How Much Do You Edit Your Photos?

90% of my edits consist of tone and color correction.

The question about post-processing is an important one. The short answer is, “minimally”. The long answer is this: I shoot RAW, which means my camera creates a file similar to that of a negative in film terms. It’s a file format that holds tons of information that most computers and/or devices require special software to read. The alternative to RAW is jpeg. Many photographers will shoot jpeg because; 1. It’s easier, 2. the files are smaller, 3. they don’t require editing. I will shoot jpeg occasionally for my own stuff that I know I don’t want to edit. As a professional being hired for a service, however, I find this unacceptable. The benefits of shooting RAW are; 1. Larger files means more data means higher quality, 2. More power to edit the image in terms of tonal range, color correction, and sharpness, 3. It gives me a ton of flexibility to process the images any way I want for stylistic or artistic purposes. All my images require re-touching to some extent. My goals in editing are almost aways to faithfully color correct and adjust tones that are true to life.

Lina getting ready at Wine and Roses, in Lodi, CA.

Do you like Black and white? I do too and some images benefit enormously from a quick black and white conversion. You can request black and white copies to all or some of your images. Typically when I convert an image to #monochrome I will create a copy so you can keep the color version too.