Intro to Photography- Editing
After all of the work of finding a subject, composing an image, and properly exposing it, there is one more step that, while not technically required, I would strongly recommend to anyone who is serious about their photography: post processing (AKA editing). Editing is a way to refine and elevate the quality of your images, while also providing another layer of creative expression. Give the same raw picture to multiple photographers and they will surely edit it in different ways.
Instead of going through specific images and how I edit them like I have done in a few of my previous posts, I think that it would be more helpful to take a look at each of the adjustment options you have when editing, what they all do, and when you might be most likely to use them. This post will be in two pieces, and this first bit will cover the more technical aspects of what each option in post processing can do. These may differ slightly between editing softwares, but most softwares should have most, if not all, of these options verbatim, or an analog. I use Adobe Lightroom while editing, so that is where this list of adjustments will be from.
Lighting Adjustments
Exposure- The brightness of the entire image, or “global” brightness. Despite this often being the first setting listed, I will save this to adjust last. More specific settings will generally be the best way to improve the image. Once all of those are done, adjusting the global exposure can be done to taste.
Contrast- Adjusts the difference between the different colors and shades in the image (ie. low contrast images have more muted, homogenous colors, while high contrast images have punchy and distinct colors). I tend to prefer bumping this up slightly in most of my photos, but certain images lend themselves better to low contrast. This is very much something that is driven by your personal preference and tastes.
Highlights- Adjusts the exposure of the brightest parts of the image. Reducing the highlights can help to recover details in overexposed parts of an image without removing details in the shadows. Conversely, raising the highlights will remove detail in the bright areas.
Shadows- Similar to highlights, adjusting the shadows changes the exposure of the darkest parts of an image. This can be used to recover details, or hide them.
Whites- Determines how close light colors appear to pure white. Boosted whites will make more of the image appear pure white. Pure white sections have no detail and only the white color.
Blacks- As with shadows, this is the opposite of whites. Determines how close dark colors appear to pure black.
without lighting adjustments (other adjustments to color, clarity, and vignette included)
Raised exposure, contrast, shadows, and whites; Reduced highlights and blacks (Taken with a Nikon Z6 & Nikon 70-200 MM f/2.8 @ 70 MM, 1/1000 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1600)
Color Adjustments
Temperature- Shifts the image to have a more yellow (warmer) appearance a or more blue (cooler) appearance.
Tint- Similar to temperature, except this alters the tint to be more purple or more green.
Vibrance- Selectively increases the saturation of less saturated colors, while not adjusting already saturated hues and skin tones; alternatively, it will desaturate already saturated colors first.
Saturation- Adjusts the saturation of all colors in the image; increased saturation gives colors more “pop” while lower saturation will make the image closer to grayscale.
Color Mixer- Allows you to control the hue (can shift the color to be closer to others), saturation, and luminance (the shade; light or dark) of each color specifically.
Point Color- Similar to color mixer, but allows for the selection of specific shades instead of broader colors.
Color Grading- Adjusts the color tints in the shadows, midtones, and highlights separately.
without color adjustments (other adjustments to all lighting sliders and clarity included)
Lowered temperature and saturation; boosted tint and vibrance (Taken with a Nikon Z6 & Nikon 24-70 MM f/2.8 @ 29 MM, 1/3 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400)
Effects & Other Adjustments
Texture- Adds “texture” by increasing contrast in small to medium sized details; does not affect color. Conversely, can be used to smooth out rough edges in details.
Clarity- Adjusts the clarity by increasing contrast, shifting saturation, and darkening or lightening tones, particularly around larger objects.
Dehaze- Simulates artificial haze (think fogginess), or artificially reduces haze by adjusting contrast and saturation.
Vignette- Adds a white or dark ring around the edge of a photo. This simulates an optical effect in some lenses, and is a common choice for framing.
Grain- Adds grain to simulate the look of analog film, which can give smooth subjects a more natural look. Conversely, smooths textured objects.
Sharpening- Adjusts edge contrast to give images a sharper look.
Noise Reduction- Smooths the image to reduce visual noise (can smooth over fine detail incidentally)
Without effects (other adjustments to all lighting and temperature included)
Increased clarity and dehaze; reduced vignette (Taken with a Nikon Z6 & Nikon 200-500 MM f/5.6 @ 400 MM, 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 2000)
Presets
Presets allow you to edit a picture and then save all of the edit settings for later use. I find these supremely helpful, particularly when you take a lot of shots in similar lighting (like at an indoor sporting event, for example). While not every picture in your batch will fit the preset perfectly, the preset can greatly reduce the amount of time it requires to edit each image from the ground up.
I use presets for pretty much everything I shoot. If it is a kind of shoot that has conditions I’ve not shot before, or if I’m going for a different look, I will use the first few images to help build a new one. This gets me close to the edit I’m looking for for almost all of my shots, leaving me with only a few minor adjustments to make manually.
When you’re starting out, you may need to spend some time dialing in your presets, but as you shoot more of a certain genre or in certain conditions, you’ll be able to settle on some very helpful presets. You can also make presets that push your image towards a certain aesthetic look (ex. maybe you have a retro preset). There are innumerable ways to design your own presets, but I encourage any photographer to make use of them for their supreme utility.
This edit began with my hockey preset, which is designed to increase the images brightness due to the typically poor lighting in rinks, while retaining and increasing detail through increasing clarity and reducing highlights, among other things. It also lowers the temperature of the images, giving them a slightly more blue and "icy" look (Taken with a Nikon Z6 & Nikon 70-200 MM f/2.8 @ 95 MM, 1/2500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1600)
Cropping
Perhaps one of the simplest, yet most effective things you can do to an image is crop it. Cropping and framing go hand in hand, so whether that is zooming in on a subject, straightening the horizon, or something else, cropping is a hugely important tool to give an image the look you want. You can even get creative and intentionally make a shot look unique using the power of cropping.
Without crop (adjustments to lighting, color, and effects included) (this edit also began with a preset!)
With cropping (Taken with a Nikon Z6 & Nikon 200-500 MM f/5.6 @ 500 MM, 1/1000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1000)
Masking
Masking allows you to selectively apply edits to specific regions of an image. The typical way of doing this is brushing over the region you want to edit, but Lightroom (and many other editing softwares) has a range of tools to help you select specific regions of an image, from selecting the sky to selecting certain people. Nowadays, the implementation of AI features can help you to make very specific masks pretty easily in a number of editing softwares.
without masking (adjustments to contrast, highlights, and vignette included)
with masking (this picture featured 6 different masks! that is still a record for me. In fact, the vast majority of edits were made in masks) (Taken with a nikon z6 & nikon 50MM f/1.8 @ 50 MM, 10 sec, f/1.8, ISO 640)
Conclusion
While I could keep going on with more niche settings, the adjustments that we have discussed here will certainly cover your bases on almost any image you take—they have for me. In the next post, we will finally wrap up this series by bringing all of these post processing techniques together!
