This post is to show the difference between an edited and unedited (or straight out of the camera) wedding picture. I want to post this for a couple of reasons. Firstly, sometimes I get asked be a prospective client what I mean when I say that a cd of edited proofs are included with my sessions and weddings. This is meant to be a visual example of what ‘edited’ means. You don’t get anything from me that I haven’t looked at and adjusted. Secondly, I find it interesting to see the process behind things. I might be picking this up from my lovely wife who thinks that there should be an on demand ‘How It’s Made‘ for anything she encounters. Since I find it interesting, some of you might too.

I grabbed one of my favorite images from Shawn and Kara’s wedding for an example. The before shot is without any editing on my part. I opened the image, resized it, and saved it again.

Before:

After:

The first thing I did was I open the image into Adobe Camera Raw. I warmed up the colours,  increased the overall brightness, recovered a bit of detail in the highlights, deepened the blacks, and adjusted the contrast. Once the image was in Photoshop, I cropped a bit off of the left. This was to balance the composition a bit more. Then I did a bit of selective lightening and darkening in order to further bring visual attention to the main subjects. Finally, I used a curves adjustment layer (highlights, midtones, and shadow adjustment) to give it a bit more pop. After a quick resize and sharpening it was ready to go.

Even though this wasn’t a heavily involved edit, I think it demonstrates the difference that a little bit of work can make to the final photo. Here they are smaller, and next to one another for easier comparison: