’s topic is on what happens to your photos after the image has been taken. In particular we focus of Photo Editing for Family Photos.
Our basic retouching service includes adjustments to:
– White balance (colour)
– Exposure
– Contrast
– Colour vibrance and saturation
– Tonal changes
– Sharpening
All of these adjustments combine to not only correct and enhance an image but to apply a specific style of editing that is unique to each photographer.
As you can see the original image is quite dull, flat, and soft. This is the image straight from the RAW file. As you can see it needs a lot of editing to make the image suitable for delivery to a client. If you do not have a computer editing program, I would avoid taking photos in a RAW format. It is better for most people to take their family photos in a Jpeg format as basic contrast, tone, and sharpening is applied to the image straight out of the camera. Professional photographers mainly shoot in RAW format as it has a greater ability to extract information and edit the image without degradation.
The middle image has had basic retouching applied and is suitable for use on the web, social media, and small prints done by most printing services. When an image is going to be printed by a high-end professional print service (only available for professional photographers) another level of editing is applied. As a high-end professional print is made to last a minimum of 75 years (and some up to 400 years) without fading it is essential that these images have the highest level of retouching applied to obtain the best result.
As we are a professional service all images will undergo a minimum of the basic retouching and the remaining photos are classified into Before (after basic retouching) and After (after high-end retouching).
A before and after family photo demonstrating the benefits of using a professional retoucher. Pay particular attention to the woman’s right arm and the man’s skin tone. Even the man’s eyes are more visible by corrections to the glasses.
All our specialist portrait retouching is sent to a specialist Photoshop retoucher in Sydney. The aim of the retouching is to make the images look as natural as possible while removing any distractions that might take a viewer’s eye away from the expressions of the moment.
What is normally included in this advanced level professional retouching?
– Advanced skin retouching (removal of blemishes and adjustment to skin tone & texture)
– Teeth whitening
– Enhancement of eyes
– Removal of background distractions
– Overall improvements in exposure and tone of the image
– Head or eye swaps for group photos (to ensure all people are looking at the camera)
Optional extras can include:
– Removal of stray hairs
– Removal of braces
– Removal of background distractions that are technically difficult
