One Photo ~ Three Ways

I am a firm believer that if you are a professional photographer then your photographs should reflect that. So today I wanted to show how I go from a raw image straight out of my camera to my finished product. I can certainly see a differance in these images, but the goal is to still make them look natural not fake.

This image was taken on a ridiculusly hot day, and it was partly cloudy.

This is straight out of the camera, not to bad - maybe a little bright but not blown out.

and this is the same image just edited,

so in photoshop I adjusted my levels (made my blacks blacker & whites whiter)

then took my paintbrush @ 23% opacity & took some of the shine off their faces

took my dodge tool & lightly did their eyes

took my burn tool & burned the edges of the brick to draw the eye into the center

put a softening filter @ 20% then erased eye & mouth areas

& wah-lah the finished product:

For black & white images I desaturate (the image always needs to be tweaked after it is desaturated)

then I go into levels & tweak again

then I tweak in curves (very similar to levels but helps to pop the image a little more)

personally I don't mind my black & white images blown out a little

then I burn the edges a little more to give it more contrast

it looks like this:



If you liked this post  please leave a comment & I will do more like this.

If you have any questions put thoes in a comment as well & I will be sure to respond!

Thanks & have a good Thursday!