One of the most common phrases heard from parents to me is …’could you just photoshop my…..’ (grey hair, arms a bit thinner, boobs a bit higher), and they chuckle away, no doubt secretly hoping that I will turn them from mummy to supermodel in the touch of one button.
Photoshop is a staple for most photographers, and every single image that a customer sees would have been tweaked or edited through it before they are ready to show.
It’s a magic tool, that can take years to master, and can turn a SOOC (straight out of camera) image from good to great! (And also costs a fortune too).
A typical photo session can take anywhere between 2 and 5 hours to edit, depending on the type of shoot it was. Each newborn has any flaky skin and redness removed, and their skin tone softened, and babies can often have milk spots, scratches, jaundice that all need a little bit of helping hand.
Outdoor sessions are slightly different, these will be edited to enhance the colour and depth of the background, whilst making sure my subject stays the focal point of the picture.
Of course, the main aim is to get my image as close to perfect in camera as I can, so I can keep my edits to a minimum.
Take a look below at some of my recent images, from the shot that I took to the finished edited image ready to present.
Of course, the other reason for editing newborns is to make sure you are posing them safely. This image shows how the final shot was captured, then edited to look like one shot.
This little one was pretty perfect anyway, with only a tiny bit of skin softening and lightening up. Then fill in the background.
My outdoor shots take a little more editing. This image for instance, I removed the green cast from his face that is reflecting off of the flowers, then add a little colour punch to the background and soften the distance a little more, whilst adding a little sun glow to his hair.
This all sounds fairly simple, this last image took me about 15 minutes to edit, so a gallery of 30 images can take quite a while, but it’s all worth it when I see them on people’s walls!