IN FAVOUR OF EDITING?

[melevo]

I know this subject has been covered a few times before, but i would like to add that im in favour of editing.I have just read a thread that most people only normally take a few mins to alter their pictures. but what happens if youve got a image that you really want to save or have spent time and effort going to a shoot and a few of your images turned out not as expected.

Images show have taken me a few days to alter, so the question is, have i wasted my time or have the results been worth it?

OR should have I just altered the curves a little, and sharpened?

please take into consideration im no expert at editing

 

[Rikki]

Looking good but I wouldnt soften the skin quite as much. If you are working on a seperate layer then when you're done leave it at about 30-50% so you can see some of the natural skin texture underneath. Also did you use the spot healing tool? Its amazing so if you havent yet, give it a go as it saves a lot of time cloning.

 

[melevo]

yes to the clone tool, and a lot of dodgeing and burning. i also added a slight grain to bring back some of the texture

 

[pxl8]

Some good work on the skin but overall the image seems too bright with hot spots on the skin and not much depth to the shadows. Also, best to post images online in sRGB rather than AdobeRGB as here it's making the skin seem a bit cold.

 

[adamjt7]

You dont mind just done a quick edit.Just had a quick 5 mins got rid of the hot spots and darkened the image and used a plugin for the skin...

 

[AliB]

I often spend only a few minutes editing but then I have a library of recorded actions to choose from. Some of them are 17-25 steps and would take forever if I did every single step for every single image. That's where photoshop is such a great tool. I can now look at an image and decide how I want it to look.

I use Bridge so I look at the image there and if I want to use it I open it in ACR, adjust exposure and WB if required. I also crop and straighten at that point. Open in CS3 and run any actions I want. Save either as TIFF or highest JPEG depending on output. Total time about 2-5 mins.

Occasionally there will be one that has a defect of some kind but the image is worth the work. That's when I will take 15-20 mins over it.

 

[melevo]

thats a good edit!!, a big improvement. im convinced my colour calibration is WRONG.