Processing (pixs)

I’ve been processing photos all day and I’ve gotten so much done! I had put up black sheets all over my windows in order to have a “darkroom.”  Yep, believe it or not, the best way to edit photos on the puter is to have a dark room.  Brings out the truest colors on your monitor.

I’ve had some inquiries about my photos in regards to editing.  So I thought I’d take a break and give you a little bit of a break down just for fun.  Yes I edit all my photos. It is very rare that I photograph a person who has awesome skin.  But even when I do, I still photoshop process my photo for color correction, sharpening, cropping, and all those other magic things that photoshop can do.  I never hide this from people who hire me. I tell them straight out, “I started out as a retoucher and became a photographer.” 

There are certain photographers that have years of experience and can take a picture of a can of coke and make it look like a work of art SOOC (straight out of the camera, photography lingo ;)).  But even those photographers probably photoshop a little here and there to make it even better. 

Y’all know I’m starting out as a photographer and I don’t know my camera inside out.  I’m far from that, but what I do know is photoshop like the back of my hand.  You should see me work on my laptop.  I know almost every freakin’ shortcut in photoshop and I hardly ever go for my mouse or wacom tablet.  It is definitely my comfort zone!  I use almost every single tool in photoshop. . .except the tragic wand.  I hate that thing!  That’s my crutch when it comes to photography.  Hopefully my photography skills will catch up eventually. 

So here’s a break up of what I do.  I retouch up anybody and everybody I photograph.  Even cute little perfect babies, yep, even them.  Newborns always have little dry skin or baby acne.  Yup. . .even the wee ones need retouching at times.

I’ll use my friend Sil.  Sil has always had acne, so she has some scaring on her face.  This is what her picture looked like SOOC.

The first thing I do is brighten the picture, edit her skin, and remove any fly away hairs she has on her forehead. Do some patching. Remove scars, pimples, bumps, uneven skin tone.  I dont like to remove too much of the bags under the eyes.  I use to all the time, but now i just lighten it so it’s not too obvious and the persons "look" doesn’t change.  For some reason, some people’s facial expression changes a bunch when u remove the darkness under the eyes.  Whenever I “airbrush” someone, I make sure that anything else that’s not their skin stays sharp.  I don’t like softening and giving it that angelic-like a dream look.  Yes I know how to do it, but it’s not my style. 

 

Then I work on the eyes and darken certain areas to bring out facial features.   Eyes are very important to me. I always try to shoot from a position where I can get really good catchlights in the eyes.  That’s my favorite. 😉

Then I take one last step of sharpening the eyes even more so they have an extra pop.  Not too much for them to look freaky, just enough.

 

Here’s a closer look, the change isn’t that big, but it does make a difference.

Last but not least, I do my black and white conversion.  Because as you all know, I’m a black and white kind of girl. 😉

So that’s it.  That’s what I do. Depending on what or who I’m editing it can take me anywhere from 10-45 minutes.  Yep, it’s bad I know.  I think it’s because I’ve never really done it for money so I take my time.  That’ll have to change really soon if I get this business started.  I have to remember, time is money!

You know, I still remember the day I realized I wanted to study photography.  I was bored as heck at home and wanted to edit a photo and try out this action I bought online so I made my sister change and put on some make up. It was July 2006 and she was cranky since the weather had been so hot in Texas.  But because of the shot I took that day and the processing I did that night, this whole new world opened up for me.  The best way to get better at pictures is learn you camera.  Your little tiny digital point and shoot. . .learn what every button is for.  Take out that manual it came with and just read the couple of pages that contains the info of what each button stands for.  it is worth it.

Here’s the famous before and after picture that made me realize I wanted to be a photographter.  i took this with my canon s50, a little point and shoot that i still use to this day. 🙂