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Editing Critique Part 3

So we're in the middle of our you know, it image editing critique, and we're doing showing the before we're showing the after, and we're talking about what could have been done to improve things. So here is the before, and here is the after. I mean, I like warming up a little bit, but truthfully, I felt like the before was ah was a nice, solid photo, and you didn't even need to do as much as you did. To be honest, I'm not sure you needed to increase your exposure that much. You feel like you're losing a little bit of detail? No, it blew it out a little bit about a little bit, and you didn't need it. I mean, you did a good job with the original capture. And again, sometimes you know, us going back and forth like this, you can see what was done. And you could see that the final is like a major adjustment major address mayor ago. But you just have to be careful with that, because when you're kind of down the rabbit hole of editing and you're reading and editing and editing, then you look ...

at this and you're like, OK, that looks really great. But you look back and you look at the beginning and you're like, Whoa, I sort of strayed kind of a field. This isn't bad. This is fine. But it veered off from this in a direction that it didn't need to take. Yeah, and I don't even mind the vignette. I just think that the subjects were over, lightened a little bit and you lost in detail before after, and I am certain that these were in the right order because I jacked Well, I gotta tell you, I really don't like this. No, I think that, you know, in the first place, you shot the image from a bad angle, which made it kind of tough to really do anything particularly great with it and then the missing after again. I don't know if this is like you're going for a certain look, but it's it's not a look that I would want to present. I mean, you you're blowing out just the world here. I mean, that's why I had to actually go and look. Is this the before? Is this after? Because I find it very hard to believe that you would start with exposure. It's really inaccurate exposure, exposing for the highlight. That's crazy down. I mean, it's just it's several stops overexposed before after. First of all, I'd like to note the person holding the light. Did you cut their hand off after this? It is a bare bulb flash pointing directly at the subjects with no light modification whatsoever straight into their faces. And it's actually not really doing anything right like it. Even if you look at this image where the flash was supposed to fire. I mean, I'm guessing it did a little light in their eyes, but it didn't really help the image much. No thanks. And then here's the after and now they're e got a couple of things to say. I mean, the first thing I would say is, um, I guess I couldn't say Michelle, because Michelle's image I hope that doesn't upset her, but the watermarks on it. So it's yours you tried to say on watermarked images, but I would rather include it with water market and not included or not. So, Michelle, I would say, like if you're trying to use Flash to overwhelm the background and darken it down and kind of bring the sky down. You're gonna need a lot more flash power than one speed. Let is gonna provide you. That's the first thing you're going to the beauty dish. You're gonna want to set up some B one. Yeah, the pro photo, Be one something that's bigger. Because if you're gonna overwhelm the son, you need real power and one speed line. If you've ever seen Joe McNally tried over, let's try to overwhelm son in the desert. It's like 500 speed life. Yeah, but a row, exactly a lot of power to overwhelm the sun. The sun is pretty strong. And then the second thing is, if you are going to use a flash and you're just trying if you're thinking well, I just wanted to bring a little bit of light onto their faces. You can do something like that, but I would recommend it a fuse or in this case, because that that one light is just gonna be real harsh. And I don't think that there's there's not usually a good reason to use a lot of talk about the white balance a little bit for here, where he's wearing. This is obviously a black tux. Is it a black? Talks? It's a black tux. Look at that right there. Which is what? That's what people are saying. It's either black or it's gray of charcoal. Now it's blue. It's blue, though. That's a problem. Yeah, um, I think you hold it down too much. Yeah, for sure. All right. Before after. I mean, the blacks hang on a second before after, Okay. Yep. So the blacks, I think, are a little blocked up on the dress here in the background. I know what you're trying to do. Trying to make them stand off the background, but I think that there are better ways of doing that. Like lighting them a little bit from the beginning, I think the blacks or two blocked up. I think the shadows are a little too dark and going from here to here. Improvement. The retouching in the eyes is a little bit much for me. Wait here. Look at the woman on the left. Look at her eyes. They're and then their Yeah, it's just making her look a little, little devilish. Yeah, Not in a good way. Like think, think demon like before. After it. Yeah. If you want this to look like this, shoot it like this, right? Like, don't get the crop later. And also, are you delivering it to your client? Cropped like that? You know what I mean? Like, this is a standard aspect ratio crop. That's kind of not a square, but kind of a square that might be a four by five. I'm not sure, but their faces are so retouched you can literally see a halo of glow around their faces, especially in her face. Don't don't do that. If you can't do it without making it obvious than just don't do it right before after before after. Mm, I think you overexposed it a little bit. It looks like they used the alien skin. Maybe it looks like they used exposure to I don't mind the left light source situation, either, but I would have brought down the exposure because I think once her veil gets that bright, it's the only thing I can look at. And that's a bad thing. Truth Before after that's glean it's green. My mom, Let's listen. You've got a lot of Green Castle going on here. But now it's green and yellow. Yeah, I would have tried to fix the green before I did much else before. After again. What's the point of the crop from here to there? Right? Like it's so insignificant, right? I'm not sure what the crop does really Well, doesn't do much. I mean, she's still dead center, really? Of the image, right, Which makes it kind of static. I mean, if you're going to do this, I would not be doing this huge arc of flash on the ground yet. It's rough, the footprints everywhere. Super distracting. You need a modifier, my friend. Yep. I mean, playing a snoop on it and aiming it right in her face. You know, it would have kept it from spilling onto the ground like that. That's just a agreed the sunburst of flash coming from the side. And I mean, let's think about this for a second. I mean, the whole point of this image is what, like you want to show the cool sky? I'm guessing, right? The son said, Go back there. It's too dark, but it looks like it could be cool. So if you would drag the shuttering and shot her waist up and used a light modifier to really focus the lighting on her. Whether it was a grid or snoot or whatever reason shot aimed the light straight at her face on Lee, right? But what's the point of shooting full body here? Really, I guess, unless you're trying to show we're walking through the sand. It's just the over abundance of flash. It's the only thing you look out. Yeah, we talked about this one for a long time. Every day we do before after, Look, I mean, I give you props. That's I can't help. What I can tell, though, is did the sky really look like that? And the images overexposed. They Yeah, there's another layer where they brought it down, or is that a totally fake sky? But if I can't tell, well done. That's right. Like I don't know what you did here because this is really masterfully done. It could have been a shi'ar, maybe, judging from the way that the the doctor looks. Yeah, but I get you did a good job. I really, really, really like it. It's cool about it. Took a lot of work, literally. My Onley shooting suggestion would have been to drop your layer closer to the decking, and then they would have gone up into the sky and long respected. But I wouldn't have lost this. They wouldn't have been bisected by the horizon. Just would have been a little bit more dramatic, especially because the sky seems to be the element that you're most interested in. If you had laid down on the dock, you would have probably had just them in the sky. It would have been right before after, you know, I mean, the part of the issue is with the lighting. The lighting on her face is really rough. The lighting on the the far side of her body is really rough. There's a lot of shadow going on, and the black and white treatment it's It's nice, but it doesn't help the It helps the color balance issues, but not the lighting like it makes it look a little cartoony, To be honest, a little bit, there's something about this that has a quality that looks graphic art more than it looks like an image, right? Like a photograph, right? We talked about this one for a long time. It straight to remember before after. I mean, look, I hate the after because I feel like you're just blowing out detail for no reason. And I don't I don't understand the photo. I don't either. I mean, I can't see either of their faces, but I don't I can't get an expression, you know, sometimes you can catch the curving. There's like an expression, right? I don't even see that. Yeah. I mean, it's hard to critique when I don't, and there's no way to say it without sounding rude. I feel like it's missed the mark so far. I'm not sure what the Mark Waas in the first place and going from there to there. Just a Ned it like that. A vintage sort of flat Matt at it doesn't make the image something that it wasn't to begin with agreed before. After there is no way that it looked like the hat on the wedding day. If this is your editing style, right, like, it needed to be consistent through the whole wedding, but it just doesn't look, Look, you're I knows when you're lying. You know, your I tell when something is impossible and this just isn't possible. I think that you could bring back some of the sky and help, But you just midway running there and they're you gotta turn that down because then it was still gonna look really impressive to most people, but it's not gonna look so fake. Yeah, When I look at this as a non photographer, I would say, Whoa, what did you do to that? What filter did you put on that? And someone should never say that about what you're doing before after. It's nice, the good. This is a good like C p. A split tone that works. It looks good. It looks warm. It's us before, after this is nice, we saw really well done. I like it. It looks the crop is different on the after, but only slightly, but only slightly. You didn't really need to crop it, but the processing is excellent. It is. And the stone looks really bright and sharp and the clarity is great. I think this is, but it's not too much. It's it's the whole thing is very yeah, and the girls are cool because you've got them and then create a nice texture in the back. I really like the city to before after that's well done. That's fine. Yeah, Before, after and now green, blue, green and a little too much. It's gone a little too harsh into the black parts. I agree, but mostly it's the green. It is the grain before after. Well, too dark, way too dark. You need to bring that back up you before after the ring and the stones are still a little blown. Yeah, Um, it's been a person of color choice. Yeah. I don't just like it just like another. Just work on the hot spots in the ring a little bit before I don't, um let's talk about the before, Okay, Before we even look at that at the after the lighting doesn't work, it's not. And I hate to say that there's no other word, but the lighting is really bad. The lighting is amateur, and this isn't to hurt your feelings. It's to say that this needs to be improved. You've got to use additional light source if you're going to shoot an image like this like this, because this this is no different than what a friend could do with a camera or what I could do with my IPhone and you're getting paid at right and going from this to this. I'm not the bride and groom of the bride, and that is the groom, because we've seen them before. In other pictures. They've been Photoshopped back into this and they're not standing next to each other, which is a dead giveaway, that something's wrong. Yeah, the bride's kind of just in the front, and the groom is kind of. In fact, it looks like maybe you shot the bridal party but forgot to do bridal party with bride and groom in it and then added them. But you've tried to equalize the shadows on people's faces, so it's not as noticeable that the light is rough and you tried to warm everything up, and it just doesn't. The light on the bride doesn't even match the situation that you're in. No, it almost looks like a far off. Yeah, I mean, at least the groom is kind of hidden, so it's a little less obvious. But when with her being in the front like that, that's really I mean, I hate is it's kind of a photo shop. Fail and listen. I know that leaks happen to me. Before I shot a bridal party, I shot the groomsmen. I shot the bridesmaid. I went to shoot the whole thing together. I'd lost half of the bridal party. I couldn't get them back. One of the guys went to the bar. I never got that full picture together. I had to send off the image and have it composited. But I didn't do it myself, right? I couldn't do it myself. And this person couldn't do it themselves either. So if you're in a situation like this, where you have to put somebody in or take somebody out Did you have the money? Send it out to somebody if you have to do it. Yeah, pay the money to somebody who really specializes in this kind of work. Yes, and I don't. So no, I don't either before or after. To me, this is just another case of too much. Yeah, it didn't. You get a nice photo. It had good light on her. I would have knocked her exposure down Just a touch throughout my shadows a little bit and been good to go. But when you add the contrast it makes it even more apparent that her face is blown out and it doesn't do anything, adding, the contrast just sort of sinks her cheeks in because it makes the highlights. Or it makes the shadow side of her face right. Like look under her cheekbone Right now. It looks like she's like, got weird rouge under there, right? Just be careful. Let you were. You were doing good with the original. You didn't have to do so much work on exactly before. After this is good. Looks good. Maybe a little heavy handed on the vignette. Let it. But it kind of looks like a senior portrait or something that might be like her main one. And she's super cute. Like, If that were my kid, I would like that picture agreed before after screen. It's green. It will from kind of just cold. But now it's just green, and I think green is the biggest sin you can commit green and yellow. Yep, green is first, then red, then yellow because, like, these are the things that people look at, and it really stands out to them. But the clients are going to know the clients are gonna come back and be like my picture looks green. They're gonna be like, this doesn't look very good before After I would like to see you get closer on the ring. But this'll isn't editing, but this is actually they did a really good job. You see the flat this? I don't have a pointer. This right here where the light caught it in a weird way, did a good job of fixing that. I'm not gonna critique this picture. And the reason why I'm not gonna critique this picture is because what you've done here is illegal and they killed dangerous, right? It seems like every day I hear about a photographer who got her our clients who got hurt, or someone who got hurt shooting on railroad tracks. Stop shooting on Robert. So what you've done here is you put your clients in great danger before after. I mean, I like what you just not the same thing, drama, but it's not the same picture. Well, no. Hold on. No, it's not. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Dropped it. No, it's not. His right leg is front. His left leg is from your right. It's not the same picture. It's the same scenario, but it's not the same picture. I mean, what you would have done, ideally here would have been originally you would have exposed have the sky be much darker. So you didn't blow up the sky. You're clearly going for a silhouette with the clients, and you have the exposure difference between your subject to your background. To get there. You're just not You're not embracing. You're not there. You needed to bring it down to maybe three stops. Then this guy would have started darkening itself down. And what you've done here by darkening the edges is now it doesn't even look real. The thing is, like, black is black, right? So if you're going to shoot a silhouette, exposed this guy properly. And don't worry about how dark the people get because they're gonna get dark because they're gonna get dark. That's the whole point of Okay, I think that's an improvement. It's pretty good. Yeah, they're a little pink for May. But I think I think you did a good job. What you've done with the background is actually I think coming up that background and maybe maybe warming it up a little is nice. Yeah. Before, after I don't like this, it's just it, Um it's very orange. It's orange and over exposed here. But not only has the exposure been brought down now, something weird is going on with the color on her face. It iss I don't know. It almost looks like soft focus, right? Or like anti clarity like the clarity has been removed from them. Yeah, it's just I can't tell what you've done and not in a good way. And I don't mean this to be offensive, but you I mean, you blew the image here. That's it's cool. It happens. But in trying to bring it back, it's gone a little too far. This I mean, I'm sorry, but this almost looks like seventies brandy glass type of situation because of like there's like a soft focus of yeah is just not appealing. I think you could have done a lot better on the editing on this. Yeah, before after, um I don't care for the super high con look. Yeah, where you describe the super high contrast Super white. Super black flowers are very like saturated. Um, I just wouldn't have done this. I'm guessing you're going for a vintage look because you've got them sitting with the vintage car on the sign, So I kind of understand why you did this, but to me, if you're going to do this, you might as well have just gone for a nice black and white or gone soft because you've gone vintage. But now his suit is completely black. Yeah. I mean, there's no definition whatsoever in the sleeve and the jacket on that side, and it's also like the backgrounds. Then there's an additional blur going on, and it's just it didn't need it right before after again. When you crop like this, Is this the crop you're delivering to your clients? I just I don't deliver. I don't deliver anything other than a I remember anything. I have been a standard aspect ratio, but what I was gonna say, and I'm sorry if this is harsh, but I don't deliver pictures of the back of people's heads unless it's like, literally a picture of the bride's hair or veil or back of her dress that she wants. I just don't know what story is being told here, and I can't get mom's expression. I know it's Mom, but I don't have any idea. She could be laughing. She could be furious. She could be crying. It's just I'm just not sure what what's going on before I You know, my husband and I talk every single time and we talk about it, too. When we go out to shoot, we talk about making pictures right. Like those making a picture is the one or two image that you shoot through the year. That is like the best of the best that you've done. And then sometimes, you know, you look at a picture and you're like, That's not a picture because the focus is Mr the moment isn't there or I mean, this just isn't This isn't a usable, say verbal photograph. It's out of focus, its motion blurred. It's there's just not any there there. And then you tried to save it and make it artistic, which, which kind of took it in the in the opposite direction. It made it even mawr, not there. To me, this is a toss. Yeah, I get what you were going for, but if you were trying to do something and it didn't work. Don't try to save it. Just scrap it and try harder Next time you're making a mistake doesn't make you a bad photographer. Yeah, but don't perpetuate the mistake by trying to fix it and then messing with it and trying to make it past the like whips. Moving on before after. The problem isn't so much the edit, which is doing a good job of bringing everything back. The problem is the angle of view in the original photograph. Yeah. You know, you either need to get high up enough where their heads are across the water, or you need to get down where their heads are across the sky. Because now you have horizon going through face. Yep, before after, just try to get it That way in camera processing is fine. Processing is fine, but you know, it's not girl who's so adorable done with that great hair. Yeah, she's adorable. Yes, sir. Before I can possibly do just that. Just wondering about how close you can get to a bride and groom during the ceremony, like in there. Maybe that was her choice. Teoh. Sure, but honestly, and I'm not trying to hurt the feelings of the maker. I would never have composed an image like this. If this was a close as I could have gotten and I couldn't get this, I would have shot something like where they're down here. And then there's tree coming up over here, right? Like it's not about getting better than about trying to salvage a good crop out of a pork before after you're losing like the before. More I like before. Better. And you have to remember like we talked about before. If you're taking an image and you're cropping so much out of it that this is all that's left, think of what you've done to the file, right? Good luck, right? Anything larger than and this is charming and that's red. I think the original. You were better. I'd start over with this. Yeah, and I wouldn't crop it, because if you're going for this industrial, look, just go for broke up the studio and the capture is cute. They're cute. The clients look adorable, but then it just it's too much. It doesn't need this much. But before, on the left and after on the right, a little too yellow before. After it's too much, guys. It's too much. It's when you're after bears No resemblance to your before. If you want a picture that looks like this, compose it and shoot it like this, you know, it's it's I would actually like to see this better just with the crop or with the tilt fixed a little bit with the actual sense of context versus the context would have been really interesting. I actually like the color on the photo, interesting things going on. I mean, you have to do here really was. Raise your exposure and then take another look at it. And then, you know, maybe you darken down the bottom left corner a little bit, but yeah, I mean, the photo didn't need all that. It didn't need this, you know, before after, Fine. I'm gonna warm this attach, and it's a little high contrast, but that's just for my liking. But it's very well handled before E don't like blowing out highlights intentionally. It's just not something that I like to dio. I mean, it looks like the picture was shot in. The photographer was like, Oh, it's kind of dark. Um, I guess I'm gonna make it vintage, but it doesn't. It's not helping before. After guys, I The after is a disaster. The after is a pile of noise. It is literally all noise because the before is under exposed by about five stops. Just throw this away, just toss it. I mean, the thing about the ring shot is I'm a lot more forgiving about the mistakes that everybody makes while things were happening. Ceremony you. Can you roll the ceremony? I mean, they come to give the mom the rose. It's dark. We got in the wrong spot. I can't use a flash. We're We're all kind of equally kind of screwed. And that situation, But something like this is the ring. You've got control over it. Use your LCD. Be like, Oh, this is way under exposed. Let me take another one by adjusting my settings, anyone that Syria professionally should be able to in a controlled situation like this, come up with one that's at least exposed within the realm of possibility before, after dark. Too dark. There's not enough of a you know, I say when you expose for the highlights, you dark and down the rest of the image you don't just do a universal dark and down right, like there's not enough light on the rings, so the darkening it down helps. This just made a dark before after yellow, blue, the bank and think. I mean, it went from a color balance. It's kind of wrong to a color balance that's marginally better. But also still kind of, Yeah, this is tough. I think you raise the exposure a little too much. I mean, but again, the client's gonna love it. Sure. Are we being that picky? Yeah, well, that's the point of though. That's the point. Yeah, Before, after I would have I mean, go back. I wouldn't bother to crop this. I wouldn't if you hadn't cropped it already because you didn't even get rid of the face plate of the electrical right. There's no point to crop. And honestly, I would have done the black and white because I know what's happening. You're getting all that bounce from the wood, and then you're getting the light from the outside, and it's just tough, but this is still not right. It's still too yellow, probably because of the would bounce. So if you could make it less yellow. I think you could make it work or if you're correct, Yeah, I feel like I like the light on Mom's face. You kind of got that. So it's just tough on. Daughter looks a little over tanned, which is tough to work with. Over Tanned is a nightmare when it comes to color balancing, because when you get everybody else right, that the over tanned person looks even worse, they look nuclear. Before, after you aired a little too far toward the pink, when you took out the yellow on this, yeah, but you were going in the right direction. You just didn't need to go a Sfar, and it's also it's maybe a little over. It's a little over half a stop before, after I saved it, I actually think this was well done. I like it. The blacks were a little harsh, and we look at mom's face when you go from sort of a softer image. You got to be careful when you go with a harsh black and white like that. It contend to age people, But I like the drama far enough away. I think you could get away with it. Yeah, I do like the drama of it. It's very well handled before after I think I feel like this is an improvement. But this is a situation where I would have used the local adjustment brush to just brush down this lower right, right, because I'm not really looking at them enough. I really look at the background of this image with the people of that emit. Exactly. Yeah, I would have liked to have seen a little bit more darkening, carefully done, kind of around the edges. So fix the exposure. What I do. And I would never brush exposure onto the people. I would fix the exposure on the people and then darken down everything else.