When new photographers ask for advice on their images (don’t worry…it doesn’t happen that often) I tend to say the same things. So I decided to just write a quick blog on those specific areas. Now this is brief and may be elementary for some, but if you want to go more in depth or have some questions just shoot me a message on my contact page!
White Balance
(This is assuming you are shooting in RAW) Whites are supposed to be white! If your client’s white shirt has a hint of yellow, blue, green, or any other color than white, adjust your tones. This will fix your issue of people’s skin tones looking a little off and will help the image look like it suppose to look (this is of course assuming you want people to look as natural as possible…I understand some people may want to get a little artsy).
Exposure
9 times out of 10 I find that a lot of new photographers don’t expose their images enough. Don’t be scared! Bump it up…make the image pop! It will turn your flat image into a great picture…
Shoot Like It’s Film
Sometimes it’s easy to get click-happy or look at an image and say “Oh I’ll just fix it Lightroom”. Now unless you like spending a bazillion hours in PS or LR editing photos, fix the image on the front end. If you have a perfectly exposed, focused, and white balanced image from the camera, you’ll spend no time editing. Act like you can’t fix it later and this is all you got. Believe me…it will help you become a better photographer (oh and please please please shoot in manual…it might be tough at first but it’s worth it).
Photoshop Actions
Don’t do it. No really. You don’t learn anything by clicking a “play” button. Believe it or not, everything that action does that you just paid for, you can do yourself. If you want to spend time in Photoshop, learn what it can do and do it yourself. Then every image will be unique to you and it will be just the way you want it. But really…don’t.
Timeless Images
People want their images to look good ten years from now. It’s what they are going to have their whole life! So even though certain hues and tones may be “in” right now…it might not be “in” a few years down the road…just something to think about.
So that’s about it! Now this is, of course, my own opinion and others may disagree totally. But if you just want to some good, clean images, take this advice for what it’s worth and keep shooting!
